Friday, April 20, 2007

Columbine and Virginia Tech

In future years, the week from April 16th to 20th will hold some very sad anniversaries - the massacres of Columbine in 1999 and this year's Virginia Tech.

What's particularly disturbing is that IMO we are no closer to really understanding the "whys" that drove Messrs Harris and Kliebold to kill than on the day it happened - and that these kids' parents testimony will be sealed for 20 years (see Columbine questions still unanswered - MSNBC.com.)

In the wake of Seung-Hui Cho's rampage at Virginia Tech, the same questions will be asked: Why did it happen? What can we do to prevent this from happening again? But I don't expect any answers that will really help us know why it happened, because the ones who know killed themselves.

It's predictable: Messrs Harris, Kliebold and Seung-Hui will be vilified in the American media; more stringent security will be set in place; and much talk, but no action, will be made on gun control. And as days turn into months, and then years, no massacre will have happened, and we may think that, somehow, we have solved the problem.

And then it happens again.

And I expect it will happen again, because IMO there is a fundamental malaise in our society, one that fosters alienation. Maybe not an active alienation, in the sense that society has excluded these young people (though there is evidence that Harris/Kleinbold and Seung-Hui were bullied), but rather that they chose to be alienated from other people. Why that was, I have no idea, but I wonder if the answer lies in what was sealed...

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