It may be argued that many conflicts between individuals, between individual and society, or between nations result from our internal character flaws. One example I can think of is the massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. The shooter Seung-Hui Cho who was also a student killed thirty two other students and himself. The cause of Cho’s behavior is generally regarded as his mental illness and resentment to other students. However, Cho had never thought his behavior was because of his internal ‘beast’. Instead, he said ‘I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people’ in the video message mailed to NBC News. He must have thought that he ‘Kills the beast! Cuts his throat! Spills his blood’ during his shooting.Cho acted like the ‘tribe’ in ‘Lord of the flies’, or Roger more specifically, when the tribe kill Simon. The problem with the English professor who had read Cho’s dreadful drama script was that he was a ‘poor chess player’ like the leader, Ralph who fails to see the true human nature and to prepare for its potential devastating consequences. The hospital psychologist who had examined Cho’s mental problem before is like Simon who is intelligent enough to see that ‘the only beast in the island is in themselves’. His problem is however that he is not a good articulated communicator. The judge in Montgomery County District Court who ordered Cho undergo mental evaluation acted like Piggy who always wants everything in order. He also has the problem that he (or the law enforcement system) is very lazy.
Then, what could be a resolution of this problem? I believe we should admit that we are not flawless. All the wars that mankind have conducted or suffered from are merely projections of our faulty internal characteristics. In particular, the Virginia massacre could have been prevented if the possession of guns had been banned by law, even though that law would deny our individual freedom or right before the safety of the society.
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