Posted on 04/16/2007 9:26:36 PM PDT by goldstategop
Within hours of the massacre of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University, the president of the university issued his first statement on the evil that had just engulfed the college campus and concluded with this:
"We're making plans for a convocation tomorrow at noon in Cassell Coliseum for the university to come together to begin the healing process from this terrible tragedy."
In this photo provided by the Collegiate Times, ambulances wait on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., following multiple shootings, Monday, April 16, 2007. At least 30 people have been reported killed. (AP Photo/Collegiate Times) Other university officials also spoke about beginning the healing process and about bringing in counselors to help students heal.
I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral.
It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized -- especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and "closure" before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.
Not to allow people time to experience their natural, and noble, instincts to feel rage and grief actually deprives them of the ability to heal in the long run. After all, if there is no rage and grief, what is there to heal from?
The Jewish tradition, still observed even by non-Orthodox Jews, is to sit "shiva" (seven) days and do nothing but mourn and receive visitors after the death of an immediate relative. One does not have to be a religious Jew or even a Jew to appreciate this ancient wisdom.
It is not good for people to feign normalcy immediately after the loss of a loved one. People who have not been allowed, or not allowed themselves, time to grieve suffer later on. Any child who loses a parent and is "protected" from grieving by a well-intentioned parent who tries to act "normal" right after the other parent's death is likely to pay a steep psychological price.
Personally, I don't want to heal now. I want to feel rage at the monster who slaughtered all those young innocent people at Virginia Tech. And I want to grieve over those innocents' deaths.
This whole notion of instant healing (like its twin, instant forgiveness) is also morally wrong.
First, it is narcissistic. It focuses on me and my pain, not on the murderer and the murdered.
Second, it is almost obscene to talk of our healing when the bodies of the murdered are still lying in their blood on the very spot they were slaughtered. Our entire focus of attention must be on them and on the unspeakable suffering of their loved ones, not on the pain of the student body and the Virginia Tech "community."
This notion of instant healing and preoccupation with the feelings of the peripherally involved, as opposed to the feelings of the directly hurt and anger over the evil committed, are functions of the psychotherapeutic culture in which we live.
I am an advocate of psychotherapy -- I frequently feature a psychiatrist as a guest on my radio show. But a major downside of the psychotherapeutic culture is that it regards everything in life in psychological terms and is preoccupied with feelings and the elimination of pain.
Pain is necessary. I far prefer a Virginia Tech campus filled with students enraged at the monstrous evil just committed and filled with grief over the deaths of so many of their fellow students than a Virginia Tech filled with students worried about healing their own pain.
Immediate talk of "healing" is not the only rhetoric we should drop. Let's also drop the nearly universal moral absurdity of counting murderers among the dead. As of this writing, eight hours after the massacre, I see on all the networks "32 dead." It should read "31 murdered." I do not know when exactly this notion of counting murderers along with their victims began, but it is a moral travesty.
No news organization would have imagined giving the number of dead at Pearl Harbor so as to include Japanese pilots shot down. But in our age of moral neutrality, all dead are given equal weight -- the terrorist along with his victims; the shooter along with the students.
Why is the Virginia Tech murderer always referred to as the "gunman" and not the "murderer"? Had he stabbed a dozen students to death, would he be the "knifeman"?
And why is it always referred to as a "tragedy"? Virginia Tech wasn't hit by a cyclone. That would be a tragedy. This was evil. Call it that.
We have embraced emotion-numbing, righteous-rage-denying, morally neutered, therapeutic language. It is as as much a part of our national crisis as are the acts of evil we refuse to identify as such.
Eloquent post, goldstategop. Thank you.
as usual, dennis is correct.
i agree with you.
these matters cannot be reduced to simplifications.
I agree. Our society does not allow for the grief process.
there was a reason people wore black for a year or more after the death of a close relative. It was ackowledgement of the difficult transition they were going through.
People’s grief was respected and they were granted an extra measure of tolerance, compassion and help from their friends and the community.
If we don’t grieve when we need to, it can also have very strange emotional consequences later. If I hear one more time this damnd phrase, “ let the healing begin” for everything!( oh, and right away).
I disagree with the author on one point. This IS a tragedy. Because the people were so young and it was so needless. Evil can bring tragedy...the holocaust was another example of evil bringing great tragedy.
Agreed!
A good way of dealing with the grief would be to reveal the killers name, age, and race. That alone may help some people find some answers to questions regarding possible motives.
Moving moving and wise comment. Thanks.
“I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral.
It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day”
Hell, we healed from 911 in a year. Now people even think the victims deserved to die. We heal quick these days...at least the ones not touched more than in passing by the tragedy!
Oops! Not tragedy, I mean the evil!
Oops! Not tragedy, I mean the evil!
Agree with Prager and your post completely.
G-d bless you for such a heart felt post.
Nicely written, I like this Prager guy, this is the second brilliant essay I’ve seen by him and I think I’ll read further from now on whenever I see his name. Guy understands human nature.
I am sick to death of hearing about “The healing process”. Why is it that these days any event more sever than a stubbed to requires grief counselors, anger counselors, etc to allow everyone affected to start healing. People used to be able to deal with things in their own way without outside assistance. They would grieve or not and move on with their lives as they chose. Now we have to have a million candles, cards, teddy bears, etc piled up at the location of an incident so that everyone can see how bad we feel about what happened. I guess I’m cynical, but it’s just so much BS to me.
Well said. This clown show of ‘healing’ was the SAME crap that was spewed around in the smoking ash of the World Trade Center at Union Square in New York. I saw all kinds of garbage at the hippiefest of ‘healing.’ One midnight, I went over there when all the hippies were asleep and took a great big black pen and added to their signs that said ‘Peace’
Of The Grave To Osama Bin Laden.
I hope those hippies hated it.
“It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized — especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and “closure” before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.”
He’s right.
I’ve been through trauma, shock, denial, and grief.
Healing doesn’t kick in for quite awhile and there’s nothing wrong with that.
There are certain stages you have to go through and they can’t be rushed.
Sounds like the school don’t want to deal with truth and wants to get this episode over with as soon possible!
Reality has not even set in yet, how can the School rush this it is very bazzar!
out of site, out of mind they hope!
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