Yesterday, April 18, 2007, was an ironic day. At 30 Rockefeller Plaza, what can be described as a mult-media version of the Unabomber Manifesto was delivered to NBC News, from the Blacksburg killer, Cho Seung-Hui a.k.a. Ismael Ax.
Meanwhile in Webster, New York, Darrell Scott addressed the students of Webster-Schroeder school.. Scott’s daughter, Rachel, as the first person murdered in the Columbine shootings in 1999.
Seung-Hui’s manifesto is thick, dense and confusing. I haven’t seem much of what it contains. Those that have access to the all the documents can not honestly profess to understand it. Certainly I do not. I proceed not on what I understand but rather on what I believe.
Seung-Hui mentioned the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, on his video. Seeing that a connection was mentioned by Seung-Hui between Columbine and Blacksburg, it seems reasonable to explore one.
The last paragraph of the story on Scott:
Scott also talked about the need for a backward shift in the education system. He says there is so much focus on academic achievement today, and not enough on the heart and character building.
If you assume Scott’s identified problem to be correct, we have a problem. You can not teach character, if you can not teach morals, and you can not teach morals when you profess to the values of multiculturalism. I firmly believe it is better to be good than to be famous. It seems that Klebold, Harris and Seung-Hui beleived it was better to be famous than to be alive. It is as the idea of fifteen minutes of fame has become a non-negotiable demand.
Modern educational theory seems to hold that feeling good, a.k.a. self esteem, is more imporant than being good. In contrast, the classic Judao-Christian belief do unto your neighbor as you would do unto yourself, the Golden Rule, values being good over feeling good.
In a society that professes to value multicultalism, we are willing to poison our children’s minds with crap like self-esteem but prohibit the teaching of the Golden Rule. We have it exactly backwards.
Tags: BitsBlog, Social Issues
