Decline of civilization, part 4

It's good to know that cultural implosion isn't limited to the USA. From Tuusula, Finland, via AP:

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at his high school in this placid town in southern Finland on Wednesday, killing seven other students and the principal before mortally wounding himself in a rampage that stunned a nation where gun crime is rare....

Investigators said the gunman, who was not identified, shot himself in the head after the shooting spree at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. He died later at Toolo Hospital in Helsinki.

The teen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal with a .22-caliber pistol, police said....

Investigators were searching for connections to the shooter and a possible motive in YouTube postings that appeared to reveal plans for Wednesday's deadly attack.

One video, titled "Jokela High School Massacre," showed a picture of what appeared to be the Jokela school and two photos of a young man holding a handgun....

Another video clip showed a young man clad in a dark jacket loading a clip into a handgun and firing several shots at an apple placed on the ground in a wooded area. He smiled and waved to the camera at the end of the clip.

A third clip showed photos of what appeared to be same man posing with a gun and wearing a T-shirt with the text "Humanity is overrated."

Comments

[Bruce Siegel]

Hi Michael,

I love your blog. It's been one of my favorite internet haunts for years. But I don't understand your motivation in running this "Decline of Civilization" series. We all know that people have been doing horrendous things to other people for as long as we have written records. Or even archaelogical records. (I'm thinking of a TV show on ancient bog mummies that were tortured and killed.)

But how does one go about quantifying inhumane acts? How do you know that things are truly getting worse? I'm sure it ~feels~ that way to you and others. But how do you know that it's a fact?

[Markus Hesse]

His YouTube profile:

Name: Pekka-Eric Auvinen
Age: 18
Male from Finland.

I am a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial socialdarwinist, realistic idealist and godlike atheist.

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM! JUSTITIA SUUM CUIQUE DISTRIBUIT! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!

I am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.

You might ask yourselves, why did I do this and what do I want. Well, most of you are too arrogant and closed-minded to understand... You will proprably say me that I am"insane", "crazy", "psychopath", "criminal" or crap like that. No, the truth is that I am just an animl, a human, an individual, a dissident.

I have had enough. I don't want to be part of this fucked up society. Like some other wise people have said in the past, human race is not worth fighting for or saving... only worth killing. But... When my enemies will run and hide in fear when mentioning my name... When the gangsters of the corrupted governments have been shot in the streets... When the rule of idioracy and the democratic system has been replaced with justice... When intelligent people are finally free and rule the society instead of the idiocratic rule of majority... In that great day of deliverance, you will know what I want.

Long live the revolution... revolution against the system, which enslaves not only the majority of weak-minded masses but also the small minority of strong-minded and intelligent individuals! If we want to live in a different world, we must act. We must rise against the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes and overthrow the tyrants, gangsters and the rule of idiocracy. I can't alone change much but hopefully my actions will inspire all the intelligent people of the world and start some sort of revolution against the current systems. The system discriminating naturality and justice, is my enemy. The people living in the world of delusion and supporting this system are my enemies.

I am ready to die for a cause I know is right, just and true... even if I would lose or the battle would be only remembered as evil... I will rather fight and die than live a long and unhappy life.

And remember that this is my war, my ideas and my plans. Don't blame anyone else for my actions than myself. Don't blame my parents or my friends. I told nobody about my plans and I always kept them inside my mind only. Don't blame the movies I see, the music I hear, the games I play or the books I read. No, they had nothing to do with this. This is my war: one man war against humanity, governments and weak-minded masses of the world! No mercy for the scum of the earth! HUMANITY IS OVERRATED! It's time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on tracks!

Justice renders to everyone his due.
Country: Finland
Occupation: Unemployed Philosopher, Outcast
Companies: Human Race (evolved one step above though)
Interests and Hobbies: Existentialism, Freedom, Truth, Misantrophy, Social / Personality Psychology, Evolution Science, Political Incorrectness, Women, BDSM, Guns (I love you Catherine), Shooting, Computer Games, Sarcasm, Irony, Mass / Serial Killers, Macabre Art, Black Comedy, Absurdism
Films and Shows: The Matrix, A View To A Kill, Falling Down, Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, Last Man Standing, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Butcher MD (aka Zombie Holocaust), Saw 1-3, Lord Of War, The Deer Hunter, True Romance, The Untouchables, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Idiocracy, They Live, Apocalypse Now, End Of Days, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Dr. Strangelove, House MD (TV), Monty Python, TV Documentaries Relating To History
Music: KMFDM, Rammstein, Eisbrecher, Nine Inch Nails, Grendel, Impaled Nazarene, Macabre, Deathstars, The Prodigy, Combichrist, Godsmack, Slayer, Children Of Bodom, Alice Cooper, Sturmgeist, Suicide Commando, Hatebreed, Suffocation, Terrorizer
Books: Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), 1984 (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley), The Republic (Plato), all works of Nietzsche

[Greg Taylor]

Have to agree with Bruce's comments Michael, I think this series detracts from the otherwise wonderful entries on your blog. I'm not sure of your motivation in continuing it either...there are many arguments for and against a decline in civilisation, but I don't think these stories prove anything. They are just sad, and I see them every night on the television news...so I don't feel the need to see them here as well.

Having said that, it's your blog!

Kind regards,
Greg

[The Major]

Do you think it's fair to say that if this attack had had religious motives, certain sections would have been all over it showing the 'danger' religion brings?

I'm not saying this sad incident should be used as an attack against atheism. After all, this guy was clearly mentally unbalanced and unrepresentative of atheists at large. It's just if the shoe was on the other foot...

[RobL]

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I wonder if he owned any of Dawkins' books?

[A Finnish reader]

As a Finn myself, I tend to think that the ideology behind this is a certain kind of anti-social fringe right that has been forming in Finland lately, due to the explosion of blog culture. The memes of Social Darwinism, a Rand-Nietzsche kind of individualism and libertarianism (which basically sees only the fringe people as individuals and writes off "Niggers, Muslims and Labour Party voters" as soulless masses), intellectualizing racism, anti-Swedish-language-ism, and eco-fascism (informed by the homegrown green fascist thinker Pentti Linkola) are all rampant in that subculture, and as both the intellectual racist subculture and the libertarian and Randian subculture in Finland are small, they tend to mix with other fringe rightists, which leads to their mutually influencing each other.

What all these rightist memes have in common, is, that they are very anti-social and encourage isolation from mainstream society. The logical highest stage of this development is the Tuusula disaster. I would say that this sort of teenage nihilism is a normal stage in many a talented teenager's development, but this sort of ideology can strengthen and reinforce it in a pathological way.

By the way, Michael's essay "Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer" is good additional reading here.

[Ryan]

But isn't it interesting that these 'Outsiders' consider themselves to be reacting against a sick society, as opposed to being evidence for it?

[A Finnish reader]

But isn't it interesting that these 'Outsiders' consider themselves to be reacting against a sick society, as opposed to being evidence for it?

Of course anyone fancies himself the only sane person in a sick society.

I for one don't think of Western society as particularly sick. It is the best one we have at the moment. If you don't like it, you are perfectly free to get together with others having similar views and do your best to make it better. That is what is beautiful about it. If you don't have anything worthwhile to contribute, then you will of course say it is decayed and decadent, and end up as a fringe freak like young Pekka-Eric.

[lucyjane]

I too love your blog Michael, keep up the awakening!

Lucyjane

[Arthur]

I'm sorry but I see it as just more "duality and separation" for the soul to experience. I am not you. The more emotional the response the more powerful and long lasting the memories it creates. Pekka-Eric Auvinen was just another mechanism which we experience separation; and the souls of the families of his victims (and even of his family) will be imprinted with what it means and how it feels to be separate, unique, individual.

[Michael Prescott]

>I don't understand your motivation in running this "Decline of Civilization" series.

I do it as a counterpoint to both New Age happy-talk and technocratic triumphalism.

>How do you know that things are truly getting worse?

Kids weren't mowing down their classmates thirty years ago, were they?

[william]

Extreme atheism and extreme religious appear to be two sides of the same coin.

Maybe Buddha was on to something with his middle path approach.

[floridasuzie]

William,
>Extreme atheism and extreme religious appear to be two sides of the same coin.<
As strange as it may sound there's an additional group, referred to as extreme mediocre. IMO they are the most dangerous of all because they are often disguised as pacifists or the politically correct, yet they have their own extreme agenda.
Suzie

[Jess]

I have to agree with William on the two extremes being two of the same coin. I guess I would also agree with Suzie. Any extreme is dangerous. Any lack of humility in one's knowledge or world view can be quite blinding. Perhaps this also pertains to how we look at the world. Of course there are horrible things like school shootings, and then there are cool things like unexpected, welcomed glances that make your day. And everything in between. So the middle way is both outgoing and incoming perhaps.