I think that people know so very little about the mind and the problems that the mind can have, that they oversimplify 'mental illness'. People quickly jump the gun and become worried, drawing black-and-white lines dividing the 'sane' from the 'insane'.
You may have noticed this insecurity within yourself. It comes from uncertainty. We just don't understand the mind well enough.
But precisely because of our uncertainty about the mind and who a person is (what they are capable of etc) is why we feel the urge to order our world even whilst we don't understand it properly.
Notice that not even the so-called experts on the mind (the professionals at the clinic which Cho was sent to by worried teachers at his university)were able to agree on the threat Cho posed to society and to himself. they released him.
People panic when it comes to mass murder. They need to find some explanation for why Cho did what he did.
...How do we understand what an individual is capable of? How can we predict who will lash out like Cho and who will not?
So, people find a more obvious and simple explanation for why he did what he did. ...and whilst it is overly simplistic, it satisfies the human need for security and order. ...Human beings are complicated. The mind is complicated and we know so little -how do we bring a sense of safety and security to this unpredictability.
All prejudice springs from ignorance. Uncertainty underlies all anxieties. Yet it is this inability to tolerate -and perhaps really to know how to live with- uncertainties and unknowns that creates a black-and-white world of the 'sane, normal extroverts' and 'insane, abnormal mass-murdering introverts'. (...in other words, it is this attitude of prejudice towards 'introverted loners' that (sometimes) helps to create 'mass-muerdering introverted loners'.)
...this is true, because even if Cho was bound to lash out regardless, prejudice towards introverts and loners would have played at least some part in his decision to kill people, just as a more inclusive society would not create as many dejected and angry outcasts. (Perhaps America is particularly inclined to create social outcasts. It would appear that this is the case, for example, the percentage of American's with social anxiety is one of the greatest in the world.)
If attitudes in Western countries and especially America should not take some responsibility for the blame of creating angry, violent loners -Asian countries have a lower percentage of social phobia just as introverted children are more accepted- then one could argue that America's gun laws ask for massacres. (Also, why did the mental health authorities release Cho, believing that he was not a threat to others?)
But back to the specific point...
The real point is that human beings are unpredictable. If people want predictability and to minimise mass murder- either get rid of guns, improve mental health treatments, change attitudes towards introversion, or all of these. ...Instead of course, people choose the easier option which is to control their world by creating even more division. It's too hard to change inner attitudes, and therefore all the pressure to adapt is left to the group that is marginalised - and loners get the bad rap. They are told to change, to stop being introverted and quiet and to "Fit in, or else...!"
I think that this is why Jesus emphasised society's outcasts as being more likely to 'enter the Kingdom' than most others. He emphasises this point more than once. He also says a few times (in the Gospel of Thomas) - "Blessed are the solitary and the chosen."
So, according to some people, being quiet and also being a loner can be quite a blessed thing. ...well at least some people are able to see both sides and keep some perspective!! (Jung actually believed that Introverts were superior to extroverts, despite that society judged it vice versa).
You have to also remember that the media is biased. They report what makes the most sensation. For example, I recently read an article about a book on women who were socially isolated and bullied throughout their teens who later went on to become great writers. There are heaps of these stories of 'losers who became winners'. - young men who suffered depression to go on to become aid workers; heroine addicts and prostitutes who went on to become authors or community workers and leaders, etc, etc... Social outcasts who turn into mass murderers makes the headlines much more often than social outcast who turn into humanitarians. And yet, apparently human beings are that complicated that struggle and adversity can make as well as break a person.
...of course, you know this already. But it is good still, isn't it, to be reminded.
