Hi Aqua,
Originally posted by AquaShrimp
The reason normal people don't kill other people is because (1) We can empathize with the other persons situation, and (2) we can correctly predict the negative consequences.
Eric and Dylan were sitting around talking about killing people like they were planning a party or a fishing trip. They couldn't feel any pity for the people they were about to execute, nor could they correctly understand that they were about to end their own existance. They may have known they were going to die, but didn't really understand the implications of it.
Respectfully, I'd have to disagree. I hate to frame it in these terms, but I minister to a congregation of people, many of whom are paid by the US Government to directly or indirectly kill people. They are all quite capable of empathy and love, they also do not do it merely because they realize that there will most likely be few negative consequences to their actions. They do their jobs because they feel that it is their duty to do so, and they do not believe that all killing is murder or even evil. This applies to a whole host of people who have to use deadly force in the doing their jobs.
Now all of the men I mentioned in that list of infamous names felt that the killing they did was necessary as well, they felt that they were advancing just and necessary causes, and eliminating evil from the world. The Jihadi suicide bomber who blows himself up in the market place killing scores of women and children thinks that he is doing inherently good. He is advancing true Islam, and doing the ultimate good deed of becoming a shaheed, and he is surrounded by an entire community that agrees with him.
Mental "Health" is defined as
"A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life." Someone who can't do these things is "sick." But the problem is the Nazis were able to do all of the above, so were the Soviets, so are the Jihadis. A mental health approach fails to take into consideration if the norms of that culture they are able to function in are good or evil, or whether what they do with the approval of a substantial part of that society is really "good" even though it is approved of and "normal." Smashing a Jewish shopkeepers window was "mentally healthy behavior" in Germany circa 1938 but that did not make it right.
Additionally, thirty minutes before the attack, Eric and Dylan took time to
apologize to the people they loved and indicated that they knew that it was going to cause them pain and great difficulty, they also frequently indicated that they knew they were going to die, that death would end the "pain" of their existence, and that it would be better than their lives:
Eric: "Say it now."
Dylan: "Hey mom. I gotta go. It's about a half an hour till judgment day. I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any cr*p this might instigate as far as (inaudible) or something. Just know I'm going to a better place. I didn't like life too much, and I know I'll be happy wherever the f**k I go. So I'm gone. Good-bye. Reb..."
Dylan takes the camera then and begins filming Eric. Eric's also wearing a plaid shirt that's either dark blue or black with white, with a white t-shirt on underneath. His lower half can't be seen.
Eric: "Yea... Everyone I love, I'm really sorry about all this. I know my mom and dad will be just like.. just f**king shocked beyond belief. I'm sorry, all right. I can't help it."
Dylan: (interrupts) "It's what we had to do."
Eric: "Morris, Nate, if you guys live, I want you guys to have whatever you want from my room and the computer room."
Dylan adds that they can have his things as well.
Eric: "Susan, sorry. Under different circumstances it would've been a lot different. I want you to have that fly CD."
Eric: (eventually) "That's it. Sorry. Goodbye."
Dylan: (sticks his face in the camera) "Goodbye."
This was no fishing trip, it was the great and final act of their lives, they saw their entire existences as rushing towards this point - this was what they were here for. A great and final conflagaration, a Berlin-like cataclysmic final battle that even in death would prove their superiority.
What we have lost in this equation, is the ability to judge their actions and say their ends and their actions were
evil because we have lost confidence that in the end there are absolutes like good and evil. Instead we frame things along the lines of "appropriate" or "inappropriate" and teach children
at best stituational ethics.
Don't do anything that will get you in trouble which is a far cry from saying to them
"Don't do anything evil whether or not you think you can get away with it.
I know my take is going to be unpopular but ethical relativism is going to be the death of us and our culture. What we need desperately is a healthy dose of absolutes. Murder should be seen as EVIL, not merely "unhealthy." The preservation of life should be seen as GOOD and not merely "desirable."
We sowed the wind when we abandoned the concepts of sin and righteousness, and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
- SEAGOON
