Quiet Ones

Another rampage at a public school. More children dead. A child with unknown motives in custody. A community, and a nation, asking "Why?" The incessant and familiar refrain: "He was quiet."

And as the old saw goes: it's always the quiet ones.

Why? Why was he "quiet?" Quiet compared to what? Was he mute? Did he not raise his hand in class? Did he not talk about his home life, or school, or girls, or football? One girl said: "He didn't speak up for himself much." Why would he have to?

We know what went on here, even if we don't know. Here was a boy who felt he had to deal with whatever was troubling him by exacting revenge in the most violent fashion. He had a purpose, he had a plan, and we may never know either with certainty, but we do know what he did, and his innocence is assured by the Constitution but his guilt is written in blood on a cafeteria floor.

What happened? We know. We know in our hearts, in our minds, in the distant and dim recesses of our memory. We remember high school. We remember cliques. We remember who was popular and who wasn't. We remember being picked on. We remember the unremitting degradation at the hands of and through the words of others. We remember going home to find solace, only to be cast into more turmoil of an even more personal nature. We remember going to a room, closing a door, trying to shut it all out, wishing the pain and humiliation would magically abate, blown away as dust in the gale.

We have felt the pain, the sorrow, the lamentation of another day in those "hallowed" halls, wherein torment lies. We have been witness to it, perpetrator of it, or victim, but we know it. The artificial social environment that is the American high school is a well-oiled machine, grinding up and spitting out children on the doorstep of adulthood, with the same rigorous machinations for children now as existed back when we, too, ambulated among the lockers and classrooms. Names, faces, and sneakers may change, but there is always the undercurrent of "Us" versus "Them" that clings to every surface, that adheres to every nascent Freshman soul, and permeates the atmosphere like a sickly and awkward fog. The subdivisions are artificial, highly dubious, and maintained with a Machiavellian tenacity that survives the generations, not unlike the spore of a virulent plague.

The meaning of Chardon, Ohio is as clear to us as day, but as impenetrable to the popularity-obsessed culture in which we reside as the blackest, Moon-less night. We know in our heads what happened, but our minds will not accept the reality of the situation, preferring pat answers and off-the-cuff observations to truth. We refuse to acknowledge that far from the responsibility of the young man who did the killing, each and every one of us had a hand in this moment, where we could not act or where we tacitly supported those concepts that led to a moment of panic and ultimately, death. We have built the society that glorifies blood, that pampers the popular, that places looks above smarts, and that continues to perpetuate stereotypes that have no business being part of our culture. We give implicit approval to a society that speaks volumes on its problems, but is silent on solutions.

This boy will face his punishment and serve his sentence, both within and without. He will be condemned by our nation, as much as he was condemned to a life that led to these circumstances by that self-same nation, where the well-known problems of our society are left to run riot while we tune in our favorite show on the television, the one where the problems are always solved, or at least, mitigated. We pull down the blinds and peer at our screens, content to live in our world vicariously, while outside the door, poverty, malnutrition, poor education, and the many ills of society wander loose, to collect the souls of the unwanted and the unloved. This moment, like Columbine before it, is the warning; let us pray it does not take another such moment to rouse us from our insularity. Our youth cannot afford the cost.

Ignorance In The Time Of Knowledge

The oddest part of humanity's march into the 21st Century, a time of global telecommunication and the interchange of knowledge, is the growing prevalence of ignorance in society. Not the simple ignorance of not knowing things, which is the root of curiosity and the quest for answers, but the ignorance of fact and reason, the actual gainsaying of established convention and lines of thought, which were the basis of the very revolutions that brought about the Industrial Age, the Space Age, and the Information Age. The negation of that which is known, that which is verifiable, repeatable, and fundamental to the operation of the universe, is a conundrum; that so many would profess their disbelief in such things so publicly, an enigma.

Now, this is not anything new; human history is replete with such stories, of philosophers challenging conventional wisdom of their age, decrying the intervention of all-too-human gods, or coming up with simple and rational explanations for natural phenomena. Archimedes, Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Bohr, Einstein... the list of scientists and thinkers who have endured the questioning of their precepts and theories in the face of indisputable evidence or, at the very least, plausibility and potential confirmation through further experimentation, is very long. Those who challenged the status quo, who tore away the curtain to reveal the true operation of the world, separate from the machinations of angels and demons, were reviled in their day, marked as charlatans, and, even when their predictions came true or their theories confirmed, still challenged by those who would not so easily let go their grip on cherished beliefs.

Yet, in an era when so much of what has come before is comfortably ensconced in the pantheon of knowledge, there are those vocal critics who would seek to rewrite the operating system of the universe, to dismiss the operations that are fundamental to its existence, and claim that they know the true intention or methodology of the creator. The look at theories, which are so in name only now, and claim that they are merely "theories," contradictable by "evidence" that is as plain as the nose on your face. What is most astonishing, is how easily that skein of unreason is picked up by the general populace, having apparently been conditioned not to think for themselves, but to regurgitate the missives of others.

The fault lies in ourselves, as does so much of what is wrong in the nation, the world, and the human race. Specifically, in America, education has taken a back seat to so many things. Curricula are still enforced by the States, each with a very different take on what parts of math, science, history, and English are important, constantly changing their criteria, and forcing children into rote memorization of incomplete and often erroneous information, simply because that is what is printed in a text book. The art of teaching is being reduced to ruins in the hands of administrators who are busy collecting the perks of their position, even as teachers are sacrificed on the altar of reduced school budgets and funding. Teachers can no longer teach, but must instead prepare students for unending series of standardized tests, which can no better assess a child's learning ability than an actual teacher. We have slowly taken away the core and fundamental skills of logic, reason, experimentation, and curiosity, and replaced them with pat answers, Internet searches, and performance evaluations.

That we seek to dilute knowledge, can it, prepackage it, and cover it in half-truths and obfuscations, is a reprehensible use of the intellect that humanity has developed over millions of years. While many might shudder to think of themselves descended from apes, they are hardly bothered by the idea that human society is regressing toward their primitive ancestors, by giving up, wholesale, the very advantage that put so much distance between us on the tree of life. That these purveyors of ignorance are given unfettered and unchallenged access to the world, and that there is no hue and cry loud enough to drown them out, may prove to be our epitaph.

As always, hope springs eternal. While the majority may choose to wallow, the edges of humanity continue to move forward, to learn new things, explore new places, and bring us closer to an understanding of the creation of our universe. Science does not seek to replace God, only allow us to read his mind, tease apart the puzzle that has been left for us, and to make our own destiny. In seeking truth and knowledge from the depths of atoms to the distant reaches of the cosmos, we are not forsaking the creator, but delighting in the creation, seeing what a wonderful and marvelous place we live in. If our ultimate goal is to be closer to the source of the all, then science is the light that leads the way. There is no profit in denying the truth or misspeaking the facts; to do so only condemns us to an ignominious end. To broaden our horizons, to spread our minds across the stars and down into the heart of everything, is to enrich us, to let us grow, and to bring us closer to ultimate truth. Isn't that what we want, ultimately?