In the days following the Virginia Tech massacre, as we learned more and more about Cho Seung-Hui's very sick mental state, a lot of people started talking about how how we handle the psychopathic amongst us. Actually, how we don't handle them may be a better way of putting it. On the surface, I agree that we should be a little more willing and able to commit those who are so mentally ill that they are dangers to themselves and others. The topic really makes me cringe, though, because while they are cases out there that are obvious, this is still a very subjective area, the analysis of someone's mental stability. It is something that could easily be abused or handled irresponsibly. Let me give you an experience from my own college experience that may illustrate this. Caution, the story is a little long.
When I was in college, there was a business course that was a requirement for my major. Only one professor taught it the semester that I took it, and he struck fear into his students from the moment his first class started. He was originally from communist Eastern Europe, so he had a solid accent. He acted like he was pissed off every single day, and he was always serious. On the first day of class, he made us read the course syllabus and sign it, saying it was a contract between us and him. He'd teach us the material in the syllabus, and if we did the work, he'd give us a grade in return. He was also an absolute stickler for following directions. One day early in the course, he gave us a quiz. It was impossibly difficult for everyone. At the top of the quiz, the directions said "Sign your name and hand in." We all finished out quizes and turned them in. Next class, he handed them back and we all got zeros...except the guy who would normally have been the class wise ass. He signed his name and handed it in without doing anything else. He got a 100.
He pulled little games like that on us all the damn time, and frankly, it irritated the living hell out of me. Here I am, paying for my own schooling, and this guy is wasting my money by pulling games that are getting me grades from zero to 60 on a 100 point scale. One Friday he gave us two articles to read at the end of class. By this time, I'd figured him out enough to know that he was going to be doing something on these articles first thing Monday morning. Sure enough, there was another quiz. At the top of the quiz, there was a statement that said that we had read the articles and that we were only allowed to continue with the quiz if we had. There were two places for signatures...but no direction to sign it. So I didn't, even though I had read the articles. I took the quiz and handed it in. When I got the quiz back on Wednesday, I got another zero because I had not signed it. There was much discussion between he and the class over this quiz, so he told us that if we felt that we deserved a better grade, write why on the back of the quiz and hand it in.
So I thought I had this guy dead to rights. I had done the work and I had followed the instructions to a T. I wrote that on the back of the quiz, and I also wrote that he was in breach of his own contract with me per the syllabus. I had done the work, and he had given me a zero, an absence of a grade. I also said that if we were unable to rectify the situation, I was going to "go over his head to get my grade." To me, that was a clear statement that I was going to go to a Dean at the business college to address this if he wouldn't. I was terrified for the next class, but I was also anxious to see what was going to happen. I'd played his game, or so I thought.
I got the quiz back again. The grade had not changed, but there was a note on it that said, "See me in my office after class." I really did not like that, but I was also firmly of the position that we were going to hash this out and get it taken care of...and I still thought I had him cornered with his own logic. After class I headed up to his office, and he told me to close the door, which I did. I sat down, and he became quite angry, telling that he did not know my exact mental state, but that he was taking "go over his head" as a physical threat. He told me that he feared starting his car at night because he was afraid that I was going to "drop a ping pong ball filled with gasoline in my engine, causing it to explode." He told me that he was probably going to alert the business school, school security, and the city police of my "threat." I was very alarmed. If a long time professor, and Doctor, of a university makes a claim like that against a 21 year old college student, the college student probably isn't going to get the benefit of the doubt, even though evidence of any threat was non-existant except in this man's mind.
I ended up jousting and dancing with him rhetorically in that conversation well enough that when I left, he no longer was going to take my note to the authorities, but he still did consider it a threat. I don't know if it was life in Eastern Europe that had made him that paranoid and slightly deranged, if he was playing another game with me, or if he was just plain nuts. I do (and did) know this, though. If we were too loose about locking up the crazies in this country, he would have been able to play the system to get my ass locked up, even though I was the sane one in that situation. And that's why I cringe just a little bit whenever the public discourse gets into the subject of committing people. Yes, in cases like Cho, it is painfully obvious and there must be tools for getting those people off the streets. But when nerves and emotions are raw after a tragedy like this, we are always at risk of giving too much power to the government, and that's what I fear right now. I don't like giving government at any level subjective power without having it severely reigned in, even if that means that I'm a little less safe in public. I'd rather take my chances against a lone nut than the full weight of a government using its power irresponsibly. So while I'm sure we will look for ways to prevent the next Virginia Tech, I hope everyone out there is very cautious of what powers over us government may try to take for itself.
Post script
I ended up figuring out my professor well enough that on our end of year group project report for a role play that we had done, he wrote "Your leader (me) did a good job of keeping you out of trouble. He's going to make a fine CEO one day." I also got an A in the class despite the fact that most of my grades were below 60. But I still have a photocopy of what I wrote on that quiz, just in case I ever need to defend myself with it.
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