Since the subject of the loner is once again in the news here's another case where the past is considered a bad thing. The loner of the past was a mysterious individual but in a more positive and romantic sense than today, sexy even, in the movies he is the rugged individualist, the drifter through town. But when you get rid of the past you get rid of its poetry, its magic. So while it is important to talk about this national tragedy in terms of failures of security and whatnot let's clear the ground first of all media bias and debris against the past, let's rid ourselves of hostility against whole groups of people who aren't really bothering anyone. What the man lacked who did this terrible thing was a universal and objective moral code to live by which is why people with all types of grievances against society don't commit these acts.
The real issue is Right and Wrong.
Isn't moral relativism at work here Beth? If you really analyze our modern violent world at the root of it all is some deranged individual who, in his eyes, is enforcing a moral code (meting out justice, whatever). This is why laws against murder have to be so ironclad, otherwise any person can come up with what in his eyes are legitimate reasons for people to die. The objective and universal moral code accomplishes all this and more and is the glue holding society together. We entertain notions of relativism at our peril.
ReplyDeleteI dunno on this one, z-man. No one in their right mind could justify killing innocent people who were just sitting in their class. A professor who gave a bad grade, an ex-girlfriend, those are where some sort of justification can be made to get back at them(not that most people in their right minds do such violent act towards someone who they feel hurt them). So basically, it's about people who are NOT in their right minds, and how do we identify the nuts that would potentially harm themselves or others?
ReplyDeleteIt's just that if you take situational ethics to its illogical and absurd conclusion this is the tragic result. OJ felt justified in killing his ex-wife and her lover and so in their own deranged minds they are enforcing their own personal moral codes. My point is that society is far better off with an objective and universal moral code, you wouldn't have this chaos.
ReplyDelete"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. Everyone knows this classic story and this is where actor Robert Duvall got his first role, well he had a little "Twilight Zone" action too, and he played shadowy recluse Boo Radley whom the neighborhood kids were all afraid of. Turns out in the end he saved Atticus Finch's little boy from the knife-wielding town racist. If you made a similar story today Boo Radley would turn out to be the psycho.
ReplyDeleteDid that notorious recluse J.D. Salinger ever go postal? Speaking of disturbing writing with horrible themes of violence where would the literary world be without Edgar Allen Poe or the film world without Alfred Hitchcock? Maybe Cho Seung-Hui was posing as a favorite profiler's target, the psychotic and weird loner, and really worked for Al-qaeda. I myself take everything the government tells us now with a huge grain of salt.
Z-man, in this case, the ONLY one who thinks his actions were justifiable is the crazed gunman himself. Any amount of absolute moral code would not have prevented him from doing what he did. He likens himself to Jesus Christ! This guy is beyond comprehension.
ReplyDeleteWhere the politics in this case come into play are what leads someone to do it, could we have prevented it and all the gun control freaks who are using this as an opportunity to gain credibility (to me it actually shows the need for allowing more to carry guns, not just the crazy ones). On these fronts, there should be an absolute moral code, but stupidity and pride will not allow the two sides to come to any sort of common ground.
"gun control freaks"
ReplyDeleteso how are they freaks exactly? They think all the gun lovers are the true freaks but why not go with gun control advocates instead Beth?
You turning PC on me?
ReplyDeleteIf what you're saying is that the gun control crowd are freaks for exploiting this and other tragedies for their own political agenda I have to disagree. In such a tragic case how could the subject of guns not come up? I can't blame the gun control crowd for taking the ball and running with it. I'm tolerant in this regard because in actuality I hate guns myself, I don't fully agree with gun control advocates but am sympathetic. Using the perjorative "freaks" just closes down debate from the getgo, pro-lifers don't like being called this and worse.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for using the term "freaks", you are right it was unnecessary and unfair.
ReplyDeleteYou're better than that Beth. You don't have to become some right-wing screaming mimi like Michelle Malkin to make your points. You're more chill than her.
ReplyDelete