Warning Signs
POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Sunday, April 29, 2007 19:28
VIEWED: 14532
PAGE 4 of 15
I can answer that, and you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
You flat do not understand the pyschology of the people who do this.
Cho had *already* decided to kill himself, that was going to happen, what was different from the largely ignored epidemic of teen suicides is that he chose, quite deliberately and with malice aforethought, to level as much damage as possible against the factors he felt responsible for driving him to that, and he damned well wanted them to know it.
It's an abherrant psychology, that I will give you, but not as uncommon as should be, it's just that most folk who take themselves off the count do so quietly, and nobody beyond their immediate family gives a damn or even notices.
When you crush someone down till there ain't nothin left, it's like compressing gas fumes, most times no, nothing happens, but sometimes... just one spark, and blam.
His primary motives were not what they think you are.
He no longer wanted to live in a world he saw as an endless nightmare.
He wanted retaliation on those he felt made it so.
He wanted them to know how badly he hated them, and why.
These kids, these living time bombs, they can be defused, but the earlier you get to them, the easier that is, and the longer you wait, the harder it is - early intervention is utterly critical, because once the mindset and behavior is calcified, forget it.
Also, part of the problem rests with us - kids see the world the way it *really* is, without all the bullshit rationalisation we cover it up in to make it more palatable when we choke it down, and when they explain it to a counsellor, what do they call it ?
They call it a distorted worldview and often medicate it.
How about instead of trying to force-feed a metric ton of bullshit about our society to a kid and then blaming them when they choke on it, how about changing that society ?
Sarge nails it in an earlier post, Public Schools are a hostile, abusive environment of the worst caliber, and yet in spite of the obvious fucking evidence slamming us in the face, we go into social status-quo denial and blame the kid for seeing it that way.
They hate us because when it comes right down to it, we *ARE* the enemy, constantly mentally, emotionally, and physically battering them down into what WE think they should be, instead of what they believe they should be.
You find me ONE un-abused kid who doesn't have a better moral compass than any adult you know, go on, find me even ONE.
They hate us for a reason, and understanding that hatred of us and our fucked up society is the first step towards admitting they have a point and doing something about it other than blaming them for seeing what we have blinded ourselves to.
Unfortunately, I don't see it happening, it's just too easy to keep lying to ourselves about how good and noble and decent our society is and blaming them for not adjusting.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I was in the ER with our kid once when the EMTs brought in a woman who went under the kitchen sink and drank everything she could find: bleach, drain cleaner, dish soap.... whatever was handy She was in the curtained assesment area next to ours, so although she was only semi-coherent I eventually got the whole story: two small children, an abusive boyfriend. no job, no family nearby. She didn't make it of course. Eventually she slipped into a coma and died. What would drive someone to do that?
Lack of self esteem/self worth. Deep sorrow and feelings of inadequacey. Lonliness and the inability to escape the abusive situation. Now why did she only take her life instead of going on a murderous rampage first?
Posting to stir stuff up.
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Was it death that bothered her...or pain?
I graduated back in the mid 80's we had an unusually high level of suicides then.
The national battle-cry seemed to be "life's a bitch & then you die".
We had suicide councellers, suicide hot lines etc, ad nauseum.
Suicide has always been a part of human existence...now though it would seem that in a world of "I share your pain"...suicides are more inclined to do just that.
"I'm in pain...I want it to end...but I'm taking you with me!"
Doesn't quite seem like we want to share all that much after all, I know I don't.
I'm not being glib here, but think about how much we try to "understand" people like this, think about how whenever something dreadfull happens we want to know "what the motives were".
We blame everything...Guns, Music, TV, Drugs, Sex, you name it. Anything so that an individual isn't responsible for anything. Its "societies fault", his mother didn't breatfeed or whatever some psycologist comes up with.
When 9/11 happened "it was the US's fault", it was "because of Isreal", it was this & it was that.
Well 9/11 happened because terrorism happens & the people of the world have allowed it to flourish, Cho happened because he was evil/nuts (take your pick); the guns didn't do it, the other kids on campus didn't do it, society didn't do it either. (I will allow that sensational media was probably a factor), but the blame/responsibility was his, but we can't have that because he's dead & we need a living scalp on our collective wall!
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Quote:Nope, I was the kid that got picked on. My family moved a lot during my young years, and I never stayed anywhere long enough to learn how to make friends, on top of that I’ve always been a bit of recluse. I often sat by myself reading weird books on science and science fiction, and took long solitary walks were I talked to myself a lot. When we finally did stop moving, it was in Detroit, in a somewhat rough neighborhood. High School was about the most awkward and difficult time of my life.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Wow. You were either a bully or a jock in your youth. It's possible to abhor what Cho did and not defend our whole system of control through fear. So why you INSIST on defending a system that has created a society with the highest child abuse, murder rate, and incarceration rate of the industrialized world? Yep, I can see that it's working for us and we "want" it.
But all that aside, according to you no body that you know of has ever improved by criticism, huh? You don’t get out too much do you? That’s pretty much how the entire professional world works, and it works the same way in a social setting too. Let’s use simple example to get you on the same page: you and some friends are socializing at a party, some guy walks up to you and starts talking about how he wants to have sex with some 8 year old boy in Bangkok. You offer no criticism? You politely and opening accept him for the beautiful inner person that he is?
It’s really not hard to see how social chastisement is a crucial part of society’s method for maintaining its norms or encouraging competition, but that’s not say that it doesn’t go too far especially among those who have not developed a mature set of social norms. A special response to competition: This one should be obvious to you. One possible example is when you and rue and citizen and Frem, etc get together on this board and barrage people you don’t agree with, like Geezer or Hero, with your little ad hominem nicknames and ridiculing comments. Most of which is not intended to further any rational debate, but to silence a voice you don’t want to hear. It reduces a rational debate to direct competition. And many would argue that it helps to improve the arguing skills of the debaters, although in most cases Geezer and Hero are the ones to emerge with the improved skills.
The problem is when it goes it too far and becomes a vehicle to express hatred. But in most cases, the appropriate response to bullies is social chastisement. I’ve seen it work very successfully to put a bully in his place with no violence. It requires someone willing to stand up to the bully though, which can be difficult because the prevailing wisdom is that it is not always successful. Sometimes the hatred can become so invested that the violence becomes the principle source of expression and the bully kills the bullied or visa versa. It has definitely gone too far at that point, and crossed the line to become adherent behavior itself.
But none of this has anything to do with Cho. Because Cho did not do what he did because he got his feelings hurt on the playground, regardless of what Cho tells you. Cho did what he did because he was sick. He did not kill a bully who he felt was threatening his life. He premeditatedly killed random people he did not know and who were of no threat to him. It’s an uncommon event in our society, but it is not unusual. Serial killers and mass murderers exist in all facets of our society. And a scientific examination often reveals differences in brain structure or chemical imbalances that are consistent with severe mental illness and psychotic behavior. Cho did what he did more likely because of who Cho was, not how he was treated. And it seems remarkable to me that so many people believe what Cho tells them. But in the end, it’s just the word of a madman justifying his murdering acts by telling you that ‘they’ deserved it. You can believe that if you want, but you are a long, long way from convincing me to.
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Quote:Quick story: When I was 8 I got a small hunting knife for my birthday, I wanted it 'cause Tarzan had one on TV.
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You flat do not understand the pyschology of the people who do this.
There was a 12 year old bully on my block that regularly picked on all the smaller kids, me included. One day he was targeting me, and it was when I was in posession of my knife- I was showing it to some friends- and he decided to knock me down and take it, only he didn't pull it from my hand in time. I got up and slashed at him, but he was fast enough to avoid my attempt. I then chased him around the block in a rage, fully intending to sink the blade into his back. He lost me going over a chain link fence behind some houses.
Now after this I felt sort of bad (but not THAT bad), thinking that I might have killed him or something...however, he never did bug me again.
Why did it almost come to bloodshed? His dad (talked to by my dad more than once) let him do as he pleased, I guess.
Just a little view into a taste of the psychology behind that kind of rage...and every kid I grew up with had a similar experience from time to time.
No bullys Chrisisall
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Quote:AND he was a f***ing coward. He chose to target who he could get easily, not those (who might have been) directly responsible for his torment.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Cho did what he did because he was sick.
At least his last shot was well-placed.
Harsh Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
When you crush someone down till there ain't nothin left, it's like compressing gas fumes, most times no, nothing happens, but sometimes... just one spark, and blam.
This sums up the point I'm trying to make. I'm just asking, why keep 'compressing' them. Finn's justifications are fairly accurate, I think, as to why we do it. But I still think it's wrong.
Quote:
Also, part of the problem rests with us - kids see the world the way it *really* is, without all the bullshit rationalisation we cover it up in to make it more palatable when we choke it down, and when they explain it to a counsellor, what do they call it ?
This is true to a point, but it's also not. I say that because the picture we paint for kids in school is mostly bullshit. They freak out to the extent that they buy into it. It took me years to understand that the sick, twisted worldview presented by "social chastisement" was bullshit. The real world doesn't work that way. Or, at least when it does, you don't have to play along. The sooner kids understand this, the better chance they have of finding sanity and peace-of-mind.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:Well clearly something is going on beyond the individual because there is a HUGE difference between our society and EVERY other industrialized society in the world. How do you explain that?
We blame everything...Guns, Music, TV, Drugs, Sex, you name it. Anything so that an individual isn't responsible for anything. Its "societies fault", his mother didn't breatfeed or whatever some psycologist comes up with.
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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FINN- Quote:
Fortunately for you it didn' start earlier. So what did you "learn" from that experience? Anything useful?
High School was about the most awkward and difficult time of my life.
Quote:I supervise nine chemists, one technician, and a senior chemist and I fired (yep fired) a poor performer from a government position. I'm also a household employer and I've fired some of those folks too. I also parent a neurologically challenged and defiance-prone teen. And I tell you with all honesty that I have NEVER seen anyone motivated by criticism, not once. You can teach people to fear YOU, you might even get them to avoid a particular behavior but you will certainly not get better performance and greater motivation through fear. You get far better performance from instruction and reward. That is not to say that there shouldn't be consequences. I DO fire people, and I don't believe in enabling bad habits. But once the standards are known and the consequences are clear, and you've gone through a performance improvement plan then it's up to the person to decide what they're going to do.
You don’t get out too much do you? That’s pretty much how the entire professional world works, and it works the same way in a social setting too.
Quote:Hey! I do not! Neither (as I recall) does Frem. Nor do I propose or suggest that personal attacks improve debate. So watch who you're sticking with the criticism, OK?
One possible example is when you and rue and citizen and Frem, etc get together on this board and barrage people you don’t agree with, like Geezer or Hero, with your little ad hominem nicknames and ridiculing comments.
CHRIS- AFA Cho is concerned, it sounds to me like he had some sort of dysfunction early on. The things that keep cropping up are exteme shyness, "a troubled boy uncomfortable with affection", "a grandson who was so shy he didn't even know how to run into my arms to be hugged", strangely remote, "docile and well-behaved. But his mother used to say he does not speak, that he only looked at her but did not reply to her. And that symptom got worse when they went to America. It was his mother's greatest heartburning grief that her son did not talk", the odd boy who never spoke who carried around an instrument that earned him the name "Trombone Boy" (and less flattering names). Something was clearly wrong- something that no amount of "social chastisement" would help. I read his plays and I wonder if perhaps he wasn't molested early on, or born with some form of autism.
Vengeance or the threat of vengeance doesn't prevent people like Cho. It just doesn't.
RE the bully that you bested- just OOC did he stop bullying altogether, or did he just stop bullying YOU?
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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Good stuff Sarge and Frem.
There is a saying that makes a lot of sense to me: "Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger."
I am all for taking full individual responsibility for one's choices and actions, but it is rather simplistic to ignore societal pressures and influences. Recognizing the full spectrum of possible causal factors is not the same thing as "justifying" or excusing the actions.
There is simply no need to humiliate, demonize, or crush the spirit of another human being, whether they turn out to be killers or not. Such psychological oppression (especially the preemptive kind that folks are talking about) cannot prevent anything and are likely to make things worse.
Discipline (structure with limits) and kindness are likely to be much more effective as preventive measures.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky 
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Nullius in verba. (Take nobody's word.)
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