Anderson: Students save lives by looking to others

Friday, March 7, 2008

After finding my seat in Budig Hall for the first time, I realized that the scene was probably very similar to the one that preceded Seung-Hui Cho’s rampage at Virginia Tech last year, and I resolved to find a seat closer to an exit. A few weeks later history repeated itself, this time at Northern Illinois University, in a lecture hall like Budig.

Following the Columbine shootings in 1999, experts quickly whipped up a grocery list of explanations of how this could happen: Violence in video games, TV, movies, bad parenting and Marilyn Manson were all subject to public castigation. The nation is grateful for the insight of experts, whose analyses are hardly ever as short-sighted and predictable as they were in the wake of Columbine.

What we might find in hindsight exceeds what we’re willing to accept about ourselves — that apathy and disdain for difference is so entrenched in our culture that people feel there is no other way out than to go down in a blaze of glory and take as many people with them as they can.

Perhaps our educational communities have become too much like the dog-eat-dog world of the businessman, where relationships must always ensure personal gain. The value of an individual is assessed by what someone can gain by association. We associate with people we feel are going to ensure our desired status and shun those who endanger it.

Problems arise when people fall outside of the social system and when they perceive that the system — the same that dictates the popular morality that has classified them as “bad” — is an all-prevailing reality, and rebellion is the only option.

Instead of joining in the hubbub of the hows and whys and how-could-theys, I respond by reaching out to my fellow students.

I do so because our lives are at stake. Not in the sense that we should behave in a nice manner because we are afraid to die, but because we all deserve to live rich, full lives without the fear of being shot down. The solution should come from the students because we’re all in this together.

What is needed is a radical approach: a counter-culture tearing down the walls that an apathetic world forces us to build. We should reach out to each other with understanding and compassion. When we do this, we chip away at the mortar that hardens as a result of a culture of general apathy and rampant individualism while simultaneously laying the foundation for a better future.

Anderson is a Perry junior in creative writing.

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Anderson: Students save lives by looking to others

This article is great. It hits on some wonderful and often ignored points regarding compassion and human dignity. In our (understandable) quest for punishment, we frequently dehumanize those who have suffered/are suffering and subsequently commit crimes.Although it can sometimes be inconvenient, and even frightening, the decision to be empathetic is essential. Thanks for a well-written article!