Just last week I wrote about the need to develop positive self esteem in our young people and that too much self esteem is harmful to an individual. The tormented person who shot the kids at Virginia Tech is an example of this self esteem issue.
No one knows for sure what this young man was thinking, but he opened fire on the students supposedly because he was mad at "rich kids" and how they made him feel about himself. Someone will always be better than we are - children need to be taught that and taught how to deal with the adversity they face. In the past, before the self-esteem fluff that has been pushed by our society, the response would have been "I'll show them, I'll go out and make something of myself." Like become a millionaire or something.
But now it's "I'll show them, I'll get a gun." Overwhelmingly, too, it is boys who are shooting people. It's not just kids in general who have perpetrated events such as Columbine, Jonesboro, or Virginia Tech, but young men specifically. Something has to be done to revise our approach besides assuaging young men with more platitudes encouraging false self-esteem and overarching pride. We must help our young people, especially our young men, develop a realistic, positive sense of self. Even one more condolence card is too many.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the Virginia Tech families and their community, as well as to the young man's parents. They will need the country's support and good thoughts to heal from this tragedy.
Melony
People need to understand that the poor shouldn't have to "just accept" that people are better then them. I'm not saying what he did was right but I too feel his pain because it appears that only the wealthy get what they want in this world.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a complete global reform process to establish a more equal world. No child or person in this world should go hungry while others indulge in greed.
Stop trying to treat the symptoms (low self-esteem) and instead treat the disease (inequality).
Hmmm.... I understand your passion but what is the definition for "get what you want?" It seems like to me it has become. "always want more." This man had parents who had fled a life of poverty in South Korea and seized opportunity in America. With hard work and sacrifice they acquired "material" success and their son was offered a top education at a fine university. These accomplishments most obviously did not make him happy.
ReplyDeleteTerms like global reform smack of socialism and communism, both of which historically have not been too successful. Equality cannot be given. It is too subjective, too dependent on a particular society's interpretation. Societies always need tuning...they are ever changing and should be. But they should change due to hard work, men and women with a vision and a goal for the common good.
Giving the good life away is just not possible. There has never been a successful "Utopia". Humans just don't think that way. Give it away and we just want more. Mankind needs to grow and invent and develop and create and sweat and prosper. With accomplishment comes ownership and pride.
Share the wealth willingly? I could not agree more. Just take it away and spread it around? No. Chrissie
I agree with Chrissie - if we gave everyone a million dollars today, some of us would have three million a year from now and others of us would have nothing, not a penny.
ReplyDeleteI think you said a key phrase, "it APPEARS that only the wealthy get what they want." It does indeed seem that way much of the time.
But, how are we going to have a complete global reform when humans can't even keep from killing each other around the world? We can't stop killing each other, let alone try to feed each other, although many people continue making a valiant effort to do just that.
But, in spite of that, Americans, even the poor ones, are wealthy beyond most people's imaginations. How many people make a run for the border everyday just to get here and have a shot at making some money?
You can't make inequality go away as if it were a disease. Let's say we made everyone not only fabulaously wealthy beyond belief, but also fabulously beautiful. Tomorrow the least beautiful of the beautiful would now be ugly, and the person who was only a millonaire would be the poor one. We all have our superiors and we do indeed have to accept that. Rich people, middle class people, and poor people.
Melony
Being mad at rich people and their money is being mad over material things. People are not things. No one deserves to be shot over material things.
ReplyDeleteEducation is not a material thing. This gentlemen said he did it for his people and I interpret that as meaning the poor and the bullied.
ReplyDeleteI know why this guy was angry as well. My generation of young people is turning into a generation of disaster.
See how teen girls dress? See the stupid behavior teens are doing?
and if we want to keep inequality then prepare for more of these but on a much greater scale.
There are probably thousands of supressed people out there who are capable of doing damage never thought of.
All I can say is I hope humanity is prepared for a forced reformation from the star realm.... but that's for another discussion.
Anyway I don't see this gentlemen as a monster and people who jump to the conclusion that he was a monster need to actually live in this persons shoes to see what it's like.
It's just like a rich person saying "Oh I can imagine how it's like to be in the 3rd word". No you can't.
Neitzsche said "we must be careful that in chasing monsters we do not become monsters ourselves." Isn't there another way to change society without killing random people? Did the gentleman who shot the people at VT know if he was shooting only "rich people"? What if he was shooting people who were there on Pell Grants or the Gates Scholarship? Wouldn't that suck to be there on a grant trying to work your way out of poverty only to get your a%$ shot off by someone mad at "rich people"?
ReplyDelete"We must help our young people, especially our young men, develop a realistic, positive sense of self."
ReplyDeleteI think we (society) can easily engage in a discussion concerning how we could prevent similar school shootings from occurring by addressing the self esteem, or sense of self among these kids. Can an argument be made that a tiny fraction (less then a tenth of a percent) of young male students (or otherwise) compared to the total U.S. young male student population go to the extremes of Columbine, Virgina Tech, the Arkansas school, and Ft. Gibson? And of those student shooters, what percentage were diagnosed as having a mental illness? From the little bit I've heard of the Virginia Tech shooter, he definitely was mentally unstable, and from what I remember the Ft. Gibson kid had mental issues as well.
I believe we should continue to look for ways to improve socially, and I am largely in favor of the anti-bullying policies in place at local schools.
There are millions of people in the United States, there is going to be, for lack of a better word, crazy people among us.
Hi, J - of course an argument can be made that it is a small percentage of the student population that ever acts on their ideas. In talking with my students today I think I came to an understanding of how some people, teens and adults feel. You mentioned bullying - I think there is a rather large segment of people who feel bullied by so called rich kids (people). The closest I guess I can get to explaining it is that they feel bullied like the French people felt bullied by Marie Antoinette.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we are searching for answers and have blamed everything from violent video games to the women's lib movement to the WWF to living in the end times. All I know is, I don't remember kids getting guns and just mass shooting other people until the last decade. I think your last paragraph does have something to do with it, but I don't think it's the whole story, either.
A dialogue does need to open up about bullying and helping kids cope with their thoughts and reactions in a positive way. Your response is very thoughtful.