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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: 2 school shootings in 8 days in Huntsville, AL
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 02-13-2010 01:52 PM
Yesterday (Friday, Feb. 12, 2010) around 4 PM, a professor in the biology department where I work, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL, was denied tenure and opened fire in a faculty meeting, shooting 6 people. Killed were 3 biology professors, including the head of the department, and wounded were 2 other professors from the department and one office staff member. As I left campus, I saw a ton of flashing lights from emergency vehicles in front of that building. Whether the professor who was denied tenure found out in the meeting, or earlier in the day before the meeting, depends on which of the numerous news stories is correct. Some stories are saying she ditched the 9mm gun in a restroom on the second floor of the building, then called her husband for a ride.
The building where I work is about 0.6 miles from the Shelby Center where this happened. The Shelby Center is one of the newest buildings on campus.
Last Friday, February 5, 2010, at Discovery Middle School (5.6 miles from my office), one 9th grader shot another 9th grader in the back of the head during class-changing time. The shot student died that night in the hospital.
Both of these stories went national.
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-14-2010 06:42 AM
These things have little to do with empathy. Leaving aside the truly psychologically disturbed, the subtext on nearly all of these shootings is the typical person’s wildly inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance, coupled with the ability to do something devastating about it. “You’re denying me tenure? I don’t think I deserve it, so you die.” “You’re firing me, even for cause? I don’t think I deserve it, so you die”. “You’re leaving me for someone else? I don’t want you to, so you die”. “You say you’re gay, or you perform abortions, or something else that offends my sense of morality? Sorry, you die.” “You don’t see things my way, or allow me to force my will on you, or otherwise refuse to bow to me? Well, here’s my gun, eat lead.”
People fantasize about power more than anything else, more than sex, more than riches, more than talent or fame. Everybody has their daydreams about bending people to their will, telling off the boss, walking off the job and having the company collapse behind you, leaving their spouse and having them beg you to come back (and before I am called a scold let me say that I am not holding myself above any of this, except actual murder. At least I think.). Some people are disturbed enough, and well armed enough, to act on the fantasy. This is the kind of people we have become, and this is why I grate my teeth when I hear teachers of barely literate schoolchildren spending more time reinforcing self-esteem than teaching actual skills. Lack of self-esteem is possibly the least problem we face today.
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Hillary Charles
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 748
From: York, PA, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-14-2010 08:12 AM
quote: Mark Ogden
These things have little to do with empathy. Leaving aside the truly psychologically disturbed, the subtext on nearly all of these shootings is the typical person’s wildly inflated sense of entitlement and self-importance
Mark, you seem to be contradicting yourself. Empathy, by its very nature, subjugates one's own ego, and certainly mitigates an inflated sense of self-importance. If people thought more about others, they'd commit fewer such devestating acts. I do agree that our society in general feels overly entitled.
Because of the entitlement issue, I tend to agree with Bobby that parental guidence is often sorely lacking these days. Parents need to teach their children that not everybody deserves to be American Idol, and that a participation trophy is meaningless. Additionally, parents can tell us that the violence we see is not to be emulated or admired. Without parental advice, how does a child process what he/she sees?
Some single parents can and have raised reasonable empathatic people, but I do see people treating empathy as a weakness rather than a virtue, and often this mindset comes from neighborhoods in which two-parent households are the exception.
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