Understanding violence
I can't stop thinking and reading about the mass murders at Virginia Tech on Mon. I live in a small and quiet University town much like Blacksburg, VA and the violence could very well have happened here. I also feel connected to the tragedy due to the deaths of two Indians, Professor G.V. Loganathan and Minal Panchal, a 26-year old architecture grad student.
I can't stop thinking about how this incident could have been prevented. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this is an instance where its not laws, gun control, security, preparedness or any of the other things being debated about that have failed. I think this is an instance where we as society have failed.
How could a young man as mentally ill as the killer go about his life without anyone noticing that he needed help? How did he slip through the cracks of his community, school, law enforcement, and the mental health system? How is it that no one he came into contact with in his everyday life, including his family, realize that he was so ill and needed help? Why didn't anyone help him before he reached the point where he snapped?
Mental illness needs help, treatment, and medication just like any other kind of illness. However, people who are mentally ill rarely realize that something is wrong with them; rather they think that others around them are the ones who are ill. How do we help such people? How can we as society become more attuned to and observant of the signs and symptoms of mental distress, given that people with mental illness are incapable of realizing it themselves? Or is it that the structure, culture, and ethics of today's individulalistic and materialistic society make it impossible to recognize and help mentally ill people around us? And hence, we are powerless to stop incidents like these?
I don't have the answers to these questions but like the thousands of people around the world tonight trying to understand this senseless, violent act, I wish I knew how we could prevent something like this from happening in the future.
I can't stop thinking about how this incident could have been prevented. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this is an instance where its not laws, gun control, security, preparedness or any of the other things being debated about that have failed. I think this is an instance where we as society have failed.
How could a young man as mentally ill as the killer go about his life without anyone noticing that he needed help? How did he slip through the cracks of his community, school, law enforcement, and the mental health system? How is it that no one he came into contact with in his everyday life, including his family, realize that he was so ill and needed help? Why didn't anyone help him before he reached the point where he snapped?
Mental illness needs help, treatment, and medication just like any other kind of illness. However, people who are mentally ill rarely realize that something is wrong with them; rather they think that others around them are the ones who are ill. How do we help such people? How can we as society become more attuned to and observant of the signs and symptoms of mental distress, given that people with mental illness are incapable of realizing it themselves? Or is it that the structure, culture, and ethics of today's individulalistic and materialistic society make it impossible to recognize and help mentally ill people around us? And hence, we are powerless to stop incidents like these?
I don't have the answers to these questions but like the thousands of people around the world tonight trying to understand this senseless, violent act, I wish I knew how we could prevent something like this from happening in the future.
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