... to the non-stop coverage of the shootings at Virginia Tech. It's a tragedy, it's terrible, horrific, frightening, saddening... all of those things. And the VA governor (I think it was him) is right that this isn't the time, yet, to talk about gun control or our own political feelings... but one thing I have found so remarkable about all of this coverage, is the way technology has played into it. We can read the shooter's scary plays he wrote for English class, we can read the Instant Messages he sent, we can see the warrant and what police took from his room. Just recently, the breaking news was that he took a break between two rounds of killing people to overnight mail a "manifesto" and 23 quicktime videos of himself to NBC. This all lends an even more bizarre air to a bizarre situation. And makes me wonder whether it isn't also inappropriate to publish and make widely available all of this information? Of course I find it interesting and I'm reading it and following it... but the amount of detail makes it feel voyeuristic and almost like we're following some kind of detective story. A little too much Law and Order and not enough... humanity, I guess.
It's also a stark contrast to the coverage of the Columbine shootings. Almost exactly 8 years ago I was a senior in high school, and an event took place which I think we all thought would define a generation (I almost can't imagine the pre-9/11 mentality... when that defining moment hadn't yet occurred.) There was so much less information right away, I remember it being so much more about fear and loss than what we have now, an information overload and every sordid detail about the killer's life. I think this newer way of dealing with it is much worse, obviously we should be concerned about what caused a young man to kill so many people. But the answers are not in creepy plays and being the strange kid in class, they're in how we as a society treat each other, treat the mentally ill, decide to value people and present viable solutions to peoples' problems. Just as "they hate us for being free" was an absurd and counterproductive explanation for September 11th... the answers to situations like the one in Virginia will not be picking out the kid who is a little "off." They'll be a lot more difficult. They will involve a whole society unlearning violence as the answer to strife, and that takes a lot more work and a lot more introspection.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
and the lack of humanity is again perpetuated -- one of the headlines on cnn.com right now is "Survivor: Killer was weak; not a man."
See the thing is, he was a man. A sick man, but a man. And the fact that people don't see that is part of the problem. It's so easy to position mentally ill or criminal people as the Other, as "not men." To me, that's what part of what perpetuates this culture of violence.
Post a Comment