I recently read an article in the Washington Post by Lionel Shriver, journalist and author of We Need to Talk About Kevin. (Free subscription required to view article.) I am unfamiliar with Shriver and her books, but I found the article interesting. In this op-ed she bemoans the media feeding frenzy that has ensued with the Virginia Tech shooting, claiming that exposing so thoroughly the details of Seung-Hui Cho's manifesto acts as an encouragement for copycat shootings.

I am not entirely certain I agree with her there, as I do believe that having this information open to the public does much to allow us to understand the killer. Given the severity of the situation and how it affects us all, I think the public, or at least the victims, have the right to know some of the background. Still, Shriver's argument that plastering the images and videos Cho sent NBC all over the media lets the killer win is a compelling one.

What I find most interesting, however, is what she says about preventing future massacres:

Repeatedly this past week, news anchors have asked the "experts" (one of whom, hilariously, this mere fiction writer is considered), "What is to be done?" Even the barmiest answers offer the illusion of control. Get the answer right, so goes the reasoning, and we will never see headlines of this sort again. Yet leaving aside the seemingly intractable business of gun availability in America, the grim truth is that there is nothing to be done.

A discrete subsection of the human race is insane. A larger subsection may not be clinically psychotic but is still sufficiently resentful, vengeful, envious, grandiose and myopically self-pitying to be dangerous. Even if you zapped every gun off the planet, these folks could still get hold of knives, baseball bats, jagged shards of glass or machetes (think of Rwanda). We live in a world of multiple risks -- traffic accidents, lightning bolts, avalanches -- and the biggest risk we live around every day is other people. The unhinged, the angry, the malevolent circulating in our midst amount to social bad weather. Whenever we walk out the door, we take the chance that malice will rain on our heads.

She goes on to reassert that, given the inevitability of such disasters, the best way to handle it is not to reward the behavior with attention. By showing restraint in the coverage and the airing of the killer's material and manifestos, we prevent him from winning a post-humous victory.

As I said before, I'm not sure I agree entirely with the article, but Shriver makes an excellent point. In America there is definitely a persistent notion that through hard work, technology and social reform that we will reach a utopia where none hunger or suffer, and can live out their lives in peace. It is a very Christian idea: a dream of an Ultimate End where there will be naught but tranquility and eternal bliss.

However, that shall never come to pass. The world thrives on conflict. We survive by consuming other life, and we will never be free of that truth as long as we remain living things. And the materials that make us and everything we see and eat were forged in smoldering nuclear infernos and cataclysmic explosions of destructive power to which all our earthly weapons cannot be compared. World-swallowing black holes partake in a whirling feast of starstuff and yet are the very things that keep our galaxy together. The universe is a place of immeasurable violence. As long as there are floods, hurricanes, supernovae, life and death, pain and suffering will be unavoidable.

I do not know if it is best that the news curtail its coverage of Seung-Hui Cho's deranged and violent goodbye to the world, but I do agree that there is only so much we can do to prevent another shooting. There is only so much we can do without stifling the lives of free and innocent people. Perhaps the most important thing is to come together, mourn, and endure. And maybe—if we have the courage—understand.