THE DAY after the Virginia Tech shootings, in the face of an age that has made perfect security its reckless quest, when we have shampoo screening at the airport and metal detectors at some high schools, University President John T. Casteen, III declared: "Sealing up this University is an all but inconceivable task." He will not attempt it. He recognizes, as we all should, that it would achieve little and that the cost would be great -- and not only the cost in dollars.
"The freedoms of the community will go on," Casteen declared, addressing students and faculty at a vigil, and in that we should make sure he speaks for all of us. We must not sacrifice, to protect ourselves or the University, the values that make our lives and our institution worth protecting.
But Casteen also urged that we report people who seem irrational and dangerous. That troubles me. Although Virginia law provides some protection -- protection that is now under attack -- people can be confined and forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation and treatment.
"Psyche" means "soul." Psychiatric treatment is an effort, often by chemical means, to alter the mental state of the patient. Sometimes, treatment may be directed only to the mood, but sometimes the beliefs and values of the patient are targeted for change.
Involuntary psychiatric hospitalization means confining a person against his will and attempting by force to alter (if those in charge of him so choose) his character, his beliefs and his values. This is an assault on what makes us human beings. We should not make this lawful horror more routine, hoping thereby to make extraordinary crimes slightly more extraordinary. We should not have to fear that our academic writing will bring it upon us.
I spoke to Casteen after the vigil. He acknowledged the tension between free expression and reporting those who seem irrational and dangerous. The tension, he said, can be "thrown into a kind of law relief" by cases such as that of the Virginia Tech murderer, Seung Hui Cho. Yet legal principles, Casteen said, are not the best way to address such cases.
If people are to be confined it must be done according to law, and the legal principles involved should be clear. But interactions between students and faculty should not be about involuntary hospitalization.
Cho's writing, including a play called "Richard McBeef," which is available on the Internet in what appears to be its entirety, is full of rage.
Rage is often the anger of helplessness. As Cho said in his manifesto, he felt cornered, with nothing to do save explode in violence. One thing that likely contributed to this view of his life was his brief brush with involuntary hospitalization; it is hard to think of a greater sense of helplessness than the one that comes with being confined for the purpose of an assault on one's character.
To respond to rage by threatening hospitalization, or by doing things that seem to threaten hospitalization, is not only unjust, but counterproductive. And once a person has been hospitalized, he is likely to fear that future encounters with psychiatrists and members of similar professions may lead to hospitalization. Moreover, to suggest that a person's thoughts and feelings are diseased is to suggest that they are not to be taken seriously -- not to be met with an exploration of whether they are warranted or an explanation of why they are not. Respond this way to a person who already feels helpless in the face of a hostile world, and it gives him all the more reason to feel that way and to see the world as hostile. That does not justify evil acts, but it may make them seem attractive -- as if the only thing one could accomplish in the world were to avenge oneself upon it, as if the only way one could be taken seriously were to be hated and feared.
A better, though more difficult response, is to encourage people to find value in life. As Casteen, himself an English professor, told me, "Quite often students will display ... pain or grief" in their writing. Casteen recommended that professors talk to such students. I would urge that such conversations be considered, not screening interviews for therapy, but opportunities to discuss ideas. The ideas in question are ideas of a fundamentally important sort: ideas about the kind of world in which we live, and whether it offers us opportunities worth pursuing. The feeling of helplessness is not to be eliminated by therapy, least of all by forcible therapy. It must be countered by the conviction that this is a world where we can achieve things good and worthwhile, a world where we can flourish -- a world we can handle.
Alexander R. Cohen's column usually appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at acohen@cavalierdaily.com.
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