Those of you who've been Fireaxe listeners for a long time know that I have more than a little amount of sympathy for the all too many malcontents who found no better course of action than to go on a killing spree inside the hallowed halls of their educational institutions. By sympathy I of course don't mean to suggest that I approve of their actions in any way, but you will definitely not find me among the shrieking chorus of people excoriating these "school shooters" and trying to affix the most abhorrent labels next to their names. Indeed, it appears that the violent revenge that these killers sought resulted only in an amplification of the treatment that they received before they even considered buying a gun and taking it to school. Even in death these individuals are hated, smeared, insulted, marginalized, and shunned, the very things that they experienced for years which compelled them to do what they did.

The media spewed out the usual tripe after the latest tragedy at Virginia Tech university: focusing on the anguish of the victims' friends and family, telling tales of heroism and sacrifice, finding evidence of an unstable personality and wondering why the telltale signs of a potential mass murderer weren't picked up on, and of course there were the obligatory cries for more pointless gun laws. Every now and then some media talking head would ask a mental health professional why the shooter did what he did, but their answers never seemed to touch on the things that I saw as being critically important. Why did Seung-Hui Cho kill thirty-two people? The blame went in the usual directions: violent video games, violent movies, psychiatric drugs, easy access to guns, the coverage of other school shootings and the copycat syndrome, PTSD from coverage of things like 9/11, the Challenger disaster, and the Oklahoma City bombing, speculations that he was sexually abused, and simply proclaiming him to be mentally ill and leaving it at that. The media made him out to be a madman, and that's certainly what he became, but how he got to be that way was left as an open question, one that needs to be answered definitively if any progress is to be made. I'll try to make some progress on this issue, drawing from the Fireaxe theory and my own personal experience.

The massacre at Virginia Tech is the first major school shooting since I wrote the song "Black Knight", which is a song about someone who experiences alienation and persecution at the hands of others and fantasizes about putting them to death. As I watched the coverage I have to admit that I was a little nervous that some reference to Fireaxe would turn up, like a CD, mp3s on his computer, or lyrics from "Black Knight" written over and over again in a notebook. But the only band that was mentioned was Collective Soul, and since they are neither rap or heavy metal, no one tried to pin the blame on the type of music that the shooter listened to. The bulk of the song "Black Knight" comes from personal experience, which is why I have a lot of sympathy for those who've gone through a similar ordeal as the character in the song but ended up turning their revenge fantasies into reality. Regarding my own life, I never came close to going on a violent rampage. Although I didn't have many friends when I was young, the ones I had, and still have are wonderful people who make life very much worth living. And being able to get good grades gave me hope that when I graduated I would be able to prosper in the real world and leave the ridiculous joke of high school far behind. Things worked out for me and I'm glad that I didn't sacrifice anything in exchange for petty, but perhaps gratifying, revenge, but I can't say that I didn't leave a valuable part of myself behind in the uncaring halls of my educational institutions. I learned lessons that caused me to question just about everyone and everything at some point, which is not necessarily a good thing. I wasn't born a cynic and a subversive, that's just how you end up when the system betrays you.

Trust in the system is the first casualty when the bullies select you as someone they're going to pick on. Nothing you do can stop the abuse. If you do nothing and just take it, it just gets worse. If you fight back you only get in trouble for your courageous efforts. And though the bully gets in trouble along with you, you get punished worse. The principal, and your parents too, will all give you that sorry line about how they expect better from you. Sure, the bully is a troublemaker, they say, but you're an honor student, and you shouldn't sink down to his level. But their words are empty and their suggestions for what you should do are useless. You wonder if they truly care about you since they don't do anything to help, and you just get picked on more since the bully knows that if you fight back that it will hurt your future a lot more than it will hurt his. So you're trapped, and that's just how it is, day after day, week after week, and year after year. Time travels slow when you're young, and things like high school and college seem to take an eternity to get through. That's just a reminder to us older folks who think that telling someone to put up with the abuse is reasonable advice. Sure, the vast majority of people who get bullied and abused in school don't go on killing sprees, but that's mainly because they see the wisdom in not throwing their whole life away in an act of vengeance. In the end, most of us are left with no good options. So you keep going to school and you keep taking abuse and hope that your psyche can endure it.

Bullying is one well-known trigger, and some schools have tried to crack down on the problem, but if you dig a little deeper into the lives of many school shooters you'll find that the absence of a girlfriend plays a far more important role. Television, books, movies, and the occasional story told by an elder mostly tend to romanticize the high school years as being that wonderful time in your life where you fall in love and experience so many joyous "firsts" (your first date, your first kiss, etc.) with that special someone. Well, it doesn't happen for everyone, and the feelings of loneliness and despair that come from a mixture of sexual desire and emotional longing is something that you simply can't escape from. Bullies don't follow you home and mock you when you lie awake on weekend nights, but every time your natural desires are aroused by the sight of a pretty girl, and every time you try and fail to make a good impression on one of them, you feel that hole in your heart grow a little bit bigger, and it hurts worse with each passing day.

As if the absence of love wasn't enough, a loner must endure the even more painful experience of watching a girl who they can love only from a distance fall for someone else. When you have nothing a fantasy is more than just a daydream. Your fantasies of love are powerful dreams which take away the pain of loneliness, if only in a limited way. Still, they are far better than nothing, and seeing the object of your fantasy in someone else's arms tears away that special dream that covers up your emotional wounds. Worse still, when you see the object of your desires get abused, dumped, and wind up heart- broken it adds rage to that mixture of sickening emotions that roil inside of you. After all, you know in your heart that you would never have treated her that way if she had fallen for you. You would have cherished her like a rare jewel if she had only given you the chance. But even after her break-up the target of your unrequited love still turns you down and finds love in the arms of another. To you it makes no sense, and it doesn't seem fair at all. But you watch as girl after girl passes you over only to be deceived and discarded by guys who care only about sex and little about love. Slowly but surely the dream of finding that special someone and experiencing true, pure love, is strangled to death by lies, lust, and loneliness. And when the dream dies, there is nothing left to hold back the pain.

Now, some of you might answer that we all experience those things in high school. We all get picked on. We all get heart-ache. We all get depressed. But we are all strong enough to get through those times, and if someone has to go and shoot up his classmates, then it is all his fault for being weak. After all, we endured all that stuff and we made it through just fine, so obviously there's something wrong with the killer. I think that people who think that way fail to understand the degree to which some people suffer at the hands of others and may be trying to wash their hands of the abuse that they used to heap on misfits and malcontents. The Virginia Tech killer, Seung-Hui Cho, was bullied not only at his junior high school and high school, but he was picked on in his church group by rich kids. Honestly, in church too, where was his god then? And for years he was picked on relentlessly. Also it wasn't that he suffered from the painful but short-lived heartache that comes when you break up with your sweetheart, it was that he never had a sweetheart to begin with, ever. In the aftermath of a breakup some people moan that they will never be loved again, but when you have lived a life of emptiness, the idea that you may never find someone who loves you is not just the product of a fleeting bout of depression, but a cold hard reality that grows more probable with each passing day. Yes, growing up is hard and often painful, so much so that it can push people over the edge without any help from violent images in the media, anti-depressant drugs, or the second amendment.

The last casualty is one's faith in justice. No one can stop the bullies, no one can warm your heart, and no one truly seems to care. Everyone else seems to get what they need and some get far more than they deserve, but you get little or nothing. Where is justice? It is simply nowhere to be found. No god comes down to punish those who bullied you or abused the girl you loved from afar, and no parent, principal, authority figure, cares enough to try to set things right. There is no one there to punish the wicked, and thus there is no justice in the world. Unless, of course, you take matters into your own hands.

Here are parts of Cho's manifesto, which was delivered to a television station after he killed the girl he loved from afar and her lover, but before he went on his killing spree. After knowing more about what he went through, does what he said make any more sense?

Regarding the nature of ideologies:

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

"You just loved to crucify me. You loved inducing cancer in my head, terror in my heart and ripping my soul all this time."

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

"Do you know what it feels like to be stood on your face and have trash shoved down your throat? Do you know what it feels like to dig your own grave? Do you know what it feels like to have your throat slashed from ear to ear? Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive? Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and bleed to death for your amusement?"

"You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life. Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives because you can? Just because you can? You had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn't enough you brats. Your golden necklaces weren't enough you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and your cognac weren't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything."

It all seems perfectly clear to me. Cho bemoans the rape of his purity, which comes from the feeling that he will never be able to experience love in a pure and innocent way. He emphasizes the degree of his suffering since he was exposed to so much and since that is what had consumed him. And he laments the lack of justice in the world which not only allows the rich to have so much, but which allows them to take even more from others and leave him with what he feels is nothing. I find his manifesto to be clear, honest, and an accurate description of his past. The world craps on people like Cho and this is how they feel inside. In my opinion the television station did us all a service by broadcasting Cho's manifesto. Perhaps watching it or reading it will make a few more people stop abusing others and thus make a few less people act out in a violent and self- destructive way. Of course, I had those same hopes after Columbine.

The Fireaxe theory asserts that ideology plays a role in the development of consciousness by creating a permanent sense of inadequacy in the mind of its followers. The purpose of this state of mind is to motivate the individual to perform tasks that benefit the ideology and the ideology then rewards the individual with temporary feelings of increased self esteem. In this way the ideology thrives by enslaving its followers and channeling their actions towards productive pursuits, but the process of indoctrination is not always perfect and sometimes the result is a broken mind.

Cho was made to feel inadequate in a number of ways. His parents instilled within him a sense that academic excellence was of primary importance and the example set by his gifted and successful sister would have made him feel even more inadequate even though he was of above average intelligence. Bullies relieve their own sense of inadequacy by picking on others, which makes those who they pick on feel even more inadequate. When you're at the bottom of the food chain, like Cho, you have no one to pick on in turn and so that outlet is closed to you. Also, ideologies instill a sense of conformity which prompts their followers into picking on those who are different or who do things which are not in line with what the ideology teaches. Even though western ideologies values individualism and freedom, they still demand a high degree of conformity from their members and Cho was outside the norm in many ways. The public humiliation of outcasts is an ideological ritual which benefits the group by instilling a sense of solidarity in the majority and encouraging conformity, but there is always a need for someone to play the role of whipping boy and that person ends up getting continually picked on in order to pacify the inadequacies of the group.

Lastly, Cho felt desperately inadequate in the realm of love. In the past, marriages were either arranged or social pressures forced people to pair up during their teen years and stay together for life, but in modern times dating follows the rules of the free market with those who are more desirable getting most of the attention and those who aren’t getting little to none. In such an environment there will be people who end up without someone with whom they can express their most profound and personal feelings and desires. Now, one could argue whether being trapped in a loveless marriage is worse than being adrift in loveless loneliness, but in either case, inadequacy is instilled as a result of ideological forces and people are compelled to find other ways to satisfy their needs.

There are a lot of people like Cho out there, but most of them endure all the hardships of growing up as an outcast. The strong sense of inadequacy inside them can often inspire them to do great things in order to feel adequate. When this happens it is very beneficial to the ideology, which rewards those who make it stronger. But in some cases the hardship is too great and a person loses their faith in their ideology. They can no longer attain a sense of adequacy by following the rules of the ideology and so something must give. The result is often ideological mutation on an individual scale. In Cho's case it appears that he created a new personal ideology that was a hybrid between Christianity and Rambo style action-hero revenge. He envisioned himself blazing a path to salvation for himself and other downtrodden souls by punishing the wicked.

Given this analysis, can future outbreaks of suicidal revenge be prevented? Well, if the pressure that an ideology puts on its members is decreased, it will reduce the number of people who end up cracking, like Cho, but at the same time it will reduce the amount of motivation instilled within others, which will make them less likely to do the great things which support the ideology. Note that Seung- Hui's sister grew up in the same crucible as he did, yet she is a very successful Princeton graduate. It would seem that we cannot have one without the other. The forces that produce greatness are also those that produce mass murderers. Furthermore, if the forces that produce motivation in the population are reduced, the ideology will grow weaker and be less able to reward those who excel, which would add to the general dissatisfaction and thus add to the risk of internal struggle and ideological mutation. This is undesirable for the ideology and thus the reaction will generally be to increase, not decrease, the pressure during indoctrination. This was seen in the crackdown after Columbine and is likely to be seen again after Virginia Tech.

In other words, Seung-Hui Cho and his innocent victims were, in essence, sacrificed for the greater good of the ideology. They died as the result of being part of a high pressure system of indoctrination which not only produces the best and the brightest people in the world but which inevitably produces people with shattered minds and dark desires. The struggle is for a stronger ideology and the victims were merely collateral damage. They are food for the gods.

I think, however, that such a conclusion is completely unpalatable to most people, and thus the question of why things like Virginia Tech happen will always be left inadequately answered.