Of all the issues raised by the Virginia Tech massacre, there is one underlying issue that everyone seems to be ignoring. Class. The gunman's video, rambling and sometimes incoherent though it is, focuses on class - class differences, class expectations, class conflict.
Why is nobody talking about this? America's dirty little secret, eh? We have class tension in this country...and we are collectively in denial.
This tragedy is unforgivable and there is plenty of blame to go around - the gunman himself (of course), the university administration for their inaction, the girls who were stalked by this creep and then didn't press charges, the judge who declared Cho a danger to himself. But underlying all of this is class.
It is time we Americans started talking about class in a meaningful way. The rich very often do treat people differently if those people are not of the same socio-economic status. Why do we continually deny this? Every group or clique has its problems, but this really does seem to primarily be a trickle-down effect - and the wealthy are at the top causing the avalanche.
Of course there are generous-hearted philanthropists...but I'm talking about on high school and college campuses...the division, the pain, the detrimental isolation caused by rich kids who refuse to treat "lesser" people with basic consideration and humanity.
On top of everything else, our collective denial of class conflict among young people in this country is yet another tragic aspect of this event. But will anyone step to the plate and acknowledge it?
One solution to avert potential future problems of this magnitude might be kindness. Instead of being exclusive, try being inclusive. Talk to that kid who keeps to himself. Ask that quiet girl to go shopping or to lunch. Make an effort. I'm not suggesting this is the ONLY solution...but good Lord, it is a start.
1 comment:
Hi Amanda--it's Cristine. I've been doing a lot of thinking about class and how it comes into the VA tech thing myself. I think that, more than likely, that kid was unstable, and that, eventually, something would have lead him to violence anyway, regardless of the class problems in America. However, to discuss his class-consciousness...it seems to me that this kid was a product of the same class resentment/entitlement issue that plagues our nation. So what if people were jerks to him in school-- his violent behavior indicates to me that being cruel is not solely the behavior of the rich. People can be cruel no matter their income (and this is one of the problems with liberalism in America, automatically equating moral good and uprightness with poverty...if we made the rich feel inclined to be generous, rather than portraying them as total assholes, we might find that the rich are more capable of being generous, thanks to their incomes, than we initially gave them credit for! Aka-- giving control of welfare to the private sector would probably be so much more positive than chaining it to the government). Of course, the VA shootings is an extreme example of cruelty related to class consciousness; it is so unbelievable that any person would think that it was in any way justifiable to kill someone because they were more fortunate than they are, that it almost becomes absurd to actually take his complaining seriously (not to mention that he appeared to be mentally unstable, so his class consciousness was probably just a manifestation of his much more serious difficulties). But more than that, people who are not murderers everyday complain that they have been denied access to the kind of material wealth and power that they feel they are entitled to, just as the shooter did. I think it reflects a level of resentment in our society that no doubt has its roots in our lack of, to be frank, spirituality, or goodwill, or contentedness, or our rampant materialism, etc. If people were more focused on being generous and forgiving, rather than sticking it to the man and complaining that they're disenfranchised, they might come to find that they were happier than if they got all the class "egalitarianism" that they wanted. Now you're a good libertarian, so you know that people who complain about being disenfranchised are probably not looking for class equality-- they're looking to help themselves, and are masking self-promotion in the words of equality. And you also know that class-egalitarian focused programs like affirmative action, subsidies, and handouts don't help people-- more money rarely makes people better (hello, look at the public schools, or overly bloated monster churches). Every special interest group in the world is guilty of self-promotion, and there's no use denying it. So I'm not sure if having more discussions about class would just lead to more resentment, more feelings of entitlement among all the various groups of people who feel that they are due up. It is my contention that these sorts of resentful discourses, about what special interest group deserves what ("affirmative action," "reverse discrimination," "reparations"-- it is all the same, really), that prompts people to feel as if the world owes them something. And that's the kind of attitude that breeds violent resentment. So, in the end, I think you're right-- being nice is probably something we need to focus on a little more.
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