The Pendragon's Hall

Once again terror strikes our midst. Regardless of what the PC-crowd wants you to believe, willing it away simply does not work. We have been strangely fortunate since 9/11 not to suffer another foreign terrorist attack on our soil yet crimes like this seem to abound. A year ago, I traced the horror at Virginia Tech to a cultural obsession with searching our inner being. When we come in contact with the Darkness Within, it is only a short step till it overwhelms us. My heart is with the wounded and the families of those slain, including the killer's family. I cannot begin to imagine what unbelievable sorrow they are experiencing tonight and for the past two nights. But with fear in my heart, the Pendragon sees the spread of this terrible disease running far beyond the influence of violent video games or gun ownership. We are a society hung up on social and psychological aberrations. It has become a point of pride to demonstrate how "in touch" with one's inner self one is by listing your own disorderly conduct. A coworker of mine proudly told me the other day, when explaining why he doesn't get along with anybody, "I'm just OCD." In exasperation, I asked him, "Do you know what the 'D' stands for in OCD?" Turns out he didn't. In case any of my readers are unsure, it stands for Disorder. It's what we used to call in technical terms "a bad thing." It's not something to be proud of. Only a clinical psychiatrist is capable of truly diagnosing such a system for example (being a pain in the rear is a symptom of OCD but not necessarily the clincher). Children who don't want to pay attention in school simply say, "I'm ADD," and nobody dares contradict them. Try, "I'm undisciplined and need structure." At the risk of incurring the wrath of the mainstream of western consciousness, let me just say this: Charles Schulz correctly identified the beliefs of this culture and psychosomatic when he had Lucy counsel Charlie Brown, "As they say on TV, the mere fact that you realize that you need help indicates that you are not too far gone. I think we'd better pinpoint your fears. If we can find out what you're afraid of, we can label it." But as funny and believable as that is, it's absolute rubbish. Pinpointing your fears was supposed to be the gateway to fixing them, not to accepting them. I am unsure, at this early hour, what the stressor was for this young man in Illinois. I am a graduate student. I am even a graduate student who works part-time for little money and less respect while trying to get good grades and provide for a wife and child. Yet I can honestly say I never felt the urge to shoot up a campus. Is this because the man involved was some kind of monster beyond the reach of human understanding? Of course not. But what should have been drummed into him was social responsibility. John Stuart Mills identified it as each human having perfect freedom to pursue their own happiness within the limits proscribed by the same rights of all other humans. In otherwise, yes, do what you need to do to make yourself happy, but your happiness ceases to be important the minute it becomes the source of unhappiness (particularly the fatal unhappiness we have demonstrated here) to others who have the same rights you have. Mills has been falsely used to justify many things in terms of happiness to the greatest number (more on this some other day perhaps) but this vital part of his teaching has vanished from his society. Nerdy kids on the playground are told, "Get your rights! The world owes you a living!" TV commercials talk about class disruptors now making good money as standup comics. Britney Spears spends an entire album ranting about herself and how persecuted she is yet there is apparently no pressure on her to change her way of living to avoid the "persecution" (if one can call it that) she has received. It's all about me. News flash: I don't care what happened to you. You have no right to mercilessly gun down innocent bystanders. You have no right to endanger the lives of children who look to you for guidance and protection. You have no right to become president because you were a prisoner of war thirty years ago (oops, a little politics slipped back in there). And you damn well have no right to a living if you're not prepared to work for one! I am sorry but we have had forty years in this country of being "the sympathetic listener" who lay their patients down on couches to analyze every little thought they've ever had and place the blame on the parents, the teachers, the bullies on the playground, the churches, the leaders of the churches, the genetic code or what not. What they need now is a good swift kick in the pants. You're not the center of the universe, now get over yourself!