Hysteria over violent fiction

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I don't have any time to comment or debate these, but I thought you might be interested...

http://www.fortbendnow.com/news/2847/chinese-community-rallies-behind-student-removed-from-clements-over-pc-game-map

No link for this one - it was quoted elsewhere:

Freedom of speech+freedom of thought ftw!

 

Welcome to totalitarian democracy, the brave new world with the thought-police and the Big Brother watching you. They do it themselves, but the joke's starting to be over. It's not even funny anymore.

 

My reaction is that the Salem Witch Hunts are alive and vigorous in the USA.

Gee, SPers, we better watch out. We play violent games and some of us make mods. Make sure your maps don't accidentally resemble anywhere real or your stories.

We can go buy a gun, get a hunting license and shoot a few deer but don't express your aggressive feelings in creative writing. Once upon a time that might have been considered healthy but those days are gone. A teacher assigns a creative writing essay and then gets hysterical because she doesn't like it?

Just my .

 

Unless you talk about your hobby at work or, shame-shame, EXPRESS YOUR DISPLEASURE ABOUT SOMETHING ONLINE; then you get charges with a "borderline terroristic threat"

Well, I got my wife outta that madhouse, and yes, I *am* intending on sponsoring through Citizenship and Immigration Canada 'refugees fleeing a unelected dictatorship.'

Hey, the groundwork is laid to prosecute everything online that may be construed as 'harrassment' - remember that proposed US bill to make something on the Internet found 'annoying' prosecutable? (I can't find it now, prolly about a year ago; we can hope it died...)

[ May 12, 2007, 18:00: Message edited by: jaded empath ]

 

You know, when i was in high school (admittedly when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I wrote about violence, death, suicide, rape . . . etc. and got pretty good grades for it. The assignments were pretty much like the one mentioned: write in a way that expresses your feelings.

God forbid that anyone in the U.S. of A. should think, feel, or, heavens, write anything that causes thoughts or feelings in anyone else.

To charge a student with a crime for responding to an assignment with what was obviously a well-written paper (otherwise the teacher wouldn't have been much affected by it) is shameful.

Makes me want to flee, but to where?

 

this is disgusting.a kid follows his teachers instructions,wrote a good story,and then got arrested for it.they should be ssending the teacher to a psychiatrist for not being able to tell fantasy from reality.

 

Here we go again, half-cocked and filled with righteous anger without knowing the whole story.

Part of the 'essay' was in my paper a few days after the incident. From what I read the school was right in calling the police. The writing in question was a free-writing assignment that the student was pissed at having to do (this was not a work of fiction and certainly not a 'good story'). In it he chose to make statements like 'don't be surprised if this kind of bs leads to someone coming in with a gun' and implying that he had dreamed of doing such a thing (and finds those dreams quite comical).

Was this an overreaction? Probably. But it is nice to see someone pay for being stupid every now and then.

By the way, the school simply put him in solitary studies -- i.e., he is being allowed to finish school and graduate, but being kept away from the other students. This was done for the protection of both himself and the other students (after all he was oriental and made written death threats -- some people would transfer their anger from Cho to this kid).

 

I have just finished reading a copy of the original handwritten essay and a typed copy of the essay. According to the report I read the essay was a "Free Writing" assignment.

Here is a link to the news article I found.
Student discharged from Marines after essay

Based on the information I have and after reading the essay my initial reaction/judgement still stands.

 

Stories like this always make me think of L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series. In it he describes the evil of psychiytrists, sociologists, and guidance counselors.

 

Yes it is a knee jerk reaction to a violent story and the reaction of the teachers, school and police are overboard but the student has to think about this stuff.

I mean what 3 weeks ago 33 people were killed by a man who wrote supposed violent fiction. Peoples nerves are on end, so you can bet the next person to write something like that is looking a trouble.

Really the problem falls on both parties. The school didn't need to overreact but the student could have used a common sense injection and not wrote a violent piece.

Just my two cents.

 

The whole essay is available here . I'm with T2. Kid had it coming.

 

What ever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Questions I have are: Did the young man have a history of writing violent essays? Did he have a history of violent actions, unreasonable anger? Was this an isolated incident?

Based on the guidelines that accompanied the copy of the essay I saw the class was told to write an extemporaneous essay. "Write whatever comes into your mind." No rewriting, no corrections. Something that happen only 3 weeks ago would be in the mind and if the student were bored and unhappy with the class I am not surprised at the essay. Poor judgement, yes, but without more information it appears to me that the school authorities over reacted. Why did they not contact the parents?

added:
I found this article: More information needed

According to this article the essay was an in-class assignment not homework.

[ May 13, 2007, 05:21: Message edited by: Nakia ]

 

Nakia we will just disagree on this. I had a nephew in Columbine and I will always support schools erring on the side of keeping the kids safe. IMO the school did the right thing in notifying the authorities. I do not believe any charges should be filed, but the kid (and other kids) need to know people will take this seriously.

 

That's from DOTA, a Warcraft III map that's so popular people hold tournaments with cash prizes for the winning team. It's not in any way disterbing, and hook, rot and dismember are some of Pudge's spells.

Now why is he quoting that?

Anyway, I will agree that the artical is disterbing to read, but you can't charge someone over it.

 

T2Bruno, I would agree with you if the matter had been handled quietly but a young man's life could well be ruined by this incident being blown out of proportion.

I lived through the McCarthy era and know first hand how much damage can be caused by hysterical reactions. In this day and age of the Internet even more harm can be caused.

Safety for students is of prime importance but stigmatizing a student without clear proof is not protecting the students.

By the way I added an edit to my prior post. The more I read the more I believe the school mishandled this incident.

 

As a high school senior (And long time lurker on this forum), I can only say that such reactions are overblown and ridiculous. I can see nothing "disturbing" in the essay (mostly because I understand the references), and his greatest mistake was possibly taking a dig at his teacher and the administration.

In school I have written much more disturbing stories than this, and thankfully at the time had an English teacher that understood that they were stories and not threats (8th grade). And compared to some of the things that I have read in class, this was quite benign. The ancient Greeks wrote some very brutal and generally disgusting myths. One that I remember especially involved a wife who kills her baby, makes a soup out of it, then as her husband (A king who had slighted her somehow) is drinking the soup she bursts into the throne room and throws their baby's head at him. Then they turn into birds. The others myths that we read mostly concerned themselves with some combination of rape, torture, and violence.

Schools, it seems, have forgotten their purpose of educating and training their pupils. Instead more and more is added to useless curriculum. Looking back on high school, I can say that most of my time was wasted. The entire concept of having compulsory courses to "broaden the intellectual horizons of students" is a pipe dream conceived by politically correct idiots who have long-ago lost their connection to reality.

I am sorry for ranting so long, but the comments regarding high school English faculties and the reaction of the school's administration remind me very much of my own situation. And in judgement, would like to add that the school's reaction was overblown and incompetent. After reading the essay it seems to be nothing more than petty retribution for being called out on their incompetence.

 

This is really interesting. From the instructions I saw, Lee's understanding of the assignment makes sense. It's almost as if he was asked to express a stream of consciounsness approach to writing, completely uncensored. But instead of being graded on the content, he was psychologically evaluated on it. And if they wanted to use an essay to evaluate anyone as a potential threat, they should have done a real psychological profile of the student, rather than one based on his race, by real professionals before anyone started calling the police and having him arrested for doing an assignment that amounted to nothing more than "junk."

And that brings up another interesting point: In college I spent a year in a real creative writing program, and it was a very controlled and highly disciplined program. The last thing one was expected to write was "junk," as was obviously the case in this class. As an English teacher one has to ask the value of such an assignment in the first place. It would appear the instructor was attempting to get the students to use a strategy in writing known as brainstorming. But that strategy can be used in almost any type of writing and it is used only as a beginning strategy rather than something one would turn in for a final grade. Should the essay have been evaluated for its disturbing content, particularly in the context of recent events? Yes, and Lee should have been evaluated by a professional, but before any legal actions were taken.

But if anyone was really "going off half-cocked" it was the police arresting a student for writing an assignment within the parameters outlined by the instructor. They don't inspire a lot of confidence, but there's no surprise there. As far as the Marines are concerned, there's probably no great loss there either, unless Lee wants to spend 18 months in Iraq. And if he thinks being harassed by the local Billy Bob police department is bad, he may have been in for a real surprise there.

 

I believe most do at some point. I know I did when I was depressed in high school. I had it all planned out how I would do it, I even had a fully workable homemade bomb ready to use to make them get into my firing line. All I needed was a rifle.


Wait, that didn't help my cause much did it. <.<

 

Well all I had was my imagination, a pen and some paper. Some things I drew were pretty disturbing. But if I would have been reprimanded on the things I drew I would have gotten more disturbed. Writing and creative arts should be encouraged no matter if or what the substance of the creative work is and no matter if it's good or not.

This is not only blown out of proportion, but out of context as well. It was a class assignment. The thing was meant to be read. Which means that if the kid's troubled, then his troubles should be addressed in an appropriate manner. Stigmatisation and police arrest are not the way you should deal with depressed people. I can see how secluding him and limiting his social life will make him healthier. Nice work. 'Be happy' should not be a normative statement. Be happy and write about nice stuff, or else! Smile damnit, or we'll make you not smiling feel on your hide!