The Pendragon's Hall

The Pendragon wishes to express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims of Monday's shooting spree at Virginia Tech. In times like these, it is customary for liberals to jump on the bandwagon of gun control and conservatives to leap on the issue of violence in video-games and movies, but with all due respect, neither comes close to solving the problem. The fundamental problem with our society is what the late Rochester historian Christopher Lasch called "the culture of narcissism." As a culture we have become entirely too obsessed with ourselves. Therapy is a billions-per-year industry because we've been told to "look within" for the solutions to all your problems. Most of us are not going to become murderers, but we all partake of this basic culture--it's all about me. While the video left behind by the gunman ranted against the hedonism of certain rich kids, a picture is emerging of a loner locked in his room hating everyone, hating himself. It's pretty easy to guess what happened: when he wasn't popular, for whatever reason, he spent all his time alone wondering what was wrong with him and why nobody liked him. There is no answer within. Instead of hanging out with people and doing things with people, he just kept beating himself up. But what this always turns to in the end is a hatred of the outside world. After all, we can't blame ourselves, can we? One of his plays, which I will not quote due to the offensive nature of the language, contained a young man (much like him) griping because his teacher punished him for an obscene diatribe in the classroom. His friends comfort him: "You were only expressing your opinion." Narcissism: I get to do whatever I want and nobody can tell me no. If things aren't going the way I want in my life, it's not my fault--it's not something I could change. It's something that the rest of the world is forcing on me. His final video informed the world,“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.’’ It's not my fault--it's the world's fault. He is an extreme case, but there is a cultural undercurrent here of a culture obsessed only with themselves. To note this is not to say that he is a passive victim of an evil culture. He is responsible for what he did, and no amount of blaming the people at Virginia Tech for not inviting him to parties is going to change that. The Pendragon was actually worried about saying this, since it some could construe it as blaming the victims (which I certainly do not), but until we fix the narcissistic culture, we're still at risk for things like this. We can beef up gun control laws or we can ban violent video games, but that just rids us of the symptoms and not the problem itself. Nor is this narcissism a new, American thing--it's as old as Eden when our first parents put their own immediate desires before the longterm good of others. Now more than ever, we need to blend the God-loves-you message with the kick-in-the-pants message that each individual is not the be-all and end-all of the universe. You have rights, but you have responsibilities as well. The Pendragon is heartbroken over this tragedy and I sincerely hope that rather than fuel partisan bickering over tangential issues, this incident will bring Americans of all persuasions together to discuss needed changes in our culture, changes that can save lives rather than destroy them.