[A link to Fleming columns (“HARD Right!“) is on Barely a Blog]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18239509/

“Cho was unusually quiet as a child, relatives said. He did not respond to greetings. He did not want to be hugged. But when Cho fought with his older sister, he would punch her with shocking violence.”

Some classmates at Princeton said they couldn’t remember Sun Kyung Cho, the killer’s sister, ever talking about her family…

I’m not placing the blame on the killer’s family. It was ultimately up to cho to sort out his own demons, and people did attempt to reach out to him. What makes me curious is how his family could have seen such ridiculously out of touch with reality behavior as either normal, or not worthy of much attention.

Your idea on isolationism and fitting in seems to be spot on, as was your recommendation for simple, rote work that would calm his incoherent mind.

I can understand spotting warning signs, and seeing if we can ‘learn’ something from this that could possibly stop this from happening again. What I don’t understand is profilers, psychologists, etc trying to ‘get inside the killers mind’. First they say he is clearly mentally deranged, out of touch with reality, and incoherent. Then they attempt to put reason behind unreasonable behavior? I don’t understand..

The reason why I took issue with Cho’s father is that there doesn’t seem to be any disciplinary measures taken towards him. I understand that his family was under a lot of hardship, and probably was afraid of social services.

But the the tales coming through of Cho’s savage violence towards his sister – who seemed to be so scared about the ordeal that she did not even mention that she had a brother – demanded attention – and not in the loving, ‘lets sit down and talk’ way. [I didn’t know all this; send a link to the story, Alex.] I feel the assumptions I make are correct ones; I don’t understand how destructive a child has to be before the father takes matters into his hands, or at least attemtps to do something serious. The fact that the police were not called, that Cho was apparently not spanked, that his violence and misadjustments was ignored, all seems to point to a lacking father figure. A parent always has (or should) have time to correct something so odd, savage, and brutal in his own family, busy or not.

These are assumptions, and they might be incorrect, but I do know that it’s not much to ask when a father is told that he should do *something* about a brutally misbehaved and dangerous child that has been growing into his brutality right in front of him.

I also know that if I did something like that, my old man would have kicked my ass… and he is a busy man.

I’ll wait for your reply, as usual, Ilana. [You make good points, as usual. Thanks.]

Psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth at a childhood seminar in 1973:

“Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future.”

In other words, all of us are insane (except of course the psychiatrist who is perfectly normal).

[As I said in the column “Evil, Not Ill“: “The Drew Pinskys of the world conjure so-called mental diseases either to control contrarians or to exculpate criminals.” Some superb comments today on BAB; thanks.]

“This is not just a ‘semantic point.’ It is all too true that most Americans are like most people everywhere in all periods of history: They speak without thinking. But unreflective peasants relied on proverbs and clichés that were deeply rooted in historical experience. Our clichés and mental tics are almost always bits of propaganda invented by liberals ignorant of human nature and human history. In our mythology, children are smarter than adults… women stronger and braver than men. We believe that we really do care about people killing each other in Nigeria, even though we do nothing about the murders taking place on the other side of town, and we insist on calling every pointless misfortune a tragedy. We can only talk this way because we have tossed away our moral compasses.”
But how to find it again is quite another question. Robert Reavis

[Brilliant comment. I’m a flaming Fleming fan. Send a link to his comment, please]

Frank