8 dead in Finland school shooting

[longears]

yeah, until they find out how to get bombs

There's been plenty of that, too, Greg, but usually by politically motivated wackos. 

[greg]

There's been plenty of that, too, Greg, but usually by politically motivated wackos. 

or, more precisely, there will be suicide bombings at schools instead of shootings.....
possibly.... probably to them the idea of a shootout seems like it'd be funner

[Lady Chatterley]

Why do they do it?
Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher?Drugs,bad diet,bad genetics,video games,heavy metal?

[Renfield]

Why do they do it?
Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher?Drugs,bad diet,bad genetics,video games,heavy metal?

Poor video games, always dragged into these debates...

Mental health, I'd reckon, emotional frustration, the need to escape; freedom, in a very existential sort of way, but perverse. Did that cover it, to a basic extent?

[greg]

Why do they do it?
Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher?Drugs,bad diet,bad genetics,video games,heavy metal?

i honestly think mentally ill has more to do with it than anything. He said he was "full of anger" and loved it. I think he had the capacity to feel way more anger than most other people, and it translates into his tastes in music, video games, etc.

i think in the times online article it was wondering if he was bullied, among the other questions. Really, come on... does he look like someone who would be bullied? 

in 9th grade i had a friend who was sorta crazy at times, but she was a girl so i think she handled it in a different way. Once she said she took a knife out on a kid on the bus and got expelled or suspended from school.... so even though she was fun, pretty, and loved to talk yu-gi-oh with me,  she scared me at times! 
So then I try to imagine her having a fit and going on a school shooting spree and i really can't imagine that..... hm, i guess since she's a girl.

[longears]

probably to them the idea of a shootout seems like it'd be funner

For the rise in this sort of crap I blame (among others) the morally bankrupt Hollywood hypocrites who glamorize gun violence, the conscienceless press whose reportage only fosters more of the kind, and the graphic game makers who profit by selling ever more violent first-person shooters to adolescent boys.  I also blame a decadent West, grown too soft and spineless to stand up for its core values, and a generation too self-involved to love their own children by doing the hard things good parenting demands--like setting standards and saying "no."  My generation mostly refused to give their children the benefits of discipline, and instead tried to pass the responsibilities of parenting onto the schools--then after subverting the educational mission, they scared the schools with lawsuits into abandoning the discipline mission, too.

[longears]

Why do they do it?
Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher?Drugs,bad diet,bad genetics,video games,heavy metal?

I think you're right, Muriel.  The first series--Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher--pretty well describes a normal phase in adolescence.  The second--Drugs,bad diet,bad genetics,video games,heavy metal--may signify conditions that escalate ordinary acting out from temper tantrums to mass murder.

[greg]

I think you're right, Muriel.  The first series--Mad at the world,mentally ill,mad at mom and dad,teacher--pretty well describes a normal phase in adolescence. 

you mean except for the mentally ill part, right?

[Josquin des Prez]

For the rise in this sort of crap I blame (among others) the morally bankrupt Hollywood hypocrites who glamorize gun violence, the conscienceless press whose reportage only fosters more of the kind, and the graphic game makers who profit by selling ever more violent first-person shooters to adolescent boys.  I also blame a decadent West, grown too soft and spineless to stand up for its core values, and a generation too self-involved to love their own children by doing the hard things good parenting demands--like setting standards and saying "no."  My generation mostly refused to give their children the benefits of discipline, and instead tried to pass the responsibilities of parenting onto the schools--then after subverting the educational mission, they scared the schools with lawsuits into abandoning the discipline mission, too.

I blame the 19th amendment.

Frankly, i think i can understand what goes on in their little twisted minds when the 'normal' popular kids do things like this:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/October/theworld_October924.xml&section=theworld

And virtually get away with it.

[matti]

I also blame a decadent West, grown too soft and spineless to stand up for its core values, and a generation too self-involved to love their own children by doing the hard things good parenting demands--like setting standards and saying "no."  My generation mostly refused to give their children the benefits of discipline, and instead tried to pass the responsibilities of parenting onto the schools--then after subverting the educational mission, they scared the schools with lawsuits into abandoning the discipline mission, too.

Are you saying there were lawsuits against the schools, because teachers set standards and said "no" to the children? Or does the concept of "discipline mission" include physical punishment, too?

[Renfield]

I find this discussion becoming skewed to a point where it will soon very likely become redundant.

So in any case, count me out of it, while I [censored, out of respect to this forum], in full Clockwork Orange fashion. Later, then!

[longears]

you mean except for the mentally ill part, right?

Sorry, Greg, but adolescence is a protracted period of sporadic mental illness bought about by massive infusions of powerful drugs known as hormones.  It's perfectly normal at this time of life.  Once you get through it, you will never again suffer the violent mood swings, the depths of despair, the obsessiveness, or the hateful rages that punctuate this developmental stage of life--that is, not unless you really are mentally ill and don't grow out of it after your hormones settle down!

Personally, I think it would have been very helpful at this time of life had I known to expect this--then perhaps I wouldn't have taken my own feelings so seriously, but would have known they were not to be trusted any more than the heartfelt advice of a hopeless drunk.  In my case, I sublimated much of that craziness into sports.  Perhaps that's why there's a strong tradition of encouraging adolescent males to participate in sport--it provides a healthy channel for the craziness.

Among the disaffected losers who go murdering their classmates, how many were active in athletica?

[longears]

Are you saying there were lawsuits against the schools, because teachers set standards and said "no" to the children? Or does the concept of "discipline mission" include physical punishment, too?

Yes.  No.  I'm amazed at the number of people who confuse discipline with punishment.

[longears]

Poor video games, always dragged into these debates...

I find this discussion becoming skewed to a point where it will soon very likely become redundant.

So in any case, count me out of it, while I [censored, out of respect to this forum], in full Clockwork Orange fashion. Later, then!

Let me guess--you're a video game playing adolescent?  (with apologies for the redundancy) 

[matti]

Yes.  No.  I'm amazed at the number of people who confuse discipline with punishment.

Good. Then I'm with you. I also concur with your statement that physical exercise is an excellent way to deal with extra testosterone.

[longears]

I blame the 19th amendment.

Frankly, i think i can understand what goes on in their little twisted minds when the 'normal' popular kids do things like this:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/October/theworld_October924.xml&section=theworld

And virtually get away with it.

There's nothing remotely normal about such behavior.  Failure to bring swift, severe, and certain punishment--and to require restitution, insofar as possible--is sadly all too common in our decadent civilization and only encourages more of the same and worse.  Of course, things like this would probably never happen in 'civilized' society if we'd just swat the camel's nose whenever it pokes under the tent.  In time even a dumb camel will learn where the boundaries are.  Of course, if we don't defend our boundaries, we don't really have any, do we?

The 19th Amendment, eh?  Methinks there may be more at work here than mere cheeky tomfoolery--but what?  Care to say?

[Renfield]

Let me guess--you're a video game playing adolescent?  (with apologies for the redundancy) 

You beat me to the admittedly redundant clarification. Yes, indeed. And I count influences from video games that are not mindless shooting galleries as an important part of my cultural and mental upbringing, involved with them as I have been since a very young age, without shooting up a single school so far, or even a nursery.

And I also fail to see any sort of taste in skewing a potentially productive discussion, so as for it to (typically) involve this silly war with a a genre of entertainment and/or artistic expression (ever played or known games such as Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, the old adventure games of the Day of the Tentacle, Money Island variety, etc.?), in a matter very much related to social frustration and inherent mental difficulties.


Furthermore, your penultimate post evokes this wonderfully old-fashioned concept of sports as an outlet for said frustration, which I do acknowledge as a view, while failing to take into account that sporting activities could be argued to promote violence every bit as much as a "plain ol' video game", of the variety you are apparently referring to (while assuming this contains the whole of computer and/or console gaming, which is a blatant oversimplification).

Even more so, what is to say "male" video games such as those implied by your vociferous rejection of them may not function as equivalent outlets of "chemical frustration" to sports: are sports anything more than social bonding games themselves, after all?


Of course, I would be a fool not to acknowledge the extent video game realism can change the "rules of engagement", from the players' perspective and in terms of their involvement; but again, does not an equivalent apply in the intense physical competition encouraged by sports, and the amount of social pressure this exercises on all involved? Is not the sports-fan's enthusiasm and engrossment a very tangible equivalent, I wonder?


The bottom line is, might I have any sort of concrete evidence as to why I should consider this discussion anything more than an appropriate outlet for all sides involved to voice out very much the "species" of social frustration that can, extrapolated to the extreme (with apologies for the redundancy), lead to so much grief, as was once again shown to be the case?

If nothing else, I am not aware of having made any dim-witted over-generalised statements regarding any social (or age) group myself. So, even if such statements concerning adolescents have a physiological basis, and are thus not what I would necessarily call "dim-witted", why should I make a point of concerning myself with their proponents in this context?

(Since either human psychology ends up assumed to be less complex than the circuitry of an old radio, or a whole lot of "mystical" concepts such as "hormone imbalance" are invoked, in a manner that supposes human beings are somehow living in chemical stasis for all their lives, but their adolescence; not to mention it assumes that homo sapiens is a race inherently unable to control it natural urges, against which I would argue in principle, and in practice.)


I hope this is a more comprehensive response, to explain my above attitude. And I feel that one might argue with others (including me) seriously and cogently, or not argue at all. Hence, I am stepping out of this so-called argument, on principle, until any sort of actual argument, supported by evidence or demonstrated through logic, has been voiced. Fair enough?

[longears]

Boy that's a raw nerve!

You might try looking at this issue sometime when the wound has healed.  Until then, asking you to step back and examine it dispassionately is like asking a smoker not to do it in public.

[Renfield]

Boy that's a raw nerve!

You might try looking at this issue sometime when the wound has healed.  Until then, asking you to step back and examine it dispassionately is like asking a smoker not to do it in public.

It's a raw nerve because I've had this issue brought up again and again (and again) since the time I was playing Warcraft II in the late 90's. And given that I'm currently 19, you could call it a childhood "pet peeve" of sorts. However, I will repeat (or rather clarify) that it is not the specific stance that riles me to this extent: it is the way certain people (including yourself, for better or for worse) tend to present it, as magisterially as any known mathematical theorem.

And the beginning of most social issues of this variety, including those that lead to unfortunate cases like the above, is exactly this sort of tendency to only step back and look over the "nots", rather than the "why nots", as well. Otherwise, the argument could be described as nigh-equally lopsided in approach as the stereotypical viewpoint you are attacking yourself, and that is why I said I'm staying out of the argument.

Still, I'm not about to shoot anyone over my views, nor theirs. But I would definitely like to discuss something in an even field, rather than a skewed one.

Last but not least, I despise oversimplification, and the post I was commenting on fairly reeked of it, from my perspective. Whereas mine was simply over-the-top. Is that fair enough?

[longears]

it is not the specific stance that riles me to this extent: it is the way certain people (including yourself, for better or for worse) tend to present it, as magisterially as any known mathematical theorem.  ...Last but not least, I despise oversimplification, and the post I was commenting on fairly reeked of it, from my perspective. Whereas mine was simply over-the-top. Is that fair enough?

Nope.  Your response is still tellingly disproportionate and off target.