(no subject)
I haven't commented on the Virginia shootings because, really, what do I have to add to the din of coverage? The first thing that really caught my interest was that everyone and his brother keeps calling this thing a tragedy, which of course is technically true, but also makes it easy to believe in some subconscious way that this is something that just happened rather than a specific plan that this Cho guy executed. That's why I prefer the word "atrocity" in cases like this--it emphasizes the intentional force behind the events rather than the events themselves. I'd say that a victim or one of his loved ones should use "tragedy" when talking about his own personal context, because in that context it's an event that happened to him and emphasizing the event as such is probably appropriate, while the rest of us (or anyone speaking in a more general context) should still use "atrocity." In any case, rhetorical distinctions don't often survive common use very well, particularly the subtle ones, so that'll probably remain one of my personal bugaboos. I still think it's relevant, though, because emphasizing that this is something Cho planned and did himself anticipates the scapegoat-artists who're always chomping at the bit to blame video games or rock music or bullies or some such thing (in this case Cho himself anticipated them by suggesting they blame Christianity and rich people; my, how helpful of him).
I trust I don't have to go to great lengths to justify to the people on my friends list the idea that a person typically ought to take ownership of his life, including all of the dumbassery and, in this case, evil. That doesn't mean that nobody's ever influenced by anything--that would be a preposterous thing to say--merely that at the end of the day we decide what we believe and what we do (within obvious lines--nature to be commanded must be obeyed and all that), and recognizing when someone is responsible for his actions is an element of justice that shouldn't be abdicated.
(That was the first thing that caught my interest. The second was the thought that if this had happened last week Don Imus would still have his job. I certainly don't think thinking of that makes me a bad person--I simply don't see the point of adding my voice to the matter just to say that I also think it's a horrible thing for the victims and that Cho was clearly a very disturbed individual. Well, of course, so let's move on.)
Hell, I could phrase my own history through high school in the same way some are phrasing this Cho guy's. I was an depressive often-quiet loner (this last until the last year of high school), with a history of frequent violence in grade school including an incident in which I stabbed a classmate with a pen. In middle school I started a short story about a school shooting, a story that never saw the light of day and the text of which has passed into the ether to the benefit of all mankind, and handed in a short essay on suicide that I eventually had to get my mother to assure the school was a bad joke--honestly, I had to write something about something and suicide was the first thing that popped into my head (man was I stupid back then). The Columbine shootings happened in my sophomore freshman year, and to the horror (horror!) of my peers I dared to make jokes a week later. As an adolescent and teenager I spent countless hours and days playing the dreaded Doom. I made some mock threats in high school, for which I received a lovely meeting with the guidance counselor that fortunately didn't involve my parents, and used to make jokes with classmates about attacking them with my scissors. Even toward the end of high school I had, erm, a bit of a sadistic streak (oh, the horrible things I used to do to lastclearchance) that I eventually got over. Sort of. Ask forgetwhowas.
Now that I think of it, while re-digitizing something from my senior-year time capsule a few days ago I came across a passage that would, in the context of a post-shooting-spree news report, seem like a plain red flag for sadism, sociopathy and insensitivity to violence--a passage in a paper I proceeded to turn in to my creative writing teacher, at that. I don't remember what I was thinking specifically when I wrote it (I do recall the incident that inspired that train of thought, but what possessed me to hand it over to the teacher I don't know), and I don't know what the teacher thought when she read it, but she considered it ultimately benign in the context of everything else she'd read from me. She let me get away with a lot of things in my personal writing that year.
So I understand some of this guy's "influences." That doesn't make him any less responsible for his actions, or any less evil. Obviously.
Speaking of dumbassery, this post caught my eye this evening (or, rather, Scott IMed me the link with the comment "You may be interested in this," and I was):Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.
(Emphasis in original.)
Is this the scapegoat now? Am I going to start shooting up places because I used to be on psychiatric drugs? Or is there just a suspicion that I will? Am I now on the side of the terrorists? Do I hate America for our freedoms?
Also, of course: a federal database of medical prescriptions? Buh whuh huh?
There I go, talking about politics again. That ought to show me. I'm exhausted.
I trust I don't have to go to great lengths to justify to the people on my friends list the idea that a person typically ought to take ownership of his life, including all of the dumbassery and, in this case, evil. That doesn't mean that nobody's ever influenced by anything--that would be a preposterous thing to say--merely that at the end of the day we decide what we believe and what we do (within obvious lines--nature to be commanded must be obeyed and all that), and recognizing when someone is responsible for his actions is an element of justice that shouldn't be abdicated.
(That was the first thing that caught my interest. The second was the thought that if this had happened last week Don Imus would still have his job. I certainly don't think thinking of that makes me a bad person--I simply don't see the point of adding my voice to the matter just to say that I also think it's a horrible thing for the victims and that Cho was clearly a very disturbed individual. Well, of course, so let's move on.)
Hell, I could phrase my own history through high school in the same way some are phrasing this Cho guy's. I was an depressive often-quiet loner (this last until the last year of high school), with a history of frequent violence in grade school including an incident in which I stabbed a classmate with a pen. In middle school I started a short story about a school shooting, a story that never saw the light of day and the text of which has passed into the ether to the benefit of all mankind, and handed in a short essay on suicide that I eventually had to get my mother to assure the school was a bad joke--honestly, I had to write something about something and suicide was the first thing that popped into my head (man was I stupid back then). The Columbine shootings happened in my sophomore freshman year, and to the horror (horror!) of my peers I dared to make jokes a week later. As an adolescent and teenager I spent countless hours and days playing the dreaded Doom. I made some mock threats in high school, for which I received a lovely meeting with the guidance counselor that fortunately didn't involve my parents, and used to make jokes with classmates about attacking them with my scissors. Even toward the end of high school I had, erm, a bit of a sadistic streak (oh, the horrible things I used to do to lastclearchance) that I eventually got over. Sort of. Ask forgetwhowas.
Now that I think of it, while re-digitizing something from my senior-year time capsule a few days ago I came across a passage that would, in the context of a post-shooting-spree news report, seem like a plain red flag for sadism, sociopathy and insensitivity to violence--a passage in a paper I proceeded to turn in to my creative writing teacher, at that. I don't remember what I was thinking specifically when I wrote it (I do recall the incident that inspired that train of thought, but what possessed me to hand it over to the teacher I don't know), and I don't know what the teacher thought when she read it, but she considered it ultimately benign in the context of everything else she'd read from me. She let me get away with a lot of things in my personal writing that year.
So I understand some of this guy's "influences." That doesn't make him any less responsible for his actions, or any less evil. Obviously.
Speaking of dumbassery, this post caught my eye this evening (or, rather, Scott IMed me the link with the comment "You may be interested in this," and I was):Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.
(Emphasis in original.)
Is this the scapegoat now? Am I going to start shooting up places because I used to be on psychiatric drugs? Or is there just a suspicion that I will? Am I now on the side of the terrorists? Do I hate America for our freedoms?
Also, of course: a federal database of medical prescriptions? Buh whuh huh?
There I go, talking about politics again. That ought to show me. I'm exhausted.