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Yes, that is unusually good for something coming out of the news media.
There's a couple of things I'd like to comment on from the article.
| quote: | | Then there were the college girls who reported him to the police for stalking and got him carted off to mental hospital after he sent them shy love messages full of yearning. |
That's probably the most accurate description I've seen regarding the circumstances of Cho's prior mental health "treatment."
There is no doubt that his mental health was less than ideal, but there should be great doubt that the treatment he recieved was of any benefit. Indeed, it's not unreasonable to suspect that it may have even reinforced his feelings of powerlessness and alienation.
There is a profound self-righteousness within the "mental health" industry, but the unpleasant truth is that we're mainly playing with forces we don't understand adequately and certainly can't control. We ought to seriously consider the possibility than in some cases we may be doing more harm than good.
| quote: | Paglia believes the school Cho attended would have been no better equipped to deal with frustrated young males. “There is nothing happening educationally in these boring prisons that are fondly called suburban high schools. They are saturated with a false humanitarianism, which is especially damaging for boys.
“Young men have enormous energy. There was a time when they could run away, hop on a freighter, go to a factory and earn money, do something with their hands. Now there is this snobbery of the upper-middle-class professional. Everyone has to be a lawyer or paper pusher.” |
This is mostly correct, particularly the comment about "false humanitariansim." The problem here is a compound one. First, there is the false idea that if we make enough rules and policies, we can create a "perfect order" where everyone gets along (or at least presents the appearance of getting along...) and no one behaves violently or does anything deemed unacceptable by the powers that be. Second, many of our cultural notions of what is right or proper are in direct conflict with our biological instincts and urges. And lastly, when someone's conditioning fails, and the conflict between our cultural values and biological reality can't be ignored, we falsely call it a dysfunction of the biology (when it is really a dysfunction of culture).
The interaction of these three errors leads to an insidious trap from which there is very little escape for the individual. Even those who are more easily conditioned, and actually believe all the bullshit that we feed our children, are worse for that transformation and, thereby, victims. Case in point:
| quote: | In a twist to the debate on masculinity, some commentators have complained that the terrified Virginia Tech students were no Rambos when it came to defending themselves. John Derbyshire, a right-wing British writer based in America, wondered, “Why didn’t anyone rush the guy? Yes, I know it is easy to say these things, but didn’t the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything?” — a reference to the passengers fighting back in the 9/11 hijacked plane.
The columnist Mark Steyn took up the theme with an essay on the “culture of passivity” that is overtaking America. In his view, students are becoming so infantilised that they have lost their capacity to take responsibility. |
The gripe that these people have is a legitimate one. Not only that, but in our society it takes a degree of courage for them to even publicly voice that opinion. To criticize the victims of such a "tragedy" (forgive me, but I really abhor how that word has been perverted to basically mean "anything we think is really sad") is very much not politically correct, even though that criticism is extremely valid.
My point is that it is not just the men who fail to be conditioned in our "feminised" society who are harmed, but also those who are successfully conditioned. Students reported hearing gunshots and screams in other rooms. They certainly had an opportunity to make a plan to disarm this guy, or to set a trap or ambush. Our killer here is not a trained professional, it's very doubtful that he'd immediately check his blind spot upon entering a room. It's quite possible that he would even panic if presented with some form of opposition and fail to defend himself as effectively as he could have.
The point is, no one even tried. We read about the "fight or flight" instinct, but all I ever seem to hear about when it comes to situations like this is flight. Where are the people who's instinct is to fight? Do they exist? Because apparently they're extremely rare, and I think that's a symptom of how decadent our society has become. I have to believe that it's a consequence of how our society villifies all forms of violence. We even tell our children not to fight back if they're being bullied, but rather to attempt to run away and get help from some authorities.
I have even heard students being referred to as "courageous" for playing dead. What a joke. Congratulations on saving your own ass, but what about the fact that the guy is now moving on to the next classroom to kill lots more people? I fail to see any courage there at all.
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