Connecticut School Massacre

For what they are worth I have some remarks about the slaughter of 20 first graders on December 13th. That stunning mass murder of "babies" in a Connecticut school has everyone wondering "why"? The shooting was terrible, but murderous attacks on school children is not just a problem in the U.S. this year. Just this week a Chinese farmer took a kitchen knife and hacked at more than 20 children as they entered their rural elementary school. China has seen more than a half dozen school attacks in less than three years, all of the attacks with knives since guns are banned there.

Shootings at schools have periodically occurred in Finland and Germany. And remember the 16 kindergartners and a teacher at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996 that were murdered by a gunman? Too in the Mid east, the Taliban often enters schools and mutilates or kills teachers and students. Killing and harming children, what used to be a non acceptable event even among the mentally disturbed, is no longer so. The disturbingly more frequent rampages against children and schools is distressing. The crazed or angry attackers often seek out the vulnerable (which includes our lightly protected children), hoping to amplify their outrage before they themselves often commit suicide. And the media spreads the idea with each killing. This may inspire other potential mass killers to imitate.

In previous generations children were seen to be special and out of bounds to this kind of violence, even among the mentally unstable or the enraged. Society had a common culture and morality that implanted that idea. Today, there is no such commonality. The many subcultures created by the new communication technologies are erasing that and are allowing people to define their own individual or sub culture morality as the "right" one. That "right perspective" is often contrary to what is in the best interest of the culture as a whole and can turn murderous.

Disaffected people who are angry at the world are no longer as restrained by the strong singular culture that existed before but is weakened now. The murderers kill as many people as they can because they see some element of notoriety and "connection" in it. If they can't fit into the now weaker common culture they make it take notice by acting out in the most horrific way imaginable against it....as in the killing of the children the culture. Attacks against schools are easy targets for taking down large numbers of victims.

These school kid killings seem to be an expression of a kind of extended suicide. The angry or crazed attackers believe the society into which they must live but do not fit, is malicious or unsafe, and this the killer wants others to die with them. As the media reports each child killing more vividly those kinds of shootings increase in frequency and becoming deadlier. In addition, each killing leaves a blueprint for others to follow. Removing the weapons themselves is not possible, as there are too many weapons and too many people to control to do that. Even guessing at which person might be the next as cool killer is an unlikely attempt. But most experts involved in such things say that providing better access to mental health services and restricting the availability of firearms are key to reducing (but not stopping) the number of children from becoming the next victims.

I think the current social environment, the one which emphasizes having many virtual electronic connections instead of a few real non electronic connections, is one factor behind this wave of attacks on kids. The isolation aspect of the technology tends to further estrange the lost soul and invite it to be found again via the horrific act (as in the Connecticut school incident). A person who chooses extreme acts to voice his or her grievances usually believes that his or her cases were unable to be handled fairly in the traditional way.

It's a problem we have to deal with if we want to avoid finding another classroom full of dead babies