The War Room

COULD CULTURE OF DESPAIR IN ACADEMIA LEAD TO VIOLENCE?

There will be much said in the coming weeks about the horrible tragedy that occurred this week at Virginia Tech. Much will revolve around the very hotly politicized issues of guns. Indeed, the blood was barely dry on the victims bodies when I turned on the CBC and the same talking heads we are accustomed to seeing exploited the tragedy to play "nya, nya" on the horrors of American culture and gun violence.

Now I am not someone who believes anyone should be given a gun willy nilly. Responsible people should be allowed weapons but there should be government control as to who can get them and how long it takes. But having said that, it finally occurred to me that there is now a question we should also be asking:

Why do so many of these tragedies occur on university campuses, colleges or high schools: in other words, places of academe?

Columbine, Concordia, Dawson College, Ecole Polytechnique, Red Lake, Henry Foss, Rocori High School...the list is quite lengthy.

Now obviously, places of academe are not the only institutions where shootings occur, but can we not at least admit a very high number of them do.

Why?

What culture do modern day institutions of academia impose on faculty and students that makes so many of them distraught and confused?

Could it be an academic culture that insists on a philosophy of relativism, aethism and the denial of any moral absolutes or truths? A repressed culture that assumes the worst of human behaviour and then tries to 'cure' you of it.

The first thing that they tried to figuratively beat into me at Queen's University from 1989-93 was that, there was no God, no truth, no moral absolutes. They continually propagated an agenda of class warfare (hating the rich) and a pure non-science based confusion on issues such as gender and sexual identity. Could these be the nihilistic ingredients to creating a generation or two of students and faculty so disjointed from reality that it causes them to not be able to have proper coping skills?

Now, first and foremost, these killings are the resuts of indviduals gone to the edge and the individual must take responsibility for his/her actions.

But could the culture of despair, so propagated in modern day academia, not also be partially responsible for driving so many people over the brink?

I think that is a question that society must start asking.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 12:22 PM