Tragic lessons

Many of us have tried to make sense of the murders and suicide at Virginia Tech on Monday. It’s hard to comprehend how one person can become so isolated, angry and hopeless that the only solution is to destroy life that he has come to loathe so fiercely. But it’s not simply the gunman’s actions that have unsettled my thinking.\nNot surprisingly, Cho Seung-Hui showed countless warning signs: extreme withdrawal and sullenness, refusal to communicate, violent poetry and plays described as “something out of a nightmare” with “twisted, macabre violence.” Although some faculty and administrators tried to intervene and referred Cho to counseling, I can’t help but wonder how many others just wrote him off as a “nut job.” What if just one or two more peers had refused to let this troubled young man withdraw from all human contact and emotion? What if he’d just heard one more reassuring, kind voice rather than another dismissal? Would the outcome have been different?\nWe’ll never know in Cho’s case, but it should serve as a reminder for us to be more attentive and attuned to the friends and strangers around us, to err on the side of kindness and compassion rather than avoidance, rejection and silencing.\nPredictably, the event has also reignited gun-control debates. Personally, I favor strict regulations, if not an all-out ban, on gun ownership. Yet some gun-rights advocates suggest that the solution is to eliminate gun prohibitions on campus (IU has such a policy). They believe arming students, staff and faculty members would prevent such a rampage. But do we want to create communities of fearful, paranoid citizens ready to pull the trigger at the slightest disturbance? That’s not exactly the model of a healthy, learning environment or trusting community.\nPerhaps most unsettling is the juxtaposition of our reaction to Virginia Tech with a largely apathetic public response to the “war on terror” in Iraq. Our national gaze is directed at Blacksburg, Va., as we mourn 33 untimely deaths. We have held vigils on our campus and observed moments of silence for the dead. And rightfully so.\nYet on Wednesday, over 140 people were killed just as senselessly in Baghdad in four separate bombings. My guess is most of us didn’t bat an eye. Our “war on terror” has (in)directly killed over 3,300 U.S. soldiers and caused anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. (A Johns Hopkins report puts the estimate at more than 655,000.)\nMy intent is not to devalue the victims in Virginia but to point out how selectively we mourn the loss of life. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we responded to the daily bombings in Iraq with the same grief and compassion for human life that we’ve directed toward the tragedy in Virginia?\nWhile we all try to make sense of the shootings and grieve over the victims, I hope we also reflect on the larger lessons and implications this ugly act has for our everyday actions and lives.