April 18, 2007
VT Voyeurism, part III
Just some odds and ends.
I do not support gun control, and I am somewhat sympathetic to those calling attention to the concealed carry debate that took place at VT over the past year or so. The administration came down hard on a kid with a legal concealed carry permit who had a gun on campus. The state legislature tried to pass a law allowing students to carry on campus regardless of the Admin's preferences and the university folks condescendingly attacked it. Then they condescendingly attacked any opposition from the campus itself.
The idea that the police can protect you from these kinds of things is ridiculous. The State is a large, unwieldy, blunt instrument. The restrictions on personal freedom necessary to "make us safe" are abhorrent to all freedom loving people. Concealed carry by law-abiding citizens does work, all condescending leftist opinion notwithstanding.
That's not to say I want a dorm-full of 18-20 year old males, sometimes drunk, always trying to impress the ladies, running around with firearms. But a reasonable compromise (no guns in the dorms, duh) seems something worth discussing.
- Ace is calling Mark Steyn to task because Steyn seems to be calling the students less than manly for not fighting back. It is too early to tell what happened, whether or not anyone "fought back". Rumors of people being lined up against the wall and shot are just that at this point, so let's not rush to judgment either way.
I would like to point out something I remember though. When Schindler's List came out I remember distinctly a conversation I had on more than one occasion (although I think I only started it once). The gist was Americans would not stand still and be lined up like animals to be shot by the Nazis. Let alone stand in line to save the Nazis bullets. We would fight back, every inch would be a slaughter, but nobody would be standing there or kneeling down to get shot.
This view of Americans was strongly reinforced by the story of Flight 93. Americans, knowing death was coming, were going to fight to the last breath rather than go calmly to their graves especially if by doing so they could save others. Remember the Alamo.
We don't yet know what happened, and even if people were lined up, maybe they didn't know what was coming, maybe it was the first room the killer entered into and people thought cooperation would minimize death. We don't know.
But, abstractly, contra Ace, we can and indeed we must expect heroism from everyone. It is hard, it is rare, but it must be expected. We must tell our sons and daughters that fighting against evil is what is expected of us and any other course is unacceptable. Cowardly.
Hero - Coward. There is no middle ground.
Why? Why do we tell them never to lie, even though we know everyone lies at some point?
One holds up an ideal knowing the ideal is unreachable, no one is or can be perfect. But the ideal must be there, giving us something to strive for, ultimately to fall short of, but to strive for again, and again.
No man is the knight in shining armor, but every man must want to be, imagine himself to be, not as some Walter Mitty fantasy, but as armor for himself for that time, that situation when he may be called upon to rescue himself, or someone he loves, or a stranger sharing a geology course.
The possibility of the noble, the heroic is what has been under attack in our mass media for too long. We must fight back, even at the cost of our lives.
That does not mean that I know I would fight back, it does mean that I hope I would. And it acknowledges the fact that, fair or not, we do look down our noses at people who don't. And we should.
I do not support gun control, and I am somewhat sympathetic to those calling attention to the concealed carry debate that took place at VT over the past year or so. The administration came down hard on a kid with a legal concealed carry permit who had a gun on campus. The state legislature tried to pass a law allowing students to carry on campus regardless of the Admin's preferences and the university folks condescendingly attacked it. Then they condescendingly attacked any opposition from the campus itself.
The idea that the police can protect you from these kinds of things is ridiculous. The State is a large, unwieldy, blunt instrument. The restrictions on personal freedom necessary to "make us safe" are abhorrent to all freedom loving people. Concealed carry by law-abiding citizens does work, all condescending leftist opinion notwithstanding.
That's not to say I want a dorm-full of 18-20 year old males, sometimes drunk, always trying to impress the ladies, running around with firearms. But a reasonable compromise (no guns in the dorms, duh) seems something worth discussing.
- Ace is calling Mark Steyn to task because Steyn seems to be calling the students less than manly for not fighting back. It is too early to tell what happened, whether or not anyone "fought back". Rumors of people being lined up against the wall and shot are just that at this point, so let's not rush to judgment either way.
I would like to point out something I remember though. When Schindler's List came out I remember distinctly a conversation I had on more than one occasion (although I think I only started it once). The gist was Americans would not stand still and be lined up like animals to be shot by the Nazis. Let alone stand in line to save the Nazis bullets. We would fight back, every inch would be a slaughter, but nobody would be standing there or kneeling down to get shot.
This view of Americans was strongly reinforced by the story of Flight 93. Americans, knowing death was coming, were going to fight to the last breath rather than go calmly to their graves especially if by doing so they could save others. Remember the Alamo.
We don't yet know what happened, and even if people were lined up, maybe they didn't know what was coming, maybe it was the first room the killer entered into and people thought cooperation would minimize death. We don't know.
But, abstractly, contra Ace, we can and indeed we must expect heroism from everyone. It is hard, it is rare, but it must be expected. We must tell our sons and daughters that fighting against evil is what is expected of us and any other course is unacceptable. Cowardly.
Hero - Coward. There is no middle ground.
Why? Why do we tell them never to lie, even though we know everyone lies at some point?
One holds up an ideal knowing the ideal is unreachable, no one is or can be perfect. But the ideal must be there, giving us something to strive for, ultimately to fall short of, but to strive for again, and again.
No man is the knight in shining armor, but every man must want to be, imagine himself to be, not as some Walter Mitty fantasy, but as armor for himself for that time, that situation when he may be called upon to rescue himself, or someone he loves, or a stranger sharing a geology course.
The possibility of the noble, the heroic is what has been under attack in our mass media for too long. We must fight back, even at the cost of our lives.
That does not mean that I know I would fight back, it does mean that I hope I would. And it acknowledges the fact that, fair or not, we do look down our noses at people who don't. And we should.
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03:22 PM
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VT Voyeurism, part II
The thing is, I am interested in the killer. I want to see the mysterious letter he may or may not have written (news accounts differ on this right now).
Why the difference? I don't care about the victims but want any info I can get on the perpetrator, why?
I imagine because in my mind I already know the victims. They are like me, they are (passably) normal. They've read some books I like, some I hate. They watch TV and movies and go to class and drink and sometimes skip class because they've been drinking.
They are like us.
He isn't. Our killer here is the other and I want to see who he was.
All the blame-casting that is going on is misdirected. It wasn't the administration's fault, and it wasn't the guns' fault. It certainly wasn't gun control laws or lack thereof that caused this catastrophe. It was the fault of one crazy person.
So why was he crazy, what kind of crazy was he? What Ideas helped to form his world and reinforce his crazy?
That's what interests me. I know the victims, even though I never knew them. They are us. I want to know our enemy so I can fight him.
Why the difference? I don't care about the victims but want any info I can get on the perpetrator, why?
I imagine because in my mind I already know the victims. They are like me, they are (passably) normal. They've read some books I like, some I hate. They watch TV and movies and go to class and drink and sometimes skip class because they've been drinking.
They are like us.
He isn't. Our killer here is the other and I want to see who he was.
All the blame-casting that is going on is misdirected. It wasn't the administration's fault, and it wasn't the guns' fault. It certainly wasn't gun control laws or lack thereof that caused this catastrophe. It was the fault of one crazy person.
So why was he crazy, what kind of crazy was he? What Ideas helped to form his world and reinforce his crazy?
That's what interests me. I know the victims, even though I never knew them. They are us. I want to know our enemy so I can fight him.
Posted by: l4n3 at
02:49 PM
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VT Voyeurism
The NYTimes has posted links to the myspace pages and facebook entries of VT victims. A friend asks me if I think looking is voyeuristic...
my initial response:
Well, voyeuristic for sure. But I'm not judging you
I don't know. I have no interest in it. I know they were all real people and that it's horrible they were killed, but I did not know them in life, getting to know them in death seems artificial.
Do we get to know them so we can better grieve them? Do we not have enough real grief in our lives without seeking enhancements from tragedies like these? Is it a way of cutting through the fluff of our lives or adding another
layer?
As Adam Smith points out, I can hear about the deaths of a hundred thousand in China, be deeply moved and then sleep more soundly than if I had slammed my pinkie in the car door.
Does it make it more real to "know them"? Does it need to be more real?
This is all just off the top of my head. I know the NYT did a similar thing with victims of the 9/11 attacks. Done in the name of remembrance. I was ambivalent to that too.
Don't know that I'm right or wrong on this one, just how I feel...
my initial response:
Well, voyeuristic for sure. But I'm not judging you
I don't know. I have no interest in it. I know they were all real people and that it's horrible they were killed, but I did not know them in life, getting to know them in death seems artificial.
Do we get to know them so we can better grieve them? Do we not have enough real grief in our lives without seeking enhancements from tragedies like these? Is it a way of cutting through the fluff of our lives or adding another
layer?
As Adam Smith points out, I can hear about the deaths of a hundred thousand in China, be deeply moved and then sleep more soundly than if I had slammed my pinkie in the car door.
Does it make it more real to "know them"? Does it need to be more real?
This is all just off the top of my head. I know the NYT did a similar thing with victims of the 9/11 attacks. Done in the name of remembrance. I was ambivalent to that too.
Don't know that I'm right or wrong on this one, just how I feel...
Posted by: l4n3 at
02:40 PM
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April 16, 2007
PYSK
The "People You Should Know" category (in the right side bar) is a list of academics, authors and old-school men of letters that are important to me. They have been part of an academic tradition on the right that has been largely ignored in the "popular" culture.
That's one of my pet peeves. Today in America, and around the world, the vernacular of Leftists Criticism is constant. It is the sea we swim in whether we like it or not. In college you learn everything you could ever want to know about Marx and more than you can stand of the Left Hegelians and the Right Hegelians and the Frankfurt School and the Postmodernists. (Right now your're thinking you didn't, but trust me, they got to you, unless you were an engineer, in which case you were too busy).
Industrialism, Imperialism, Exploitation, Alienation and the rest of it. Blah.
Quick, why are the poor, poor? The Man, the system, the inherent inequalities of the Capitalist system, right? You may not believe it, but you know the spiel.
Those assumptions underlay our entire popular culture. When was the last time you saw a good industrialist in a movie? A heroic banker?
The acceptance of the Leftist critique wouldn't chafe me quite as much if it wasn't based on ignorance of the Conservative defense. Most of the loudest Leftists in this country don't have the slightest clue who the PYSK people are, excepting C.S.Lewis, known for his fiction, not his academic and (broadly) Christian work.
I'll be referencing, and hopefully expanding upon a lot of the authors in that list from time to time, so do us all a favor and read them.
And I mean read the things they've written, not just the wikipedia page. I've linked wikipedia for now, but as I find better homepages for them or do write ups here I'll change that...
That's one of my pet peeves. Today in America, and around the world, the vernacular of Leftists Criticism is constant. It is the sea we swim in whether we like it or not. In college you learn everything you could ever want to know about Marx and more than you can stand of the Left Hegelians and the Right Hegelians and the Frankfurt School and the Postmodernists. (Right now your're thinking you didn't, but trust me, they got to you, unless you were an engineer, in which case you were too busy).
Industrialism, Imperialism, Exploitation, Alienation and the rest of it. Blah.
Quick, why are the poor, poor? The Man, the system, the inherent inequalities of the Capitalist system, right? You may not believe it, but you know the spiel.
Those assumptions underlay our entire popular culture. When was the last time you saw a good industrialist in a movie? A heroic banker?
The acceptance of the Leftist critique wouldn't chafe me quite as much if it wasn't based on ignorance of the Conservative defense. Most of the loudest Leftists in this country don't have the slightest clue who the PYSK people are, excepting C.S.Lewis, known for his fiction, not his academic and (broadly) Christian work.
I'll be referencing, and hopefully expanding upon a lot of the authors in that list from time to time, so do us all a favor and read them.
And I mean read the things they've written, not just the wikipedia page. I've linked wikipedia for now, but as I find better homepages for them or do write ups here I'll change that...
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06:38 PM
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The thing about blogging is
You actually have to do it. Imagine my surprise when I returned to my blog to discover nothing had been added to it...
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06:14 PM
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April 10, 2007
First Post Evah!
Why "longwinded"? Because I am and I can go on and on, about anything; politics, philosophy, sports, food, alcohol, whatever, on and on and on. Will try posting something real in the next few days, but in the mean time it will be silly little things and beta-tests...
Posted by: l4n3 at
06:48 PM
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