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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Gloom, Doom, and Killing

There's something different about today's mass murderers.

Young, student, killing randomly, suicidal.

Does that remind you of killers from your youth?

Not mine either.

Perhaps there's an answer.

Has the gloomy, despairing, toxic environment on some campuses influenced the killers who have recently gone on murderous rampages at colleges and universities? Is it possible that such places "can drive an immature mind insane" or "tweak a narcissistic or paranoid [entering] high schooler into a temporary state of madness"? Do lugubrious classroom lectures "take a toll on students with no frame of reference"? And might such an environment contribute to leading some students to kill?






So asks Bob Parks of Intel Radio Network, who goes on to describe the ways in which college life can "be a bummer" these days. Students are repeatedly told that

the world is coming to an end because ... [of] “man-made” global warming ... some women’s studies departments ... push the idea that ... all men are capable of rape ... students have been taught to hate the war ... conservative presidents who take military action ... Students are taught to openly defy and disrespect political leaders they’re taught to disagree with ... [and hate] a “controversial” speaker come to share ideas ... .

The postmodern belief in the futility of life undeniably permeates campuses today. Parks asks us to pay more heed to this dark mindset, alongside the fact that "[m]any of these recent shooters have not only targeted innocents, but they saved the last bullet for themselves."

Certainly worth considering as just another of the growing list of sins of academia.

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