Maggie's Farm

I have written three versions of a short piece on the VT massacre, but was not satisfied with any of them.

My main points were to have been that such events are unpreventable, and so rare as to make planning for them almost absurd. Many college kids act strange, and are quirky; many write Quentin Tarantino-type stuff, and many are angry about one thing or another, but it doesn't mean a thing.

And, often enough, sadly, college-age kids have psychotic breaks that can go relatively unnoticed for periods of time. I am not asserting that that is what happened, because often mass murderers are not clinically psychotic, but it seems likely from today's new information. My point is that the often-mentioned  "clear warning signs" are always retrospective.

Everybody is a genius at connecting dots in retrospect. And no-one, I believe, is an expert on murder sprees: they are too rare, and the inner demons are too variable.

Classical Values summarizes the shrink-related thoughts from other bloggers, and SISU has additional summaries. I can refute many of the quoted assertions, but I won't.

The overarching psychological issue, I believe, is the notion that terrible things should not occur in life. Random terrible things happen every day to many people all over the globe, and always will. Tsunamis will come, and earthquakes, hurricanes, mudslides, and diseases and plagues; people will go berserk, wars will happen, and bombers will plant bombs; multi-car crashes will occur, and roller-coasters will collapse.

The idea that random terrible events are preventable, and that life could somehow be made thoroughly safe, sanitary, and secure, is a childish fantasy, or even a delusion. We bubble-wrapped Americans specialize in that fantasy, but most of the rest of the world understands better that life is a dangerous enterprise, and not Disney World.