What has been learned since Columbine about the source of this social alienation? A perusal of the editorials in the nation’s major newspapers would inevitably draw one to the conclusion … essentially nothing.

The editors of the New York Times lament the fact that Americans face some of the gravest dangers “from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain.” They also remind their readers that after Columbine “public school administrators focused heavily on spotting warning signs early enough to head off tragedy.”

Hundreds of millions of guns circulate in the US, and they are no doubt too easy to get one’s hands on. However, this is largely beside the point. Such arguments do nothing to explain the regularity with which sociopathic behavior manifests itself in American life. As for keeping one’s eyes open for “warning signs,” this may well be good advice, but it is hardly an answer either.

Editorials in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, USA Today and Detroit Free Press do no more to shed light on the situation. Respectively, they raise questions (“Should metal detectors be ubiquitous in American classrooms and universities?”), abstain from commenting (“We should remember that there are times when silence is the best response”), express astonishment (“It is hard to imagine how anyone could annihilate so many fellow humans, so senselessly”) and anger (“Today, however, the focus should properly be on revulsion at what the gunman wrought and heartache for his victims”) or moralize (perhaps the violence is “a symptom of a society with loose moral footing”).

In the absence of serious discussion or commentary, the 24-hour coverage of a tragedy like this one on the cable television networks begins to take on the character of exploitation.

Virtually no portion of the media coverage is devoted to the social causes of the events. The political and media establishment responds to the Virginia Tech massacre as it does to every significant indication of social malaise, with a combination of denial and self-delusion. In deluding themselves that the epidemic of shootings can be treated by increased vigilance or the transformation of campuses into fortresses, the politicians and editorialists demonstrate how far from reality they are.

Such events bring home how necessary it is for another way to be found, for more sensitive answers, real answers to problems. This, in turn, raises the need for a different social orientation, which calls into question the present foundations of American society. And such searching critiques should not be reserved only for moments of national calamity.

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