It's the day after the Virginia Tech massacre and every talking head on the telly is asking the same two questions: Why did Cho do what he did and what does it mean?
The first question is pretty easy to answer: He was enraged at life, at the world, and his predicament in it. He wanted out and he wasn't going alone.
The second question is also pretty easy: There is no meaning.
Coming to terms with that answer is the hard part. If the killing had no meaning, no higher purpose, if the victims, young and beautiful and ambitious, weren't "fated" to die by a loving God who wanted them "to come home because it was their time," then their deaths were a horrible waste plain and simple. This conclusion, for so many people, is unacceptable. The absurdity of existence is a mountain too cruel to climb.
Yet if we face the music that life is random and that God will not intervene in human affairs, perhaps we can begin to take more responsibility for our actions here on earth. Health care, global warming, alternative energy are issues that demand realistic understanding of our human condition.
And gun control isn't the limiting of an individual freedom. It's a community project that recognizes that life is difficult and that people need people to thrive. Gun mania is symptomatic of toxic individualism energized by paranoia, alienation and existential dread.
Whither the future for America's youth? They will be watched every more closely and policed ever more strictly as they stay at home safely in front of the computer.
I am glad my boy is going to grow up in Canada where the social safety net still exists both as ideal of community and a reality of practice.
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