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come back to a critical point in this chapter: areas that evolved for one function are readily recruited for
others, especially in a promiscuous brain like ours. As long as something makes us feel good, whether it
is winning, eating, social comparison, or harming another, the reward areas of the brain turn on.
Schadenfreude is one of the mind’s ambassadors, enabling us to journey from a state of inferiority
to superiority. It enables “imaginary revenge” in the words of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Like envy, it is highly adaptive, focusing our attention on inequities. Like envy, it is also maladaptive,
rewarding us when the inequity is not only addressed, but results in another’s failure and misery. If failure
is associated with violence, including death, so be it. The brain is poised to inspire our desire to harm or
witness harm in order to feel good.
An appetite for violence
Billions of people, perhaps all humans, have had vivid fantasies about sex, violence, or sexual violence.
Are these fantasies like food fantasies, cravings that need to be satisfied? Or, as some theories would have
it, are sexual and violent fantasies satisfying on their own, playing a cathartic role, releasing energy and
thus, reducing the need to act out?
Seung-Hui Cho was born in South Korea and then moved to the United States with his parents.
During his first three years in college, both students and professors in his literature and theatre courses
described his writings as disturbing and disgusting, and his actions toward other students as ominous and
frightening. One professor noted that his creative pieces “seemed very angry,” while another demanded
that he be removed from the class. A classmate noted that his plays were “really morbid and grotesque...I
remember one of them very well. It was about a son who hated his stepfather. In the play, the boy threw a
chainsaw around and hammers at him. But the play ended with the boy violently suffocating the father
with a Rice Krispy treat.” Cho was advised to seek counseling. He didn’t. No one followed up. A
professor aware of his often inappropriate comments and behavior contacted members of the
administration. No response. Several women alerted the campus police after Cho stalked them. No
disciplinary action was taken despite his repeated offenses. As in the SEC’s tin ear to the alarms
surrounding Madoff’s dubious securities, so too was everyone at Cho’s university deaf to his alarming
behavior in class and out.
During his senior year, Cho wrote an essay describing his anger toward rich kids, the unfairness
of life, and his own misery. He also described a revenge fantasy, packed with images of retaliation
toward those who had what he lacked. He sent his reflections along with excessively violent photographs
and videotapes to the New York headquarters of NBC news. Under a photograph of bullets he provided
the caption “All the [shit] you've given me, right back at you with hollow points."
Hauser Chapter 2. Runaway desire 76
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