Editorials

The author is a well known, well published, former college dean and educator.

We were stunned and shocked and saddened by the killing rampage at Virginia Tech on April 16. A crazy student killed 27 students and five teachers before turning a weapon on himself, leaving only a dead body and lots of unanswered questions.

Almost immediately the airwaves was filled with those who blamed the easy accessibility of guns as a prime cause. This speculation deserves only a brief mention. Our forefathers had lived in totalitarian states across the pond, states wherein the individual was forbidden to own firearms, a ruse to prevent uprisings against the reigning government. Therefore to mitigate the power of the government and make government more accountable to the common man, framers of our constitution gave us the right to bear arms.

Now, nearly every time there is a bad killing with firearms, some left leaning politician jumps on the this tired issue of gun control, most notably in our metropolitan centers. But to blame violence in a society on guns is upside down thinking because, to use a tired saying, guns do not kill people, people kill people. For example when Jim Jones killed over 900 with poisoned Kool Aid, not one time did we hear the media malcontents say, “Let’s ban Kool Aid.” Nearly 50,000 persons are killed on our highways each year, but I do not hear the media talking heads say, “Let’s ban automobiles.”

If not guns, if not Kool Aid, if not automobiles, whom do we blame? We could blame the liberals but that seems too simplistic here. WE are to blame! You and me and society!

As Peanuts said, “We have found the enemy and it is us."

How can we be blamed for the killing at VT?

Please do not sack this article while I get a bit bookish for the moment. The term “Anomie” refers to a process of change (especially rapid change) that tends to develop situations in which the old norms no longer restrain individual behavior and new norms are either absent or unacceptable. Such anomie…frequently occurs in the development of urban society.” (World Book Dictionary.)

Let’s apply this to us: Abortions used to be illegal and taboo, but now are lawful but this norm is unacceptable to many. Living with someone outside of marriage was considered sinful and immoral, but is widely accepted by the under 50 cohort, less so by the older than 50 crowd. Gays used to be closeted, but are now more open and demand that they be accepted as normal and legitimate. Again, older persons have a more difficult time accepting this norm and many never will because it conflicts with their reading of the Bible. Law was seen primarily as protection but today many use it aggressively to get settlements of money. The norm on this seems to cut across all age groups.

Perhaps the greatest change in our lifetime has been the diminished influence of the Christianity on our society, its waning influence directly impacting the norms identified above. Christianity tended to restrain animalistic behavior. For example, Elkatawa, my home community, used to be notorious for moonshining, shooting and killing, but changed dramatically when churches were founded. Even those who never believed were restrained by their influence.

And as the writer has stated previously, public schools became much more difficult to manage when religion was banned from its corridors. Laws were passed that severely limited the principal in his or her constraint of students. Parents, when notified of misbehavior of their son or daughter questioned the behavior of the administrator or his or her judgment, frequently believing the story told by their child as the gospel truth. Often they replied, “I will talk to my attorney and see you in court.” And the administrator began hiding behind the coattails of his attorney and the resulting norm is hardly satisfactory to anyone, except the law profession.

Most everyone with whom I have talked concerning this issue perceives that the public schools, in general, have lost effective discipline of students. And students loathe this new norm, especially the more timid ones who no longer can depend on the principal to provide security against the bullies in the school. Both the school killings in Columbine and VT seemed to have perpetrators who were student outcasts who suffered from the hands of other students.

Whereto from here? It would be helpful if a law were passed that forbade the suing of a principal in his or her discipline of students, but this is not likely to happen because of attorneys and their influence over legislation. It is unlikely that any of the norms identified above will be significantly rolled back. It will take a catastrophe of major proportions to cause us to come to our senses. All we can do is hope and pray and hang on tight because the slide on this slippery slope is likely to accelerate.

Be thankful that we still have rural communities, for the problems whereof we speak are worse in metropolitan areas. During the Roman Empire, the cities suffered so much from anomie that there was a flight to rural areas, a demographic that appears to be building in our US. OC
 

In honor of the students whose lives were saved and in memory of the faculty/students whose lives were lost. 

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.