The Voice of the Weakest Link

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

A community is only as strong as its weakest member.

Seung-Hui Cho was our weakest member. He was delusional, psychotic. And like many psychotic young adults, he had been unable to find his voice and assert himself during his childhood. He was scrawny and undeveloped, the runt of the litter.

That does not justify us in deafening our ears when he finally spoke up.

True, according to the New York Times he earlier claimed to have a girl friend in outer space. He said that he grew up with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. These were psychotic delusions. Symptoms of Mental Illness!

But his rant against hedonism, trust funds, and high-class tastes should not be as easily dismissed. Picture a poor, tongue tied immigrant kid whose parents work in sweatshop conditions, a kid who is humiliated in his everyday interactions with spoiled, insensitive suburban counterparts, who is bullied and terrified.

He said, “You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience.”
He said,"you had a billion chances" to avert this tragedy.

Are these expressions of psychotic delusion or simply of human pain?

Why is it that no one has commented on these telling phrases?

Cho nursed his hurts and fears and tried to find an outlet for them in literary art but it all came out crooked. And it frightened everybody away. No one could listen. So he kept most of it to himself and it fermented inside and became toxic and then it exploded.

We can employ moral outrage, call him evil, place him beyond the pale. This is impotent, like locking the stable after the horses have escaped. Moral language can be a useful deterrent. It tells those who are about to step over the edge that there is an edge and that the community guards it, that there are serious consequences in stepping over it. But in this case the line has already been breached. And Cho is dead. There is nothing left to deter.

Putting everything together, it might be useful to consider whether Cho "could have done otherwise," whether the language of morality usefully applies to him? Follow the story of this life as it is now unfolding. Is this not a story of a mass murder just waiting to happen?

Judging Cho frees us from listening to him. If we listen we might hear a human voice through the psychotic delusions. We might learn something about what it feels like to be bottom dog, weakest member, in a world where every choice -- of garment, food or language -- is a costly mark of differentiation, a put down. Stylish clothing, exotic coffees from Africa, cool and knowing 'in-group' lingo. Every behavior wearing a sign saying "forget you, Cho!" A "billion chances" -- probably not much of an exaggeration.

Hey, wait a second, Leonard! Are you excusing mass murder?

Of course not. Excuse also falls within the language of morality. It is too late for that now. It is time for facing up to reality.

What I am saying is "listen up!" Listen to the voice of the weakest link. Cho is gone, but someone else is next in line.