Virginia Tech and Violence

I'm still sad. I'm sad because this is truly a recurring nightmare. A young man with mental health issues feels ostracised by a community of peers and uses violence to express what he is otherwise unable to voice. The community is a good community of people who are not prone to segregating others and have attempted to connect with the young man. It makes me think back to Erikson and the affect of society on the individual. Certainly if the immediate community is not one which promotes violence then the larger influence of society must be coming into play. We can't discount the exposure to violent attitudes and actions at many levels within our society. It is accessible everywhere. We also can't discount this country's long standing difficulties dealing with mental health issues. We don't stand alone on the world stage on any of these issues which only makes the impact on the individual even greater. Although we have anti-bullying and zero-tolerance statues and policies around the country in communities and schools, I know of incidents just this year in New Jersey where these policies have not been applied by the local or school authorities. Just look at the videos of youth violence popping up on the internet. Do you think the prosecution of those involved is stopping the violence or merely curbing the desire to post it on the net? I think that it is time to face the truth about human violence and keep the conversations on-going in the schools so that it is not put aside, overlooked and forgotten until the next school shooting.