Making Sense of the Senseless

On one hand, anyone trying to diagnose the psychological mindset Seung-Hui Cho from afar could be accused of being pretentious at best and insensitive at worst. On the other hand, how can you blame someone for trying to understand the aberrant? As much as we are shocked and repulsed, we can't turn away--and I don't think we should even if we could. Western philosophy is based on the "ontological drive," the desire to seek to know that which we don't. It is not a pacifying impulse. It would be a lot easier to accept that there are things which are unknowable, just as it would be easier to suppress the writings and recordings of this individual.

To my admittedly unqualified assessment of the situation, the existence of the "manifesto" is perhaps more important to understanding Cho than anything that he actually says. In reading his background, I was most intrigued by the description of his verbal shortcomings. From Wikipedia:

In middle school and high school, Cho was teased and picked on for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. In English class at Westfield High School, he looked down and refused to speak when called upon, said Chris Davids, a high school classmate. After one teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for not participating, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said. "The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China.’"

According to Cho's relatives, it wasn't necessarily the difficulty of assimilation that caused him to have trouble. Even as a young boy in Korea, his family feared that he was mute.

There are undoubtedly millions of people with speech impediments and verbal difficulties that don't become killers. Yet there is something chilling about the idea of an intelligent, verbal person unable to communicate with the outside world. One could conjecture that the intelligence and creativity of such an individual would turn inward, and the leap is not great to assume that a dangerous disassociation from reality could result.

One of Cho's professors described meetings with him in which she would ask him a question and he would stare at her silently for uncomfortable periods of time. This is a description from another:

"The kid couldn't speak. I did everything I knew to draw him out. I tried to joke with him. I touched his shoulder while asking him a direct question. I put myself in quiet, one-on-one space with him -- and I still could not get articulate speech out of him.

Yet, in writing he could communicate. You've seen the plays. They're not good writing. But they are at least a form of communication. And in his responses to the other students' plays, he could be quite articulate. If writing is the only way you can communicate with the wider world, then I guess being an English major makes sense."

Could that last sentence be extrapolated even further? If writing (or pre-recorded video) are the only way you can communicate, does it make sense to seek a level of notoriety that would ensure that your communication will be heard?