I was surfing the internet last night when I came across the shooting at Virginia Tech. 33 people were killed (plus the gunman). It came not a shock to me, it was horror!!
Is there any explanation to such a crime? I quoted the gunman's words from http://news.yahoo.com
"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," he said. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."
"I didn't have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled," he said. "But no, I will no longer run."
"It's not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters. ... I did it for them."
Apparently, the news reported that there were early warning signs that indicated he was indeed problematic. In one section of the report, people referred to him as "the question mark." The reason being was, instead of writing his name on the paper, he wrote a question mark.
The quest for Self-identity - the question of "Who Am I" will always keep us guessing for the rest of our lives. It is not much of a problem if you accept yourself the way you are. The problem is, when you start to compare yourself with other people-what they have and what you don't have. My friends are richer than me, my sister is prettier than me, my parents are well-liked by others, my uncles are so fortunate...the list goes on and on and on. In the end you will discover that nothing will ever satisfy your needs, desires, etc.
I think of these people who were killed mercilessly, what kind of life would they have enjoyed if they were still alive? What would they sacrificed to get back their lives? What would they do to save their lives? What about their parents, husbands/wives, girlfriends/boyfriends that they left behind mourning for them..If only...
And I said to myself last nite, I am happy to still be alive.
4 comments:
I think the murder is under depression. Maybe for some reasons, but it seems that he needs money. If that’s the case, it does not give him the access to be a murderer. We were born with a pair of hands, legs, eyes, and a mouth. Well, use it wisely – to work and to earn a living.
Furthermore, we don’t need to keep comparing with other people. If we want to be rich, then work hard for it. It we want to be pretty, then try to style up. If styling up still don’t satisfied you, go for a plastic surgery (bad idea ). The most important thing – we need to be grateful (bersyukur) with what we have and what we are. If we are not, we will keep on demanding and complaining how unlucky we are. Mean while, why not comparing yourself with other people who is more unlucky than you – the war victims, the children in Africa and India, to name but a few.
To be continue….(I will late for moral class, 5pm, have to catch the 4.30pm bus)
As I understand it, he came from a well to do family himself. Sure, his parents own a dry cleaning shop, so? They managed to send his sister to Princeton and Cho himself went to VT which is a good uni as well. I know for a fact that a Glock, one of the type of of handguns that he used is a very expensive weapon to have, it'll set you back at least $500 USD. Now, he's complaining about "rich kids". While normal college kids worked and save their money for that new pair of jeans, shoes or simply enough for a good weekend out with friends, what did Cho do? Used the money that he had to buy a firearm ( oh sorry, he had two handguns the 9mm Glock and another unidentified .22mm handgun). He was clearly suffering from mental sickness and the people around him had indications that he was depressed and to say that they did not expect someone like him to do whatever he did is just nonsense. The blame goes both ways: Cho for not reaching out to people and asking for help and to the people around him who did not bother to help him. That's my 2 cents.
Well, erm… this got nothing to do when the gunman issue. I just can’t find a suitable place to post this.
This morning(Friday), Miss Azlin brought up a issue about ‘a man that did drug trafficking for the sake of his family’. According to Utilitarianism Theory by Jeremy Bentham, drag trafficking is approved because this action have intrinsic end (pleasure) whereby the family members of this guy get all the needs to survive.
Well, we can say that helping his family members is good. However, indirectly, he will be dragging more people into the bandwagon of drugs. More people will even suffer/ addicted to drugs. I’m sure that this negative cause outweighs the positive cause. And I must say that he is selfish, he only thinks of his family members but not the whole society. He didn’t realize that in the end of the day, his family will be affected by the society as well. It is just like a rotating wheel – where everything that we give to the society, will eventually (slightly) returns back to us. Since the output is more to the negative side, I must say that this situation did not satisfied one of the Utilitarianism rules which is ‘the greatest good for people’.
If we are to see this with Aristotle’s Theory – our body has functions just like each parts of our body, one of the functions is to earn for a living while obeying the rules. To earn a living, there are many ways other than drag trafficking. Things are the same for beggars (not disabled people), they have both hands and legs. They should use it to work, rather than to beg for money.
The solution is the same for the raping case, almost openly (I forget the exact venue, in US maybe) in a park, where 5 men raped a woman. Some might say that if these men obtain an ultimate pleasure for raping, then it is inline with Utilitarianism.
To think logically, is there an end in sex desire? (Exceptional cases for andropulse, monopulse, and sexually retarded people). Biologically, the sex pleasure is at the peak during the orgasm, caused by hormones. This indirectly means that sex pleasure is short and temporally.
If we are to think about the effects to the society, it will still outweigh the pleasure.
I got chemistry test tomorrow… got to study. If possible, pls give feedbacks. It’s nice to discuss on such a matter.
humbly submitted
Azlin, something relevant to the gunman case which i found while doing research (yes, i do research):
http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200704180003#9
Chong, rape is not all about sex and lust. It's also about the desire to control and humiliate.
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