VA Tech Shootings: Poetic?

What I think. I like making up crazy theories too.

First of all you have to understand who Cho Seung-Hui was. A male Korean in an English major. I couldn't find the race and gender make-up of those taking an English major at Virginia Tech but I'm suspecting that Cho was close to alone. I also want to clarify something. Cho's religion had little to do with his actions! I'm just curious to know why, when something terrible occurs, its automatically assumed that the person is a Muslim? I'm not saying that Cho was a Muslim because the numbers would say otherwise. We all well know of the horrors Christianity has committed in the name of God.

From my perspective, Cho was almost a poetic genius, insane, but still poetic nonetheless. You can almost envision what went through Cho's mind by the tattoo on his arm, "Ishmail's Ax" or "Ishmael's Ax." I don't know how he had written it on his arm but it's somewhere along those lines. "Ishmael's Ax refers to either, an event in Islamic theological history, or an excerpt from Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth's Ishmael. Personally though, I think Cho's final actions reflect the event in Islamic theological history.

"Ibrahim Confronts his People and Rejects their Idols. He left his father after he lost hope to convert him to the right path, and directed his efforts towards the people of the town, but they rejected his call and threatened him. By Allah, he said, I shall plot a plan to destroy their idols. He knew that a big celebration was coming soon, where everybody would leave town for a big feast on the riverbank. After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don’t you eat The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his axe he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left."

Here is some background information.
Ibrahim = Abraham, Ishmael is one of two of Abraham’s sons.
Ishmael has come to represent orphans, exiles, and social outcasts.

*I'm going to attempt to match Cho's actions to certain events in this bit, but bear in mind that I'm no professional and my reasoning is probably whimsical at best.*

"Ibrahim Confronts his People and Rejects their Idols."

It's obvious by Cho's writing the amount of hatred he had for the rich and privileged. In a way Cho had confronted our society within himself and he rejected their idols, money. We can argue how he confronted it but you can't argue that money isn't an idol. But what else constitutes an idol? We as a race idolize ourselves...

“...I shall plot a plan to destroy their idols.”

If I'm right in any way, then Cho definitely put a lot of planning into what he did. Assuming that his actions were modeled after this portion of Islamic history and how he was effective in executing his plans. But regardless of the relationship between Cho and the story, he did plan out what he was going to do. At the very least two months in advanced; he had bought the hand guns that he used, on Feb 9th I believe and March 13th, I’m too lazy at the moment to go and check.

“He knew that a big celebration was coming soon, where everybody would leave town for a big feast on the riverbank. After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax.”

I believe that Cho used the first shooting as a diversion, in order to draw security away from the Norris Hall thus delaying their response time, allowing Cho to chain the doors shut and begin his killing spree. Cho could also have known that knowledge of the shooting in the dorm wouldn’t have spread as far as it could have and he may even have been planning on the lockdown incident. Cho succeeded though; everyone was lost amidst the confusion.

“…with his axe he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left."

Regrettably, Cho proceeded to write his name in history with infamy. The video he mailed to NBC was his way of hanging the axe around the neck; letting the world know why he did it, and perhaps how. Cho destroyed what securities we had about ourselves and individuals around us, whether that was his intention or not.

I think Cho’s actions were poetic. I’m not justifying them; in fact, it’s horrendous, what he did. He rewrote this account in his own fashion. A form that he had been using in the poems he wrote in his English classes.

Who is to blame for this though? Was it Cho or society for goading him into his lifestyle? In this case, I blame both. Cho; for allowing the thoughts to manifest themselves into destructive conduits, and society; for being what it is, judgmental and ignorant.

Perspective: My honor, and yours as your own

My interpretation of honor is the difference between a person's and society's view on how well the person follows the "code of conduct." The code of conduct is merely a personal perspective on ethical guidelines; a definition of what is right and what is wrong. But what defines what is ethical and what isn't? Was it ethcial for a human being to keep another as a slave? At the time, it was, but in our day and age slavery is looked upon with a sense of repugnance. It is ethical for us to profile others based upon their race, creed, sex, or nationality? For some its perfectly alright. So how do we determine was is absolute in ethicality? Is something ethical because the majority of us believe it is, or is it determined by what we as an individual believe?

Whether we realize it or not, we are goverened by honor everyday. Honor is not how we see ourselves, but how we think others see us. We are very sensetive to the apparent affectivity of others. If someone isn't sociable to us, we may interprete that as a fault of our own, and as honor would compel us, we would try to fix that. This happens on a subconscience level. Honor is a do or die object, though the "die" aspect has been lessend to forms of silent disregard to verbal attacks to directed physical violence, and in some rare cases death. When people "trash talk" us, we come under attack. What is being attacked though is our honor, our name. We respond to this attack with either a correction of ourselves, if the attack has some truth, or a physical or verbal retaliation in attempts to wound their honor even more than the damage they had brought upon ours.

Our honor is also affected by the integrity of our surroundings, namely, the people that we associate with. An example would be if our significant other was insulted in a way that wounded their honor it would be a direct assault upon our honor. This is also seen in what is known as "honor killings." Honor killings are defined as being the murder of a female, and sometimes her love-interests or other associates, for supposed sexual or marital offenses. This is usually done by relative with the justification that she had brought dishonor upon her family. This is a problem because even if she is a rape victim there is still a high chance for it to still occur, while the rapist gets off scott free. There is also a different view of this. In order to avenge the rape, the rapist will be killed instead of the victim. The difference is: Did the woman's actions lead to her being raped? i.e. clothing or behavior.

Personally I think that I have a high sense of honor. My honor is my name and when my honor come into question I'll do whatever I have to in order disolve any doubts. This can and perhaps will become a problem for me in the future. Maybe I'm wierd, but I find that killing someone for wounding my honor is justifiable, though I don't find the "honor killings" to be.

The Purpose of the 8oz Can: The Universe We Really Live In...

I've decided to randomly write about various topics in life at least once every two days. This at least will hopefully keep whom ever finds themselves reading my wordy blogs, if not myself, highly entertained. I would also appreciate it if people would let me know of their opinions on what I may write about.

My goal with this blog is to write and ask questions on random but interesting things. An example of which would be, "How do paper towels absorb and retain water?," or perhaps find an answer to the question, though presented by an innocent child, which plagues the minds of many a parent, "Why is the sky blue?"

I'll also blog my opinions, my theories, and, in some rares cases, a classification of what traverses the far reaches of my mind thus resulting in my pointless banter. But enough for today, I don't feel like doing much of anything today except going to work and staying alive (As simple as this may sound it is actually quite a daunting task).

The Honored Project: Though not much honor in six minutes.

Right. So here I am, on yet another lucrative, time-sapping, website (blogger.com). I suppose that I have to write this anyway considering I did just make this blog ten minutes ago and what would a blog be without a post of some sort? Moving on... I'm sitting in class wasting what precious time I have to do school work, surfing the Internet. I probably should be researching my next speech for class but no, I just so happen to be conjoined to my computer. Its supposed to be an informative speech on a topic of my choice. I chose honor.

I have to prepare this speech in a forecast method, which is simply verbalizing what would otherwise be called, the traditional high school essay. Its mandatory that I provide a PowerPoint presentation and a handout for the class. How am I supposed to provide a handout dealing with honor? Oh well, I'll figure out something. But concerning my speech, thus far my main points are "What is honor?," "Medieval Theories of Conscience," and "As a Social Contract." I'm thinking that I'll make up some philosophical thought line concerning what honor really is, the difference in the impact of honor upon varying cultures, and why it seems as if it has almost died in our current day and age.

Thank god for Wiki, Google, and the powers that be.