Killing in the Name of...

I just want to say a few words on the school shooting that happened a few days ago at Virginia Tech. Cho Seung-hui executed 33 students in their dorms and classes, and then killed himself. The reasons for doing it, he wrote, was because he was angry at “rich kids”, "deceitful charlatans", and “debauchery” on campus. But these are common on college campuses. So could there be copy cats? Do other college students feel alienated? Of course. But is it really a case of alienation, or something else?

In my final years of college I studied the psychology of suicide bombers and others who have intention for mass slaughter. They often shared similar experiences such as losing things that were of intense value to them and consequently felt desolation, despair, and anger. But almost everyone in existence experiences great pains and losses and they don’t go on a shooting spree. So what is the difference between those that kill and those that don’t?

Is it mental illness? The media was quick to mention that Cho Seung-hui had a history of mental illness and indeed most killers have it too. Killing innocent lives because you’re having a bad time is certainly not rational. There is plenty of good one could do if they truly felt that they wanted a change. People who kill or tell others to kill randomly simply have a block in their brain saturated with justifications preventing them from rational thought. Why is killing irrational? Because it doesn’t solve ANYTHING.

I think there is more to killing than just because of mental illness, anger, fear, or humiliation. Because one could turn to expressing themselves in art, like Cho first did by writing his two violent plays. There is a big difference between writing, drawing, or creating violence in a non-violent form of medium than actually doing it. No, I think the reason people kill is because of greed. To impose one’s misery on an innocent, to use violence for dramatic purposes, to create dread and suffering among those who contributed in no way to the suffered is a selfish act of grand proportions. Wrong is too weak of a word. These people create atrocities. These people shut off the knowledge that their victims are human beings and lose empathy for them, simultaneously nurturing a perception that they are the harbingers and the martyrs of their cause.

I’m not saying don’t stand for a cause. But if you need to bring others down to the point of death in order to raise yourself higher…you probably need to rethink what the fuck you’re doing.