I think that we, as Americans especially (maybe it's true for all of humanity, I don't know), have to be really careful that, in the wake of something that makes us feel insecure or unsafe - like a tragedy - we don't see our mistakes as more than they are, and push too far the other way.
After 9/11 we said, "never again," and then came the patriot act.
Now, after the VATech shooting, some people are looking at creative writing as indicative of potential violence. But if stuff is happening like what's in the link up there, it needs to stop. Good god, if violent writing meant violent behavior the writers of Saw, Fight Club, and Braveheart should be mass murderers - we need a little perspective.
3 comments:
I think to problem with this writing is it was in the first person, and contained sentences directed at the teacher like 'you will be responsible for [this] school's shooting' ... I don't know that it warrants an arrest, but that boy certainly has problems.
Yeah, but the assignment was supposed to be that they wrote and didn't censor themselves. You're gonna get all kinds of crazy crap if people aren't censoring themselves, but it doesn't mean they're psychos.
But also -- wasn't the assignment to write what comes to their mind? not necessarily fiction. I think that's where the gray area comes in. If whatever it is that he wrote was very obviously fiction I doubt he would have been arrested.
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