That's OK, Uncle LilWabbit...ramble on...LilWabbit wrote:Gee, someone should put a stop to my avuncular rambling. I have no self-restraint and I solely blame my parents for it.
I think your insights are very useful...School Shooting in Finland!
And one other topic that cropped up these past couple of days whilst chatting to myself and to other people, was the fact that there is absolutely no provision (NONE) in Finland for young over-achievers. In the other countries I have lived in (England, France) kids who are clearly "out of the box" are sometimes put into special schools, usually private, but also govt funded offering scholarships etc. These shildren often have all kinds of socio-psychological problems (eg verbal communication skills not too good, social interaction with peers is an issue) and are clearly better off in an environment which is tailor made for their needs (in the same way that children with learning difficulties are given special help). One of the findings of the Pisa study was that Finland was not producing over-achievers, right through the system. Any kid with more than his fair share of intellectual energy needs to be challenged in school and I don't think the Finnish system is able to fulfill that need.
(Am not implying that Pekke-Eric was an over-achiever but it would be interesting to know more about his early childhood.)
PS: Anyone who suggests that discussion and analysis as to the root causes of his behaviour are a waste of time, needs his own head examined.
(Am not implying that Pekke-Eric was an over-achiever but it would be interesting to know more about his early childhood.)
PS: Anyone who suggests that discussion and analysis as to the root causes of his behaviour are a waste of time, needs his own head examined.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 828084.ece
i dont know if someone read this but its quite crazy for a so famous newspaper
i dont know if someone read this but its quite crazy for a so famous newspaper
OMGCory wrote:Turunsanomat had an interesting article about the philosophical interests of the murderers Mom. Don't know if this has been picked up by Hesari or other media sources yet..For those interested (but understand this is disturbing to many)...
http://www.penttilinkola.com/
Interested as I read through some of the other onlines sites of this Linkola, how much of his thoughts could be seen in the online rantings of the teen.
and that guy calls himself an ecologist. 
"If the present amount of Earths population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then:
- Birthgiving must be licenced. To enhance population quality, genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth licences can be allowed to families of quality.
Anyway.... about the google thing. I think there has to be a good mix of using books to research information and also the computer.... and also other techniques such as interviewing people, experiments, visiting museums etc and as far as I can tell they do all of these in school. When mine did meteorites we used books (because we had them at home) but for some things where we don't have the books, or they are out of date, or we don't have time to go to the library, then we use the internet. There are some great resources on the internet and I think it is important for kids to learn how to use it properly (ie critical assessment of the materials they are using).
Many read it, and many also commented. As well as his two other stories.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 828084.ece
i dont know if someone read this but its quite crazy for a so famous newspaper
Indeed, the killer's mother was an avowed follower of Linkola's apocalyptic naturalism. Linkola has also praised the WTC attacks as "hitting right on the mark", as well as other terrorist attacks, ridding our planet of its worst pestilence - the human race - particularly the capitalist scum ruthlessly dictating its affairs.penelope wrote:OMGCory wrote:Turunsanomat had an interesting article about the philosophical interests of the murderers Mom. Don't know if this has been picked up by Hesari or other media sources yet..For those interested (but understand this is disturbing to many)...
http://www.penttilinkola.com/
Interested as I read through some of the other onlines sites of this Linkola, how much of his thoughts could be seen in the online rantings of the teen.
"If the present amount of Earths population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then:
- Birthgiving must be licenced. To enhance population quality, genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth licences can be allowed to families of quality.
Anyway.... about the google thing. I think there has to be a good mix of using books to research information and also the computer.... and also other techniques such as interviewing people, experiments, visiting museums etc and as far as I can tell they do all of these in school. When mine did meteorites we used books (because we had them at home) but for some things where we don't have the books, or they are out of date, or we don't have time to go to the library, then we use the internet. There are some great resources on the internet and I think it is important for kids to learn how to use it properly (ie critical assessment of the materials they are using).
The killer's own ideology was only a trifle more radicalized brand of the same anti-humanist tenets. And yet some here argue, to the point of seething anger, that parents and parenting have nothing to do with such violent acts - that some people "just flip out" and "become schizophrenics" without any apparent cause.
Well, there was certainly more vulgarized Nietzsche there than vulgarized Linkola. I have never liked the man, and yes, he certainly is an anti-humanist and anti-liberal, but given the premiss, his reasoning is quite logical. We can't ban a philosophy just because it is hateful and can further destabilize already unstable people.LilWabbit wrote:Indeed, the killer's mother was an avowed follower of Linkola's apocalyptic naturalism. Linkola has also praised the WTC attacks as "hitting right on the mark", as well as other terrorist attacks, ridding our planet of its worst pestilence - the human race - particularly the capitalist scum ruthlessly dictating its affairs.
The killer's own ideology was only a trifle more radicalized brand of the same anti-humanist tenets. And yet some here argue, to the point of seething anger, that parents and parenting have nothing to do with such violent acts - that some people "just flip out" and "become schizophrenics" without any apparent cause.
Nobody is suggesting ideological policing. Just because we cannot ban a radical philosophy in the name of freedom of thought, does not mean we should encourage them either.llewellyn wrote:Well, there was certainly more vulgarized Nietzsche there than vulgarized Linkola. I have never liked the man, and yes, he certainly is an anti-humanist and anti-liberal, but given the premiss, his reasoning is quite logical. We can't ban a philosophy just because it is hateful and can further destabilize already unstable people.
Society and its institutions have the right, actually the responsibility, to encourage at a very general level the embrace such values and thoughts as are constructive to the sustainable survival and advancement of mankind on this planet. This implies the attendant responsibility to discourage philosophies that promote just the opposite. However, such encouragement by public institutions should take place without any attempt to list such philosophies by name. The conscience of the individual to make an independent choice must be preserved. There is a real fine line between ideological control, on one hand, and unchecked pluralism giving rise to extremism, on the other. Netherlands, Germany, and to an increasing extent Finland is beginning to experience the symptoms of the latter, while the symptoms of the former are historically all too familiar and well-documented.
Parents, on the other hand, should be left entirely free to name the philosophies they consider detrimental to life and society, and to impart the values and beliefs they consider healthy and constructive. By adolescence, however, the parents should afford absolute freedom for the youth to make their own choice.
Yes, logical reasoning makes an ideology coherent, but it does not guarantee its harmlessness. Nazism, fascism and 19th century Russian nihilism were all logical. Prompting annihilation or selective cleansing is a close kin to all the foregoing creeds. Nietzsche and Linkola are not as far apart as one might think.
Logic is overrated, particularly if it serves as a justification for crime.
Well, I don't think that we really can find this crime overly logical... The thoughts were themselves incoherent and did not really relate to the awful actions. I would say that there were obviously deeper personal issues and conflicts at root, not some halfbaked, homemade ideology. About Linkola I meant that there is more to his thought than these individual scare quotes that he loves to give and the media loves to publish. He gets publicity, they sell newspapers. A match made in heaven, but there is nevertheless a coherent body of thought behind it all.LilWabbit wrote:Yes, logical reasoning makes an ideology coherent, but it does not guarantee its harmlessness. Nazism, fascism and 19th century Russian nihilism were all logical. Prompting annihilation or selective cleansing is a close kin to all the foregoing creeds. Nietzsche and Linkola are not as far apart as one might think.
Logic is overrated, particularly if it serves as a justification for crime.
Agreed. However even self-styled apocalyptic creeds have their theoretical and historical antecedents. A philosophy adds intellectual justification to any underlying personal grievance or handicap. Hence such creeds are also an ingredient and should not be entirely sidelined as factors (among others). Neither should we just shrug off the fact that the killer's mother "coincidentally" espoused a similar ideology.llewellyn wrote:I would say that there were obviously deeper personal issues and conflicts at root, not some halfbaked, homemade ideology.
Cyber School for Killers
The YouTube killer who shot dead eight members of his school in Finland before turning his gun on himself had internet contacts with an American teenager who was planning a shooting spree in a high school in Philadelphia, it was claimed yesterday.
The disclosure could turn upside down previous assumptions about the dynamics of school massacres. Until now, teenage killers were regarded as depressed loners whose imagination had been stoked by aggressive computer games. Now it seems that information may have been shared by potential killers over the internet: a virtual community of young people who idolise the 1999 Columbine High School murders.
“It’s highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey,” a spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police said. Dillon Cossey, 14, was arrested last month on suspicion of planning to storm his old school, Plymouth Whitemarsh. Police acting on a tipoff found a 9mm semi-automatic rifle, handmade grenades, a .22 pistol and a .22 single-shot rifle at his home. Less than two weeks later Auvinen, already a member of a shooting club, was buying his first gun — a .22 pistol — and expressing interest in a 9mm semi-automatic.
Police do not believe this to have been a coincidence. The two youths are thought to have made contact over two MySpace groups, “RIP Eric and Dylan” — a reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at Columbine — and “Natural Selection”.
Dillon Cossey used the alias Shadow 19462 on internet forums. Overweight and bullied, he had been withdrawn from Plymouth Whitemarsh and was resentful. His MySpace profile lauded the Columbine killers as heroes.The 18- year-old Finnish killer made a rambling testimony on YouTube, clearly drawing on the rhetoric used in the Natural Selection group and related chat rooms. His YouTube account — under the pseudonym Sturmgeist89 — included snippets from violent films, shots of him posing with his “beloved” pistol and tributes to other mass murderers. It was viewed 200,000 times before being closed down after the Finnish high school killings on Wednesday.
Police are trying to establish whether the Jokela massacre was in some way a copycat event or whether it resulted from an exchange of tips across the internet. Across Europe cyber-crime experts are nervous that some of the abuses on the net committed by Islamic fanatics could become a model for other marginalised groups. The diaries of the Columbine killers also give detailed guidance about their crime.
The two 18-year-olds in Columbine had planned to set the school on fire to spread panic. This appears to have also featured in the plans of Auvinen. However, he brought only a small quantity of lighter fuel, not enough to cause a blaze. Instead he relied on an enormous cache of ammunition for his Sig Sauer Mosquito handgun. He pumped 68 bullets into his eight victims; the 69th he shot into his own skull. Police found 500 rounds of unused ammunition in his rucksack.
“We have to look out for the warning signs,” said Tonni Karpela, a Finnish security expert. “Plainly there is a problem if a young person openly espouses violence and regards it as a solution.” Finnish authorities were trying to piece together the clues on the internet and in the classroom. More concrete measures to protect schools have been ruled out. “I am firmly against metal detectors in schools,” Mr Karpela said. “That won’t make pupils feel better or more secure.”
The Government has said that it will look again at gun control regulations but it is unlikely that they will be tightened severely. Guns are common in Finland: 56 per cent of the population owns one. Everybody over the age of 15 can apply for a gun permit; usually the applicants are hunters. Auvinen was a member of the Helsinki Shooting Club, which enjoys some notoriety in the capital. Eight years ago a member suffering from schizophrenia shot three men dead.
“If we suspect anyone of being mentally sick we will not accept him as a member of the club,” Mari Kiuru, the owner of the club, said. Auvinen showed no outward sign of psychological problems, even though his schoolmates noted that he talked obsessively about his gun.
Unlike in the case of Dillon Cossey there is no sign that Auvinen’s parents were drawn into his fantasy world. Dillon Cossey’s mother has been arrested in America for buying weapons for her son. Auvinen’s parents are regarded as somewhat bohemian in the small dormitory township of Jokela. His father plays part time in a jazz band and composes his own music; Auvinen’s mother is an activist for the Greens. They are regarded as stalwart members of the community and neighbours describe them as a “normal family”. Since Wednesday they have been living under police protection.
