Cho Seung-Hui: Who Are We?

[Tonight (4.18.07) I amend this post with this preface because I see that a lot of people are seeking, searching, looking. Some of you, like me, may even be groping: How do I make sense of a ruthless massacre like the one that happened at the seemingly peaceful, bucolic Virginia Tech? I have spent much of my time since Monday morning wondering - with much fear - whether it is possible that there is no answer to the question. What if there is no reason at all?

I wonder, though, if we can permit ourselves to accept that the reason might be utterly simple, and singular in scope: Cho Seung-Hui created this all entirely on his own. This tragedy is not God's fault, nor is it the fault of college administrators, overly-cautious psychologists, timid law enforcement officials, or obtuse neighbors. This is something crafted by one person: A man willed something, and it came to pass.

Since I cannot promise any sort of answer here, I can at least direct you toward my own struggles with the problem of evil (see here). Though my struggle is admittedly one fought on Christian terms, I nonetheless believe my struggle can serve as a guide to those who find themselves doing battle in terms that are not one bit religious. My approach is actually more philosophical than theological, though both disciplines, I believe, have more to say about evil than any natural or social science which by definition precludes even the notion of evil.

But whatever you do or wherever you go, I bid you peace, comfort, and solace as you seek to find meaning in a world that shouts meaninglessness at us everyday. My belief is that what the world so often shouts is not at all true.]

You might have come here for comfort, for some understanding or trenchant analysis. I am sorry to disappoint. There is nothing this heart can really give.

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The media, like the rest of us, chafe at the bit of real time. We want answers to simple questions, and we want them right now. We want to know why vision is always 20/20 when viewed in the Slow-motion Afterwards; and we want to know everything. We crave omniscience so we can explain; we crave explanations so we can console ourselves with pithy little phrases, like "isolated incident," "mental illness," "random violence," and "it can't happen to me."

While waiting for hard facts detailing the shootings at Virginia Tech, we are also tempted to ramble on about causes and solutions: We do not know the disease, but perhaps we can all chatter on about prevention. We do not know the problems, but let us posit some answers. This is our wont in the media, and in our consumption of media. And it is all so very entertaining: Let there be no dead air between breathy, vapid sound-bites for fear of losing viewers and listeners.

Of course, the big speculation -- THE BIG PROBLEM -- that filled much of the TV dead air between facts and figures delivered all too-slowly in the Virginia Tech shootings, is that the campus police and administrators are somehow to blame: The school should have been in lock-down immediately. You know what is being said -- we need a terrorist threat-level alarm system every time something bad happens (anywhere). That I have heard nary a word how a lock-down would not have helped is hardly surprising: we need answers, and we need to blame something.

(Think of the preposterousness of it all: VT should have locked down a 2600-acre campus -- over 4 square miles -- wherein 26,000 to 28,0o0 people work, live, study and stroll. Imagine the size of such an enterprise: taking a 2 mile by 2 mile urbanized area and containing it all within a protective blanket. Keene, NH, considered a city by New England standards, has 25,000 residents. Alas, we are hearing commentary suggesting that when Keene has a shooting within its borders, the entire city should be locked down. Instantly.

And then think of a methodical murderer with a plan: He will hide inside a building, wait for lock-down to be announced [he reads it on his own cellphone, perhaps]; he waits a few minutes to ensure that classes are underway and pedestrian flow into the building is low; he chains closed various exits; and then he begins his terror. Such a scenario gives one an immediate sense of how a lock-down actually creates a false sense of security; and how such false security lowers one's suspicions. Besides, the lock-down merely means that the shooter is now locked down with everyone else. He IS a VT student after all, and would be whisked toward protection like any other student.)

But we are all about finding something, ANY thing, to blame. The shooter himself apparently blamed "rich kids" and "debauchery" for his rage (and anyone paying attention to the zeitgeist over the last 30 years knows that rich kids are stereotyped by every sector of American culture). Some will blame video games. Some will blame guns. Others will blame race, or the isolation that too often comes of it.

The fact is that we all might be to blame. I replied to an email last night regarding the VT shootings that Americans -- and westerners in general -- no longer love their neighbors. Alas, we don't even know them. I will not enlarge upon that at this moment, but I will note this: An MSNBC reporter TODAY stood outside the Centreville, VA home of the 23-year-old shooter, and said that the neighborhood was clearly "middle class" (in contrast to a rich kid's neighborhood) and that, though neighbors had seen the shooter's family, none of the neighbors seemed to know a thing about the family (which had been living there for at least a dozen years). In fact, the reporter -- surprised, at least in tone -- shared that none of the neighbors seemed to know any of the others at all. And this in a middle class neighborhood where the very walls of each home were shared one house to the other.

In other words, the VT murderer was raised (mostly) in a tight-knit community of complete strangers.

Sounds like America. Sounds like the world.

There must be a simple explanation.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.