Saturday, April 21, 2007

Thoughts

First, I would like to congratualte us all on over 100 posts!

Second, I have something serious to say about the Virginia Tech shootings, so if you're not in the mood for that yet, go back to KAT's post 100 and listen to more songs!

On the TV News (a.k.a. "Fake" News in my household), they are still discussing ways that we can avoid such atrocities as the Virginia Tech shootings. Egg heads from all disciplines (psychology, sociology, criminology, FBI-ology- what?!) are brought on to various news programs and repeatedly asked to answer that question. So far, everyone agrees. We MUST look for warning signs in other people. For instance, someone who is anti-social, unresponsive, angry all the time, etc. These "experts" usually continue by saying something along the lines of "upon recognizing these signs, we must take action so that we can prevent another horrible massacre from happening."

First, what action should be taken? Admitting Cho to an asylum really accomplished a lot, eh?

Second, I am astonished by the reasoning behind looking for warning signs and seeking help for someone else- "to prevent another massacre." How about to "help another human being" or "to acknowledge that a suffering human being exists." Clearly this boy wanted and needed attention. But what kind of attention was he seeking? Negative attention wasn't working. And it is difficult to give someone positive attention when they are acting in the manner in which Cho is described. I don't have an answer to this. But I do wish our focus of discussion was on THIS and not "how can we superficially prevent this from happening." Because all I have heard people say is "how can I make sure I don't get shot by another raving lunatic." Instead of Me, Me, Me, how about We, We, We.

4 comments:

kat said...

I hear ya. Seems like this could go with our "death to apathy!" theme. Unlike crimes of passion, where people are always saying "he/she wouldn't have done that", everyone was saying "oh yeah, I thought it was Cho right away."

You're right...people should have focused on helping Cho...in a general sense, not just as a prevention scheme. Now we're watching the responsibility be shuffled around...was it the school administration? The police? The asylum? The fellow students? The English professor? Everyone is "reviewing their processes" now. It won't help unless apathy is addressed! EVERYONE is responsible to do their part.

(Oh my - I hope I construct my thoughts better when I'm writing my paper!)

L*I*S*A said...

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a real way to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

sdb said...

I really hate how the media handles these things. Let's ask dumb questions and hound people endlessly...that makes for good tv alright.

I've only heard a few "good" segments on this. One was on NPR this morning, covering the general bad behavior of media people towards the local service industry people who themselves are going through a lot. The media people want to let loose after work and act all "big city" towards the waitstaff, for instance. A different perspective that you don't get on CNN or the networks.

Mike said...

i like how the warning signs used were writing s from a creative writing format.

Had some of my writings been looked at in the same light, i would have been labelled too.

What about some of the most disturbing books i have read. American Pyscho, or Hannibal Lectur books. Their authors seem disturbed.

Truth is 20/20 hindsight, allows us to put together pieces to make sense of a puzzle that makes no sense. It's a Gestalt thing.