My beautiful species, my beautiful country

A quick disclaimer - though on my last post I claimed that murderous rampages like the one at Virginia Tech (or terrorism) are an indirect product of the pressures of sexual competition, it was certainly true that Seung-Hui Cho was also a very lonely, disturbed, and probably abused individual. The sexual motivation was there for Cho - and there's still a reason boys do this sort of thing and not girls - but we should remember not to underestimate the power of more well-known factors like abuse, neglect, and mental instability.

Alright, now that that's out of the way...

At a young age, I was taught that human beings were basically bad. That we are unparalleled in our willingness and ability to cause each other pain and suffering. Certainly, events like the Virginia massacre support this bleak reading. But then, every once in a while, my species manages to pleasantly surprise me - even amaze me.

I was amazed today when I read this:

Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.

A small tribute to Seung-Hui Cho, who shot his victims then himself on Monday, has been added to a growing memorial of stones in the center of the sprawling university in southwest Virginia where knots of weeping students continue to gather.

"I just wanted you to know that I am not mad at you. I don't hate you," read a note among flowers at a stone marker labeled for Cho. "I am so sorry that you could find no help or comfort."

The note, one of three expressing sorrow and sympathy for the gunman, a deeply disturbed English major, was signed: "With all my love, Laura." A purple candle burned and a small American flag stood in the ground nearby.

Even now, as I read that, I can barely believe it. The mass killer himself, being treated as one of the victims.

How could that happen? I'm betting it was the videos and photos Cho sent out, which made it crystal clear that he was in terrible psychological pain. But whatever the cause, the fact that Virginia Tech students mourned Cho himself gives me a kind of awed pride in my species, and my country. It's the kind of generous, empathetic attitude that would have been inconceivable even a few decades ago.

Maybe humankind is improving after all.


PS - I can't resist. One more article agreeing with my "It's all about sex" interpretation of school shooters. The article is extremely well written and has great interview quotes, although it tosses in some BS about sex culture being the product of a "feminised society" (it isn't; it's the product of a rich society. Japan has school shooters aplenty, and I can assure you Japan is not "feminised"). Check out the article anyway.