JOHN H. BROWN ON THE VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE, AMOK CHO

Dear John H. Brown,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/newsroom/johnbrown_main
re your piece in TomDispatch
re: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=189301
reminds me that everything is comparable, but not necessarily to enlightening effect. George Bush's paranoia and unloosed aggressiveness,permitted intrapsychically it appears by being of all things "born agin", andCho's hate are an instance of a fruitless comparison. I suspect that even if Cho had lived in a culture that only provided swords asmurder weapons he might have chosen those: unless too afraid, afraid of theviolence that he knew resided in him and which then was unloosed with malice aforethought.I certainly do not have the information to make me guess at the however complicatedset of reasons why Cho decided to kill, first his adviser, then a witness; andthen indiscriminately. However, the filming of himself and making sure that at the veryleast he would be paid attention to, posthumously, points to a very particular kindof narcissitic wound that I suspect may have been administered continously very early on in his childhood.The reasons may lie intra-uterine in is relationship with his mother, they may be genetic why he lacked all ability to empathize with his fellows. The word autism fellin connection with Cho, perhaps he was not only autistically painfully hyper-sensitive butalso autistic in the sense of being unable to empathize. That he was unable to integrate might have made him part of one of the invariable group of outsiders that the in/out syndrome produces. That does not appear to have been the case either.Appreciatively yours,