Defending Your Life II

Crap, that last post I made sure is in poor taste now, given the events at Virginia Tech on 4/16 as conducted by this Cho Seung-Hui guy. He wasn't a grad student, at least. But still.

Did you see the Cho video that came out today? And the manifesto? He made that manifest, oh.

If you're like me, and you're not, you'd have been looking to your friends at the New York Times to clue you in on what's happening with the Cho story. But guess what? No one who reads that site gives a shit. How do I know this? Because one of their most popular features is the "Top 10 emailed stories" link list, which they keep up-to-date constantly, and it's Cho-less.

Here is the most recent list as of right now:

1. No Spitting on the Road to Olympic Glory, Beijing Says
2. Hopes for a Renaissance After Exodus in St. Louis
3. Thomas L. Friedman: Help Wanted
4. Delhi Snacks Move Up From the Street
5. Veal to Love, Without the Guilt
6. The Power of Green
7. Maureen Dowd: Cupid and Cupidity
8. Practical Traveler | Online Fares: If It’s Good, Is It Too Good to Be True?
9. Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter
10. Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold

Wow. This is what NYT readers are emailing? Not a Cho article to be found. I don't know what to make of it. Sure, the story's unavoidable anyway, but usually the "big story" of the day would be up there.

Regardless, people were blaming videogames for this approximately 10 minutes after the story hit CNN on Monday. I would like to blame something else, however: psychiatry.

To follow my line of reasoning, you'll have to do some independent reading, perhaps. I'm not even going to try to track down the links. BUT, I will summarize my thoughts, such as they are, at the moment.

Reportedly, Cho was involuntarily commited to a psych hospital for depression and suicidal ideation, after Virginia Tech officials talked to him about "stalking" 2 female classmates (phone calls, mostly, they say). He was always "different" and "socially awkward" etc., they also say. In the end, his manifesto read as follows (in part):

• Do you know what it feels to be spit on your face and to have trash shoved down your throat? Do you know what it feels like to dig your own grave?
• Do you know what it feels like to have throat slashed from ear to ear? Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive?
• Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled upon on a cross? And left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life.
• Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can just because you can?
• You had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn’t enough. Your vodka and Cognac weren’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.

Now, I read this as somehow relating to a life of horrible feelings of rejection, defeat, weirdness, and humiliations (real AND imagined, I suppose). It all might have culminated in the psychiatric hospitalization... which was brief, of course, but did nothing to prevent this, clearly. One question is, if it did nothing good, did it in fact do HARM?

Well, maybe. Maybe it was a harm of "omission." Maybe it was a harm of "treat 'em and street 'em." Maybe it was lack of empathy on THEIR part. Maybe they felt like their labeling process was accurate and sufficient. Maybe they JUST DIDN'T REALLY CARE. But PROBABLY, they just don't really have great ideas about how to help people recover.

Was there an alternative to that hospitalization? Was Cho even motivated to change? I suppose not. I suppose that ultimately the blame rests with him. It's hard to swallow for the average American, but freedom of choice means that we must protect the rights of the mentally ill, including their right to refuse treatment. And in doing so we will have the rare "loose cannon" -- and every few years this will result in a disaster. I think that, sadly, and with a tear in my eye and a hitch in my throat muscles that hold back the flood of tears for all of the dead human beings in Virginia, I'd rather have a world like this than a world of mental "hygiene" and demonization.