"I think that's very important for the viewing audience to understand. This is not him.These videos do not help us understand him. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character," Welner said. "This is precisely why this should not be released. Parents, you should cut the pictures out of the newspaper. Do not let your children see it. Take them out of the room when these videos are shown. Because he's paranoid and his agenda of blaming the rest of the world is unedited."
We understand that this is a distorted view of him. How do you know he was meek? How do you know he was quiet? Were you close to him? It is of the utmost importance that we be able to judge for ourselves how he chose to present himself.
"There's nothing to learn from this except giving it validation. If this rambling showed up in an emergency room, my colleagues and I would listen carefully and, when we reflected that it was delusional, would go see the next patient and start the medication," he said. "This makes it sound like he was tormented. He wasn't."
Um, I think this is exactly how he got to this state. His psychiatrist made a snap judgement, threw some meds at the problem, and...NEXT! I love it when psychiatrists tell people how they don't feel.
"He's a weak link. He needs to create and produce his own picture in order to give himself a sense of power. Nobody saw him that way. He didn't see himself that way and that's why he set this up and he did this to achieve immortality. We have to stop giving him that and we can do it now."
Um, who doesn't need to create and produce their own picture in order to give themselves a sense of power? I have just one word for you, Mr. Welner: MySpace. Identity Production. It's a fact of life. It's not a sign of weakness. The use of guns is a sign of weakness.
I'm not trying to defend the Question Mark Kid. I just want to hear his voice at long last. And this shrink wants to "protect" us from seeing it. Pshaw. I guess I'm in the minority on this.
Now, I was sitting here wondering why Mr. ? took the trouble to export all of his digital manifesto to a DVD and send the bits to NBC via snailmail? If he hadn't done this, just from his perspective, he would have had a clear, unmediated broadcast of his thoughts onto the web, either via YouTube or some other site.
Instead, we are left to the condescending judgement of Mr. Brian Williams of NBC, his boss, Steve Capus, and I suppose the FBI, to wonder about the full extent of Cho's thoughts.
8 comments:
i actually think that if we as a culture are going to continue to examine criminals and terrorists as the "other" we are not going to get anywhere. If we can begin by asking what would have to happen to me to have done that, then maybe we can begin to address the real issues.
We all have a dark side...
oh also the weird thing (kind of unrelated) i was thinking about is how all meida refers to him as Cho Seung-Hui. But he's been living here for over a decade, I'm sure, going by Seung-Hui Cho. It is strange to me that they are doing that, just because he's not a U.S. citizen. just to punch up his otherness.
I actually don't think it was conscious. I don't think there's a way to make "Seung Hui Cho" not sound "other".
But supposedly people were making fun of his accent. I wonder why he decided to become an english major?
Ugh, that ABC guy is awful. Everything he said is so easily refutable, I wonder if he's even trying to give his argument any sort of integrity ...or is outrage enough to convince the Viewers? Damn. Par example, while Cho's PR package is obviously a reflection of conscious image-making, that image certainly offers information about the mind of the image-maker. In the same way that drug companies' press releases are not to be trusted, they do shed anthropological/sociological light on the people that sell us our drugs. Therefore Cho's digital manifesto IS englightening and we should NOT be psych-blocked from it.
"who doesn't need to create and produce their own picture in order to give themselves a sense of power?"
i do not have a myspace page, nor any desire to have one as of now...i do have other online spaces (a blog, flickr etc.) and i am curious, seriously, is that why people create myspace pages, power? power over what? how the world perceives them? like clothing only more detail? :) i could see it as providing clarification, cliff notes for those who are mildly interested. but. isn't there frequently a disconnect between what someone creates in their page and what their life actually looks like? and then where is the power in that, for the person creating the persona and/or the people interested in the persona.
wow. i have trouble being brief.
"isn't there frequently a disconnect between what someone creates in their page and what their life actually looks like? and then where is the power in that, for the person creating the persona and/or the people interested in the persona."
Yes. There is often a disconnect between how someone chooses to show themselves on a myspace/Friendster page and what they look like IRL (In Real Life). Which is EXACTLY the power of such a mode of expression. He hated (I think) the IRL part. And it looks as if he probably didn't have a healthy outlet to see himself in a world or reality which he had control over. (He didn't have a MySpace page I don't think. Not that you know, having a MySpace page would have somehow changed anything -- though it is curious to me how NOT hyper plugged-in he was. I hesitate to equate being wired with mental health. He just wasn't connected to ANYBODY it seems.)
What little (public) record we have of this self-image is sadly shuttered from complete view. The irony is that he sent it to get "published" on NBC. And it ended up getting edited into oblivion.
Imagine what we could learn about his mind (and thus, his motivation) if we could see what was on his computer, in his journals, the desktop image he used, his music, what websites he read, etc. (Sounds like a MySpace page!)
when i questioned what their "life actually looks like", i wasn't specifically talking about appearance (dress, body, skin, decoration etc.) i meant LIFE, and all the complex components of it. can a myspace page really accurately package and present your LIFE? maybe.
but. what goes on in my head and in my life could never be accurately packaged in a pre-packaged myspace page. like cho's manifesto the interested viewer (and i still have trouble believing anyone other than a select few would care about my page) would still question, interpret, assume, project etc.
i'm not sure we ever have power over what others conclude/think of us no matter how we package ourselves.
but. yes i am curious what cho's myspace page would have looked like.
it doesn't surprise me he didn't have one b/c that involves a desire to connect with others as opposed to the manifesto which doesn't involve an exchange. its just info./imagery going out.
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