Culture of passivity

I don't get it. Students barricaded doors, administered first aid, pushed others out of the way while putting themselves in danger, etc.

Personally, I'm pretty happy that my personal life is so untroubled that I don't immediately recognize the sound of gunfire, that I'm not so highly keyed up that I immediately drive towards a shooter with the precision and passion of a Special Forces team member. It speaks of a good culture, not a bad one.
 
So, what is it? Do we live in a violence drenched culture of degradation and decadence that can only be saved by the grace of Jebus, or do we live in a culture of wussies and passivity? These wingnuts are pretty clueless.
 
And more arm chair warriors show themselves. I want to know why everyone feels the need to exploit this horrible tragety in order to make a point. What ever it is. Vultures.
 
The article is crap, divisive drivel. Monday morning quarterbacking of the most worse sort.

He has probably fantasized dozen times about how he would have leap up and stopped the gunman. In reality he probably would have wet his pants and cowered in the corner hoping the killer wouldn't notice him.

It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.
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It's called conditioning, Librescu has obviously seen some really horrible things in his life. He is primed by prior experience, not culture to react.

How many people have been involved in a shooting? Rogers comments are spot on.

And what Mr. Steyn suggest we do about the problem? I love to here his concrete plan for de-infantilizing the culture. Otherwise, it's cold-bloodied attention whoring.

Tony points out the obvious contradiction in how US culture in talk about in politics and media.

Meadmaker, I want to know what points Mr. Steyn made that you agree with.
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Tony said:
So, what is it? Do we live in a violence drenched culture of degradation and decadence that can only be saved by the grace of Jebus, or do we live in a culture of wussies and passivity? These wingnuts are pretty clueless.
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False dilemma. Our society is made up of excessively violent people and excessively passive people, and a lot of people between those two extremes.

But I think there is an increasing tendency to want government to take care of us, a tendency whose roots could probably be found in the New Deal reaction to the Great Depression. Certainly it's desireable to have government do those things necessary to protect us, but how far do we go, and how do we determine what is necessary for the government to do to protect us? The more we demand of government - and let us not forget that "we, the people" are the government - the more it will cost us (nothing is free), not just in terms of actual money, but in terms of the atrophy of our unused abilities to protect ourselves individually. We can demand the government protect us from online fraud (for example), but at the cost of not individually being able to recognize and protect ourselves from fraud when the government isn't around to protect us - from, say the guy going around the neighborhood offering to seal your driveway.

This is more or less stream-of-consciousness on my part, and it's not to condemn the reactions of anyone in Blacksburg on Monday - how could I, not knowing how it actually went down? - but I do get the sense that as our country has become more and more prosperous, we have lost a certain edge, a certain ability to fend for ourselves.

Good debate to have. And there are, I suspect, no easy answers.
 
BPSCG said:
False dilemma. Our society is made up of excessively violent people and excessively passive people, and a lot of people between those two extremes.
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I think that's what Tony was trying to point out.

General comment, not aimed at any poster.

I don't remember this kind of wussication talk after Columbine. It was about how violent our society was, now it's blame the victims for not taking action.
 
BPSCG said:
Our society is made up of excessively violent people and excessively passive people, and a lot of people between those two extremes.
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Exactly. It's ubsurd to make sweeping comments in either direction.

But I think there is an increasing tendency to want government to take care of us, a tendency whose roots could probably be found in the New Deal reaction to the Great Depression.
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In some aspects yes, in others, no. I'd also add that the roots of wanting the government to take care of us are also a reaction to the events WWII. Without the government to take care of us, we would have been conquered by the japs.
 
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I'm not blaming anybody for what they did, but it will be a much better world when people, as I've said elsewhere, are evolved to work together, to fight back, side-by-side, against the common foe (such as might have happened on Flight 93, Sept 11th, 2001) instead of laying down and playing dead....


I think George Carlin calls it "Pussification".

"It's called conditioning"
You're right it is... and ALL conditioning can be changed IF you want to to be changed... And the first step is imaging that you -WOULD- or that you at least MIGHT do something different in a similar situation.

Had 3 or 4 people rushed this nutter, and taken him down, sure, one or two of them MIGHT have died anyway, but the headlines would have read a LOT differently than they do this week.

How would YOU rather die? Like a wild thing, fighting for your very existence (and maybe even the existence of some of those around you) or would you rather be lead to your slaughter like some ignorant farm animal....

It's your choice.
 
ClintonHammond said:
I'm not blaming anybody for what they did, but it will be a much better world when people, as I've said elsewhere, are evolved to work together, to fight back, side-by-side, against the common foe (such as might have happened on Flight 93, Sept 11th, 2001) instead of laying down and playing dead....


I think George Carlin calls it "Pussification".

"It's called conditioning"
You're right it is... and ALL conditioning can be changed IF you want to to be changed... And the first step is imaging that you -WOULD- or that you at least MIGHT do something different in a similar situation.

Had 3 or 4 people rushed this nutter, and taken him down, sure, one or two of them MIGHT have died anyway, but the headlines would have read a LOT differently than they do this week.

How would YOU rather die? Like a wild thing, fighting for your very existence (and maybe even the existence of some of those around you) or would you rather be lead to your slaughter like some ignorant farm animal....

It's your choice.
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The problem is that resistance vs compliance is situationaly dependant on which one is a better strategy. In a hostage situation compliance is generaly a better plan, except when it comes time to be killed.
 
ClintonHammond said:
I'm not blaming anybody for what they did, but it will be a much better world when people, as I've said elsewhere, are evolved to work together, to fight back, side-by-side, against the common foe (such as might have happened on Flight 93, Sept 11th, 2001) instead of laying down and playing dead....
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Flight 93 had time to understand the situation and realize they were dead either way.

My understanding is that killing sprees happen very quickly, little time for rational decision making.

I have little familiarity to the sound of gunfire, an unfamiliar bang would probably cause me to freeze or duck for some period of time. After that, I would think my first instinct would be move away from the sound. Gunfire indoors is really painful loud.

Read up on police shootings, people do crazy things when they are jacked up adrenaline and things are happening fast.
 
Maybe I'm giving the columnist too much credit, but he started by talking about the coverage, and not the actions of the students.

It seems wrong to criticize the actions of the students, simply because we don't know what they did, and it appears some of them were anything but passive. Furthermore, if you haven't been there, you simply don't know what you would do yourself.

On the other hand, I have noticed the trend that he started out with, and that is that in the coverage of the incident, it is portrayed almost universally as if the people under attack had no options. They could do nothing. Their only option was to run, hide, or play dead. In reality, there were other options, although none of them were good ones. Some of the victims may have even engaged in those options.

This columnist started by referring to Geraldo, and the assertion that the children needed to be protected. The columnist emphasized "children" and "protected". This, it seems to me, is where a flaw in our culture lies. I have heard this sentiment expressed in the coverage elsewhere. What I have not heard in any mainstream coverage is any discussion of teaching adults how to fight back in a way that is most likely to save lives, at a risk of losing their own.

I don't know what I would do in a situation like that. I've never been even close to such a situation. However, I know what I ought to do. I ought to take whatever action I could to prevent that guy from killing people, and if that means risking my life to save others, I ought to do it. I don't know if I would have the courage to actually do it, but that is what I hope I would do.

Do people think that message is presented in our society? Either in coverage of this shooting, or in general?
 
I posted this in the larger thread, but it seemed like this might be a better place:

This site has an interview (about half-way down the screen) with one of the shooting victims that I thought gave some interesting insight into what it was like in his classroom.

It's an edited version of an interview conducted by Chicago's ABC station.

http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/arc...19/157298.aspx

The ABC site has posted the uncut interview in two parts. I watched the first part from which most of the edited version appeared to come. He has some odd mannerisms at times (particularly when he describes having a strong impulse not to go to class that morning), but I found it interesting.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?sec...cal&id=5217694
 
BPSCG said:
False dilemma. Our society is made up of excessively violent people and excessively passive people, and a lot of people between those two extremes.

But I think there is an increasing tendency to want government to take care of us, a tendency whose roots could probably be found in the New Deal reaction to the Great Depression. Certainly it's desireable to have government do those things necessary to protect us, but how far do we go, and how do we determine what is necessary for the government to do to protect us? The more we demand of government - and let us not forget that "we, the people" are the government - the more it will cost us (nothing is free), not just in terms of actual money, but in terms of the atrophy of our unused abilities to protect ourselves individually. We can demand the government protect us from online fraud (for example), but at the cost of not individually being able to recognize and protect ourselves from fraud when the government isn't around to protect us - from, say the guy going around the neighborhood offering to seal your driveway.

This is more or less stream-of-consciousness on my part, and it's not to condemn the reactions of anyone in Blacksburg on Monday - how could I, not knowing how it actually went down? - but I do get the sense that as our country has become more and more prosperous, we have lost a certain edge, a certain ability to fend for ourselves.

Good debate to have. And there are, I suspect, no easy answers.
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Exactly. Very well-put. Thanks, Beeps.
 
IllegalArgument said:
Meadmaker, I want to know what points Mr. Steyn made that you agree with.
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This one, especially:

We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others.
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IllegalArgument said:
He has probably fantasized dozen times about how he would have leap up and stopped the gunman. In reality he probably would have wet his pants and cowered in the corner hoping the killer wouldn't notice him.
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I'm quite certain this would be termed an "ad hominem" attack. That you disagree with the writer does not give you any special insight to his character that you could predict how he would behave in such an emergency.
 
Mycroft said:
I'm quite certain this would be termed an "ad hominem" attack. That you disagree with the writer does not give you any special insight to his character that you could predict how he would behave in such an emergency.
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Why single out one particular ad hom from this thread? There are so many to choose from? It would be nice if more people could actually discuss the specific points raised by Mark Steyn's that they disagree with, rather than simply heaping invective on him.

I think Meadmaker has interpreted Mark Steyn's intentions correctly. The first paragraph of Steyn's article suggests that he has been put on the spot with a request for his opinion on the massacre. He then discusses the media coverage followed by a rehash of a previous article about the response of civillians to another shooting in the US.
 
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