August 16, 2004
-
Topic: continuing education
In the last couple of days, I’ve heard from a couple of friends who I haven’t spoken to in a while. They both told me that they’re enjoying the work they’re doing post-college, and one of the main reasons is that they’re always learning something new. Majors aside, one of my friends couldn’t stop talking about politics and the books he’s been reading about current events. It seems without the “need” to choose classes and what to learn, people discover what they “want” to learn, and tend to pursue this type of learning with much more vigor.
Since I’m heading back to Wash U to promote my book, I’m going to start finding out what professors there I can meet up with to help me develop in the areas that i’m interested in, education, our culture, lifestyle, public policy, etc. etc., as well as sit in on some classes that sound interesting, and to get a better feel on how different class environments feel.
I’m also enjoying the conversations that are coming out of having so many foreigners over my house the last few days. My friend (Dr.) Phil from Sweden noticed a .22 caliber rifle in my dad’s basement (my dad is a target shooter for many years) and commented on an enormous billboard he saw on the highway the other day of a machine gun that read, “coming to a home near you.” I haven’t seen all of Bowling for Columbine, but I reflected for a minute on how the shootings at Columbing lead Michael Moore to create a movie on how guns are a major problem in America. While I have been a huge supporter of Moore for his recent books and Fahrenheit 9/11, I question the argument that eliminating guns will eliminate gun violence, in the same way I question the argument that eliminating terrorists will eliminate terrorism. I believe the problem of both gun violence and terrorism are more fundamental and relate to people as much as weopons, and those are the issues that seem to be ignored. In the recent magazine edition of “Adbusters,” they describe how the Columbine killers suffered depression and were being popped with anti-depressants. Guns or no guns, there motivation to kill was fueled by the way society handled them as people, as well as their views of how un-educated most people are. They were essentially terrorists, and it will take a change in culture as much as a tough stance on guns and terrorists to fix the problem not over the course of a presidency, but over the course of a generation or longer.
Comments (1)
I agree that surface solutions won’t solve problems. We need to go deeper, to look at ourselves and stop blaming others. Parker (see comments to previous entry) also talks about movements, which begin, he says, when people decide to live “divided no more.” When they decide to follow their hearts rather than the expectations of society, they begin to match what they feel inside with how they live on the outside. As soon as we do that, he says, “the enemy stops being the enemy” because all is becomes one. It disempowers the enemy by realizing that he can do nothing to you that could be worse than what you might do to yourself: live a divided life.
What does this say about terrorists and guns? That their power over us is only as great as we allow it to be. That they can only have power if we are complicite in that power. That they can’t treat us any worse than we treat ourselves.
It’s a beautiful thought. I’m still trying to work out how that might work in “real” life. As you say, we need to think about how we, as a society and as individuals, handle people (and ourselves). We need to grow hearts that are bigger than our fears.