It's been two weeks since I wrote about the use of tragedies to further political agendas, and it seems the Herald's circulation isn't wide enough to reach outside of Madison and have an effect on the national stage. The cycle of exploitation goes on. As the country mourns and families are vulnerable, a wave of pundits has descended onto the Virginia Tech murders like vultures on fresh carrion. Offering knee-jerk explanations, none backed by empirical evidence, mind you, these agenda pushers wrap themselves in a cloak of authority by senselessly debasing a complex tragedy into empty political crusades.
Groups all over the television are blaming everything ranging from psychiatry (Scientologists) to rock 'n' roll (old people) and the war in Iraq (homeless guy who calls me Nancy) as the sole catalysts to Cho Seung-Hui's rampage. By doing so, they are preying on the nation's sense of hopelessness in a time when America is scared enough to accept those easy answers, and to do so is grossly irresponsible. Where these fear mongers have the best chance of succeeding, however, is targeting the blame on a favorite scapegoat: video games.
We have seen this done countless times before. The Columbine High School shooting is most recent in memory, and every school shooting since it has been drudged up as a point of contention. The recent events are no exception. When the first scant details emerged a few hours after the disaster, lobbyist Jack Thompson came on Fox News and vehemently pointed to electronic media as the cause, stating, "These are real lives. These are real people that are in the ground now because of this game. I have no doubt about it." To immediately launch into political diatribe with zero information about the shooter and to so nefariously try to harness malice and panic for personal means is so outlandish that this writer has not the vocabulary to describe Mr. Thompson's character.
Really, Mr. Thompson? It was because of video games? That would be difficult seeing that Cho's residence had not a single game-related accessory within it, nor did any of his suitemates ever witness him "training to kill" using games as you suggest. How could Charles Whitman, perpetrator of the deadliest school shooting before Virginia Tech, been motivated to terrorize University of Texas in Austin in 1966 when there was nary a video console in existence?
Instead of trusting your own distorted vision of American youth, how about you ask them yourself if any of us has been motivated to unleash real world violence after a round of Halo. How about in Japan, where games play an infinitely larger role in mainstream society, yet the country experiences less than half the gun deaths per year that America does daily? How about the near scientific consensus that there is no causation between violent media and a dysfunctional individual? A more sensible conclusion would be that violent people are drawn to violent media, but even that is too simple of an answer to really be satisfactory.
What you must learn, Mr. Thompson, Dr. Phil and all the other crusaders, is that brandishing this type of alarmism simply proves you understand nothing about video games or the people who play them. To crucify something you know nothing about and to rest the blame of society's ills on its shoulders does not make you a hero — it makes you an ass.
Charles Lim ([email protected]) is a sophomore with no declared major.
