April 19, 2007

Cho Seung Hui: It's The Movies, Stupid

I still haven't had time to really look at this situation, but I have to address this nonsense about his psychiatric history: it's irrelevant.

He didn't do this because he was on Prozac, or he was Bipolar.  Look at it the other way: are we going to say that people with bipolar are more likely to go homicidal?  If so, should we do a Kansas v. Hendricks for bipolars? (in which the Supreme Court said it was ok to lock up pedophiles indefinitely, even in the absence of a crime, since "pedophilia" makes you a priori dangerous.) 

If you want to really understand why he did it that way, you have to find out what article of media he was imitating.  Take the photos, the manifesto, and google it until you find the movie the handguns came from; the book (or comic book) the manifesto came from.  He didn't come up with this stuff on his own, he is imitating something.  For Klebold and Harris it was the Matrix and Doom.  What movie is he imitating?  Find it.

Because it isn't about mental illness, or genetics. It's about identity, it's always about identity, and sometimes the identity you choose doesn't work out that well.  So, emergently, you grab an identity which has appeared to work-- you imitate a movie, a game, a comic.

I'm not saying movies made him do it; I'm saying he was looking for an excuse to do it, and he went through the usual catalog: movies, comics, games. Come hell or high water, he was going to kill someone.  But in terms of prediction, the operative question is, if this guy goes homicidal, how will he do it?  He didn't strap explosives to his chest, not because it wasn't available, but because it didn't match the identity he wanted to have-- that he got from a TV show or movie.

Ismael Ax, handgun to the head, hammer cocked like a bat to the right, knife to the neck-- all those stills from his video clips you see on CNN aren't random, they're a specific imitation of something else.  Find the thing he was imitating, and you have found him.

Because he didn't exist, that's the problem.  He picked an identity, and no one liked it, it backfired- no chicks-- so he moved to plan B: pick an identity that absolves him of the guilt of shooting 30 people. 

Stop looking in the DSM.  Start looking in IMDb.

 







Comments

From all of the recent news... (Below threshold)

April 19, 2007 11:14 AM | Posted by Mark: | Reply

From all of the recent news about this guy, it sounds like he is a narcissist of the type that you have described. This mass murder, the videos, the manifesto, dogmatic comments on society, the revenge-vigilante image, etc.,....once he realized the world didn't really care about him (essentially that the world didn't revolve on him and could continue as normal if he dissapeared without a trace), he had to find a way to make them do so. He found a way to leave a trace.

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You were right...one movie ... (Below threshold)

April 19, 2007 12:40 PM | Posted by Brian: | Reply

You were right...one movie already - http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/19/virginiatech.movie.ap/index.html.

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Here's the movie he was imi... (Below threshold)

April 19, 2007 1:48 PM | Posted by Ras: | Reply

Here's the movie he was imitating:

Oldboy

South Korean revenge action flick. Even has a fighting hammer scene that he imitates in one of the pictures.

Hammer Fight scene

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Hell of a trace. :-[... (Below threshold)

April 19, 2007 11:15 PM | Posted by ck: | Reply

Hell of a trace. :-[

I had some trouble getting the cnn link to work, so if anyone else has the same problem, try this one: http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1119254057

It will redirect.

The problem might have been that I made the mistake of opening MSIE instead of Firefox. But since the Evil Empire's browser is the most used...

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I read your article and the... (Below threshold)

April 22, 2007 7:14 AM | Posted by Abraham Stubenhaus: | Reply

I read your article and the comments, thank you!

My comment?

IT'S INADEQUACY STUPID!
CHO FELT INCONSEQUENTIAL
AND EXTREMELY INSIGNIFICANT AND POWERLESS FAR BEYOND THE NORM.
BY KILLING MANY HE FELT IN CONTROL FOR A FEW BRIEF MOMENTS. HE'S STILL A MEAN, NARCISSISTIC, HISTRIONIC, VIOLENT, MALICIOUS AND EVIL KILLER.My deep love to all those whose lives were taken by the hater. We have now met the inside of the terrorists' mind. I mean all terrorists. Other terrorists use religion as their excuse for being hateful. He used anti-capitalism as his excuse.

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