It’s Human Nature

“Sometimes I wonder... will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? Then I look around and I realize... God left this place a long time ago.”

These profound words were spoken by Danny Archer (Leo) in the fab-u-lous movie Blood Diamond. I remember them well because I thought of how accurate the statement was, especially in light of the recent school shooting.

Reading and watching the story unfold of the Virginia Tech shooting is hard to absorb. However, as sad as I feel for the family and friends of the innocent victims, part of me is not shocked by it. With all the murders, war, and horror movies that surround us daily we are so accustom to seeing violence that I think I’m immune to it.

To get a clear understanding of the incident I read a few articles in the Globe and Mail today and amongst all the upsetting detail the one thing that bothered me was the immediate blame placed on the school. This always makes me angry. Instead of focusing on why this happened or how to prevent it, it seems to be human nature for the need to place blame. Why do we do this??? Is it so we can feel better about the world we live in or do we think that by blaming one person or group it won’t happen again? If you stop to notice you will see that this need to blame happens all the time. For example, once the Twin Towers collapsed the discussion quickly turned to blaming the architects and how the buildings were made.

We are only human and as a result I believe it is in our nature to think that people are good at heart. Perhaps that is why mistakes happen and why we are not always prepared for such circumstances. If our society was a little more understanding of this notion I believe the president of Virginia Tech would be able to say, “We just never thought it would happen to us, so we didn’t know how to handle it.” To me, that is fair and honest answer. How is a school ever supposed to be prepared for something like this? We can say, “I would have done this!” or “They should have done that!” but you really don't know what you would do until you actually experience it. The school was delayed in communicating to its students but at this point there is nothing to gain by placing blame.

If you are one of those people that need to place blame, I suggest you could go as far back as our ability to buy guns in the first place. Blame gets people nowhere, it is how you move forward that makes all the difference.