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DANIEL ORTNER: Isolation can breed violence
by Daniel Ortner
Columnists | 4/24/07
Posted online at 1:02 AM EST on 4/24/07
Even though events such as the violent shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute can seem hopelessly random and tragic, in many ways we can understand them as symptoms of a society that reinforces isolation and promotes violence as an easily accessibly solution. Before we begin to grieve, we must grapple with the true causes of such mayhem and carnage.
As a student at a small liberal arts college, it is hard for me to conceive of the vast size of the Virginia Tech campus. A campus with more than 25,000 students is utterly massive. I can hardly imagine the feelings of anonymity and despair that can come from being just another nameless face in such a large crowd. In a society that fails to embrace random acts of kindness and that even seems to frown upon smiling at strangers, feelings of loneliness can build.
But they are not enough to compel violence alone. Unfortunately, our culture has all of the conditions needed to ferment outbreaks of chaos. The media frenzy surrounding acts of violence serves as a tool to bring such ideas to mind. Violent episodes such as this one and the Columbine High School shootings paint our collective unconscious. They provide ready-made templates with heroes and villains, martyrs and monsters.
Additionally, the focus of the media coverage serves to paint the perpetrators as mythically evil figures beyond human understanding. They are treated as formless and unspeakable. By not allowing their human, and obviously not all negative, emotions to come to light, we help to create a society hinged upon demonization rather then empathy. This is flawed, because the emotions that inspired their hatred are so easily comprehensible and yet we vilify the owners of these feelings to the point where they identity with murderers more easily than with the rest of society. Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter at Virginia Tech, even called the Columbine shooters inspirational leaders.
As we continue to fortify, arm and install additional security in response to such travesties, the likelihood of continued acts of violence increases. The memory of such events not only provides a well-formed template for would-be actors, but also continues to add to the feelings of hostile suspicion in our culture. Outsiders are more often viewed as ticking time bombs rather then individuals needing to be embraced.
As a student at a small liberal arts college, it is hard for me to conceive of the vast size of the Virginia Tech campus. A campus with more than 25,000 students is utterly massive. I can hardly imagine the feelings of anonymity and despair that can come from being just another nameless face in such a large crowd. In a society that fails to embrace random acts of kindness and that even seems to frown upon smiling at strangers, feelings of loneliness can build.
But they are not enough to compel violence alone. Unfortunately, our culture has all of the conditions needed to ferment outbreaks of chaos. The media frenzy surrounding acts of violence serves as a tool to bring such ideas to mind. Violent episodes such as this one and the Columbine High School shootings paint our collective unconscious. They provide ready-made templates with heroes and villains, martyrs and monsters.
Additionally, the focus of the media coverage serves to paint the perpetrators as mythically evil figures beyond human understanding. They are treated as formless and unspeakable. By not allowing their human, and obviously not all negative, emotions to come to light, we help to create a society hinged upon demonization rather then empathy. This is flawed, because the emotions that inspired their hatred are so easily comprehensible and yet we vilify the owners of these feelings to the point where they identity with murderers more easily than with the rest of society. Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter at Virginia Tech, even called the Columbine shooters inspirational leaders.
As we continue to fortify, arm and install additional security in response to such travesties, the likelihood of continued acts of violence increases. The memory of such events not only provides a well-formed template for would-be actors, but also continues to add to the feelings of hostile suspicion in our culture. Outsiders are more often viewed as ticking time bombs rather then individuals needing to be embraced.
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