Simply, evil is evil

By BOB CHANDLER

Special to the Hesperia Star
http://www.hesperiastar.com

May 27, 2007 - 6:16PM


Evil is.

It's been a number of weeks now since the slaughter of 32 people at Virginia Tech, and for the most part the word "evil" still cannot be found within most of the written articles concerning the massacre. Instead of labeling the actions of the lunatic Cho Seung Hui for what they really were, most writers and psychologists seem to prefer to use terms related to the word "narcissism," such as a "raging narcissist" and "homicidal narcissism."

Like most of you, I really didn't want to admit that I didn't know what the word "narcissism" meant, so I quickly snuck off to the closest dictionary to learn something new. Simply defined, the word narcissism means "excessive self-admiration and self-centeredness." The definition goes on to explain that according to psychiatry, it's a personality disorder characterized by the patient's over estimation of his or her own appearance and abilities and an excessive need for admiration.

In a polite way, what this definition tells us about Cho is that he had a severe mental problem that caused him to mercilessly kill 32 innocent people while wearing a smile on his face. Now that we've spent considerable time looking at the word narcissism, let's take a quick look at the definition of the word "evil" and compare the two.

The word "evil" is a simple term that most of us can relate to in one way or another. According to the same dictionary that I used before, the definitions of this word are: MORALLY BAD, HARMFUL, DEVILLISH, CAUSING MISFORTUNE, MALICIOUS, DISAGREEABLE, WICKEDNESS, SOMETHING EVIL. Now I don't know about you folks, but after comparing both definitions I would have thought that most learned reporters and commentators would have chosen the word "evil," to more accurately report the truth about what really took place and simply admit that the horrific acts committed at Virginia Tech were carried out by an evil person named Cho Seung Hui.

Evil is. It's a simple statement I know, but every one of us must accept the fact that evil really does exist and that we must all be ready and able to recognize it, defend ourselves from it and in some cases eradicate it, hopefully before it has the opportunity to challenge us face to face. For the most part, people accept the fact that evil people do exist, but for some in the media and others in prominent positions of leadership, within our major colleges, it remains their adamant belief that it's an "evil environment" that drives people to commit horrendous acts of brutality upon society and therefore a small minority of unfortunate, misguided and forgotten people are not really responsible for their actions. But let's get real, within our community, there are probably other people with similar mental problems, but thankfully none of them decide to carry out plans to sadistically massacre large numbers of innocent people.

Many Americans foolishly think that we can defend ourselves from evil people by being conciliatory towards them and sadly today, on many college campuses, professors seldom recognize even the existence of such individuals. I believe it was the day after the massacre, that Virginia Tech held a televised ceremony in tribute to the victims and while I missed the initial phase of the event, which included the president's speech, I still had the opportunity to watch the remainder of the broadcast in which I didn't hear one person speak out against the horrific atrocities carried out by Hui. Another personal observation that I made was that whenever a camera focused in on a group of people, most of them appeared to be consoling one another through prayer, while all of the remaining speakers were desperately trying to address every social aspect of political correctness imaginable, but never once mentioned either prayer of God. By the end of the program I must admit that I was emotionally moved by the sight of small groups of people huddled together to comfort one another, but emotionally bewildered and confused by whatever message that was trying to be made by the college itself.

As a people, we seem to be evolving into a society that is being misguided for the lack of values and standards. Today, within much of the news media and on the campuses of many of our leading colleges, the message of narcissism is being preached in a way that promotes a life style that over shadows the realty of life and diminishes the value of truth. Mother Teresa once called America "a land of too muchness" and because of our abundant way of life I sometimes think that some spoiled, overly affluent Americans conveniently choose to ignore the realty of the evil that surrounds them. But, for as long as any society exist, the presence of evil will always remain recognizable within it and out of the many that were slain at Virginia Tech on that fateful day, I believe that only one person recognized evil for what it was and stood his ground to defend innocence from it. That person was Liviu Librescu.

Professor Liviu Librescu was a survivor of the holocaust, and as a boy he endured a life engulfed in evil within the confines of a concentration camp. Mr. Librescu knew that evil, in the form of Cho Seung Hui was fast approaching his classroom, so in order to save lives, he pressed his seventy-one year old body up against a classroom door to prevent Cho from entering, so that his students could escape the carnage that was sure to take place. From his past experiences with evil, Mr. Librescu knew his enemy well enough to know that he couldn't make deals with it, or talk it out of its horrific plan and he also knew that the only way to defeat its goal was to either kill it, or to remove it's victims from within its deadly path. Mr. Librescu certainly didn't believe in "hear no evil, see no evil," when a bullet from Cho's gun ripped through the door and slammed into his chest. His old enemy, the cold blooded, smiling face of evil, murdered him as his students climbed through windows and scrambled for their lives across the campus grounds.

Evil is what it is and it will never change, for it's born from a sinful nature that we all carry within us. We must always be willing to accept the fact that evil does exist, be brave enough to label it for what it is and prepare ourselves to defend ourselves from it whenever it presents its ugly head. Let's get real, it is what it is.

Evil is.