More stupidity from the NIU shooting

What is it about being attacked that makes us turn into blithering idiots?  Governor Blagojevich wants to tear down Cole hall where the shootings took place.  It’ll cost $40m but it’d be worth it because the students and faculty who were there would be scared to go back.

How is this stupid?  Let me count the ways:

  • The students in question will all have graduated by the time the replacement building is ready.
  • Cole hall is apparently in pretty good shape - how about some remodeling with a different color scheme, different flooring material, and a nice memorial in the building?  It could work wonders on those sensory memory cues.
  • Would a new building truly be any safer than the old one?  Or would it be a target for the next outrage?
  • What else could we do with $40m, assuing it exists and isn’t just being raided from our pension fund?  How about a memorial scholarship for Illinois students? And finally…
  • Just how much power do we want to give to some nut with a gun? 

Oy, vey..  One thing we are lacking in our secular culture is any notion of a cleansing ritual.  We no longer believe in demons (well most of us don’t) but memories can metaphorically demonize a place, making it painful or harmful to visit.  Religions long ago took note of this effect and most of them have some way of reframing a place to sanctify, purify, or just emotionally reclaim the locus of tragedy.  This is not to say the secular has nothing to offer, but only recently has the field opened up to the nonreligious.

So at the risk of sounding disrespectful, send in a priest, a rabbi a minister to do their thing.  And hold a candlelight vigil there in which even the nonreligious can say; “We repudiate terror, we step forward in spite of our fears.  It may be hard but the hard problem is the one that defines our courage.” For individuals who cannot cope, help those individuals any way possible.  But it seems like an admission of defeat to just tear down the building.

Posted by George on 03/03/08 at 06:31 AM
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