See this accompanying note from the desk of the editor.

I was inspired to write this article because of what occurred in a discussion section of mine. The reasons behind Cho Seung-Hui's actions at Virginia Tech were clearly beyond the comprehension of my classmates, but not to me. I felt uncomfortable attempting to explain his behavior in class, so instead I have decided to provide the best answer I can in writing. I am doing so because I believe I can provide a better answer than the popular media. They glorify the macabre details and attempt to simplify the situation to ease public alarm.

It is impossible to ever truly understand what goes on in someone else's mind, but for reasons I wish to keep private, I have some insight into his personality. Where most people see an incoherent diatribe, I can follow his train of thought.

Mr. Seung-Hui's actions were an explosion of long-repressed paranoia and rage. What lead to the mass homicide of April 16 had been building for years. There may be a specific starting point, or there may not have been. It is very well possible there may not be a particular individual or incident to blame for the beginning of his descent.

In the very beginning, Mr. Seung-Hui probably experienced a threat to his personal well-being. It could have been something severe, such as a sexual assault, or it could have been something as minor as childhood harassment. Whatever the threat was, he failed to develop an effective coping mechanism and also failed to let go of it. Over time, he began to compile a body of grievances. Real or imagined, severe or minor, in the end, they all become severe and imaginary.

When you are as socially isolated as Mr. Seung-Hui, your mind becomes an echo chamber. You have few social attachments or interests in life, so the few things that do happen resonate and magnify, distorting into major episodes. When an individual is as alienated as he was, obsession is the standard, not the exception.

At the same time Mr. Seung-Hui was compiling his list of grievances, he probably began developing numerous defensive behaviors. These behaviors are of critical significance. Primarily, they serve as a means to protect oneself from other people by creating distance. Hostile or friendly, nobody finds anything to latch onto, so they leave you alone. At the same time, you protect and suffocate yourself. Most human beings are social creatures; they require interaction. Whereas I distanced myself from my peers, I still did let my guard down and interacted with adults. And occasionally, I also formed minor social connections with a small number of my peers. Mr. Seung-Hui appears to have had no one.

What made Mr. Seung-Hui particularly dangerous was that he was extremely successful at his defensive behavior. While he obviously desired social connections, he was not able to accept responsibility for his own behavior. For me, these behaviors were such an essential part of my personality that they became ingrained into my personal identity. The problem is, most people misinterpret paranoid defensive behavior as shyness. They make direct attempts to interact with you. You rebuff people because you do not trust them, and in turn, they reject you because of your anti-social behavior. This rejection is interpreted as an act of hostility. The peers I opened up to were just people who accepted me as I was, not the ones who tried to open me up.

The important thing is that I chose to open up. I doubt anything could have been done to change Mr. Seung-Hui. Psychological treatment would not have helped him because he did not want help. Attempts to get him into treatment and treat him were likely viewed with suspicion and hostility. Sending him to a mental hospital would likely have succeeded in doing nothing more than removing him from society. It is likely that, one way or another, he would have acted out violently at some time — just with less deadly results.

Having provided what background I can, I will attempt to answer the question of why someone would do something like this. When you are extremely paranoid, depressed and introverted, being alive is painful. During certain times in my life, I felt so much stress that I was in constant physical pain. It never struck me as out of the ordinary because the last time my life had been "normal" was during early childhood. I am so used to living in varying states of depression that for a long time I failed to recognize it as depression.

Combine this pain and depression with a massive list of overblown grievances that are constantly obsessed over and years of accumulated paranoia and rage contained under pressure: The results are explosive. Mr. Seung-Hui was a bomb waiting to go off. Nothing could have been done to stop him. The best possible result probably would have been for him to commit suicide after being locked away in a mental institution. If our society were to assume a policy of locking away individuals it found disturbing against their will, how much suffering would it create? But at least the suffering would be out of the public eye and therefore more acceptable.

If our society wishes to prevent further rampage killings, it must realize this is a complicated phenomenon with roots that run deeply through American culture. There are no easy answers and there are no quick solutions. The public does not want to solve this problem and make the necessary changes and sacrifices. It wants the illusion of comfort and security.

Further, I believe that the current media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting is ignorant, reckless and dangerous. By dissecting his life for proof of his monstrosity, the media are further endearing him to those who identify with him. By denying his humanity, he is becoming a twisted martyr figure like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before him. It is the condescending sensationalist attitude of press coverage that is provoking these copycat threats and potentially putting lives at risk.

Make no mistake: Nothing can ever justify what Mr. Seung-Hui did. However, the group of individuals in question is, at best, teetering on the razor's edge of rationality. The public's indignation and denouncements only further aggravate the pain and resentment of a deeply disturbed group of self-victimizing individuals. Lives are being put at risk for the sake of ratings that shock value generates. Please stop.

The author is a University of Wisconsin student and a contributor to The Badger Herald who wrote on the condition of anonymity. Please direct feedback to [email protected].