RAZD writes:
There's another possibility.
Cho may have been driven over the edge by bullies. If so, they are the evil ones eh?
That is the thought that occurs to me whenever we encounter the Colombine phenomenon.
Yes, we are responsible for our own actions, a principle necessary to a coherent moral universe...but personal responsibility does not eliminate cause and effect. And, yes, the gun culture in the U.S., especially the South, contributed to a laxity in law enforcement that enabled Cho to obtain weapons despite his history.
But as WH Auden wrote in his poem, 'September 1st 1939':
I and the public know,
what every school child learns.
Those to whom evil is done,
do evil in return.
Auden referred to the ruinous conditions imposed upon Germany after WWI. The last two lines are quoted often; the first two, less so. But it is, indeed, in the schoolyard that most of us learn that ugly lesson of complicity.
A society that permits bully-torment of the misfits and outsiders shouldn't be too surprised when an outsider turns.
Real things always push back.-William James
Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!---------------------------------------
™ Version 4.2
