Virginia Tech Mass Killing

I would like students to consider the many facets of yesterday’s mass murder at Virginia Tech in which a college student, Cho Seung-Hui, murdered 32 people, the largest mass killing in American history. I think this event relates to the college population more than any other, though it affects all of us in some way.

Firstly, the most common question students have asked me in the last couple of days is how something like this could happen? What would motivate someone to do such a thing? What do you think?

Secondly, does the tragedy bring into sharper focus the gun control debate? Could this event have been prevented with stricter gun control laws? Indeed, this is what a few students argued in my American Government course today and it has become a matter of debate in Congress already.

Thirdly, can we place this horrible occurrence in a broader cultural context? What is it about American culture that might produce events such as these or at Columbine?

I would also like us to deal with an existential question: Was the man who committed these murders evil? More generally does evil in the world explain why terrible things happen?

Finally, a question to consider is how safe you feel at Tunxis Community College. Could something like what happened at Virginia Tech happen here in Farmington, Connecticut?

Please be sensitive to this issue as you post your responses. 

Global Warming

I am putting together a panel discussion to be held on Thursday, April 26th  from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in room 201 on the issue of global warming, which has commanded the attention of my American Government students of late. A consensus has emerged that global warming is taking place, humans are causing it, and that a state of urgency exists to do something about it. However, in the spirit of this weblog’s concept, I want respondents to approach the topic with an open mind. Just because there is in fact a consensus, it does not follow that we ought to blindly adhere to it. There was once something called the cold war consensus in which unanimity existed between liberals and conservatives to contain communism. That consensus led America into an ill-fated war in Vietnam because no real deliberation or discussion occurred in the 1950s and early 1960s. A consensus based on “scientific” analysis existed in the southern states in the 1850s that the brains of African Americans are smaller than their white counterparts. In the early 20th century a consensus emerged within the eugenics movement that immigrants and the poor were genetically inferior to others. My main point: a consensus is not always necessarily accurate and should be constantly revised and reassessed. After all, claiming the end of debate would never have given us Newton or Einstein. My questions are these: are humans in fact causing global warming, is this warming trend long lasting, what if anything ought to be done about it? Remember, we want to avoid the assertion that some scientists have made that “there is no more debate” on global warming. And those who disagree are merely politicizing the issue.

I have posted a few links for your convenience so that you can become more informed on the issue:  

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html

http://www.globalwarming.org/

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/page.cfm?tagID=274

I have also posted on the “Video Presentations and Clips” page a rebuttal of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth put together by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Please view the film first before watching the rebuttal. I would also encourage you to look at other critiques of Gore’s film, both supportive and critical.

Western Cultural Superiority

One of the key themes of my Western Civilization II course is the idea of Western cultural superiority. The idea is sometimes explored through an in-class discussion on the traditional Indian practice of sati, which consisted of the burning to death of women once they lost their husbands. In the nineteenth century, the British, who colonized India, outlawed the practice. Were the British correct in eliminating sutee? Did India have a right to preserve this cultural practice without an external force abolishing it?

What Matters More-Race or Culture?

Booker T. Washington argued at the turn of the twentieth century that 400 years of slavery had left African American culture in need of “cleansing.” Recently, African American scholar John McWhorter has commented similarly that the black illegitimacy rate, which has soared to near 70 percent since the 1960s, reflects a similar need for a cultural cleansing. McWhorter has helped shape a new paradigm which looks at culture as an explanation for social ills facing not only African Americans, but all Americans.  This paradigm runs counter to the ideas of Cornell West, for example, whose book Race Matters, makes a structural argument that America’s institutuions are inherently racist toward blacks. What do you make of this debate? Where do you stand on the ideas of Washington, McWhorter, and West?

The Vietnam War and Iraq War

One of the things my students debate is whether the Iraq War is reminiscent of the Vietnam War.  Much has been made of the comparison, especially among those who remember the Vietnam War. What do you think?

Cultural Differences between Immigrant Groups

In class the other day, my students debated the idea of cultural distinctions based on ethnicity that may lead to deviant behavior in some groups. If you would like to respond, please feel free to do so.

Abortion

I want you to think about the 1973 decision of Roe v Wade and how the nation decided to settle the issue of abortion.

Gay Rights

In our American Government course, we talked about two major actions taken by the Federal government, one opposed to gay marriage and the other a general defense of gay rights in terms of the states’ sodomy laws. Here is the full text of both the U.S. Congress’s Defense of Marriage Act (1996) and the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Lawrence v Texas (2003). Read the act of Congress and the Supreme Court ruling for yourself and draw your own conclusions as to how to interpret them.