Quote: (04-10-2014 10:14 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:
Quote: (04-10-2014 04:04 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:
What was once unimaginable, has now become almost routine.
Our senses are by now dulled to the shocking nature of these crimes by minors against minors, and what is says about us, our society, our civilization.
If we could speak the truth, we would see these acts for what they are: proof of complete moral, familial, and disciplainary breakdown. If this country had any shred of dignity or honesty left, it would seek to address the root causes--as opposed to the imaginary causes--of these atrocities. But it will not.
And we all know it.
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QC, in what world is there a "complete moral, familial and disciplinary breakdown"? You can maybe say this about Sierra Leone in '98 or the Congo not long ago, and even then it would be a stretch. To say this about the US today is an absurd exaggeration.
People like to talk about "root causes" of this or that but sometimes the only root cause is an individual human being. I happen to know quite a bit about Columbine, and the story there is that Eric Harris was simply a bad seed. He came from a perfectly normal and decent family but he was drawn to evil and murder from his earliest days; he was a relishing and practiced liar and manipulator of people including adults much older than himself, and his only real interest from a quite young age was causing as much death and destruction as possible. He was, in fact, a parody example of a "sociopath" and although that is a much overused term that is cantingly applied left and right, it does have a meaning and Eric Harris could be its poster child.
It is even possible to speculate that the Columbine shooting may have saved lives in the long term, because if Harris had not been so impatient, he would have certainly gone on to become a serial killer and might well have gotten away with killing a much larger number of people than died in that shooting (few people know, incidentally, that Columbine was really a failed bombing attempt and Harris' hope was to murder hundreds or possibly thousands -- but the bombs failed to go off).
I don't know what this "says about us, our society, our civilization". How about nothing?
_______
L of Oz:
I'm willing to concede that there is a tendency to exaggerate the most horrible news incidents.
But even after making all allowances for literary hyperbole and news media distortion, can we really say that this atrocity, and any other mass school shooting (take your pick) says
nothing about our society?
In what other country do minors have such easy access to such weaponry?
In what other First World country do we see this kind of social violence (outside of war)? Europe? No. Japan? No.
In what other country do we see this kind of violence just shrugged away as normal, much like the number of traffic deaths per year?
There have always been bad kids, bad seeds, bad apples. But this kind of thing never happened in the 1960s or 1970s. Because that was before the Nintendo generation. Before the total degradation of the popular culture here to an endless spectacle of violence, instant gratification, and disrespect for authority.
Because in America, it's all about greed and corporatism. The rich conglomerates are there to make money off us, and the public good be damned. Women have become "emancipated" (i.e., industrialized) to feed the corporate machine here. Women have been conned into accepting feminist bullshit. Children have become a target audience to market shit food, sugar, and crap to, so that they can be fat, obedient, compliant slaves.
And that's what it all comes down to. The social institutions in America have degraded and crumbled. Any possible check on man's base nature has been removed:
1. Religion used to be a tool to teach morality. The churches are no longer respected as institutions needed to pass on an ancient moral code to the younger generation.
2. Schools and teachers can't enforce meaningful discipline any more. Trouble makers in a healthy society would be beaten within an inch of their lives, as they should be.
3. Families have become a joke of single motherhood and wayward fathers.
4. American pop culture is a cesspool for the aggrandizement of white trash and black trash, who become ever more insolent with every passing year. Ignorance and criminality is praised in the music here. Stupidity and insolence are held out to be virtues, and every man imagines himself fit to sit in judgment on the traditions and heritage of the nation that may have taken centuries to build.
And this is why we are seeing a massive rise in government authoritarianism today. It has become necessary. As social institutions crumble, the government is forced to step in and maintain social order by coercion.
People forget that civilization has to be taught. Each generation has a responsibility to teach it to the younger one. It doesn't come naturally to man. Any break in that chain, and barbarism returns.
We are losing our liberties, our freedoms. And we deserve it. It goes back to the old Platonic cycle of democracy degenerating into anarchy, which then brings dictatorship.
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![[Image: columbine-gunmenx.jpg]](http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2009/04/13/columbine-gunmenx.jpg)
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