Open Your Books to Page One
Liviu Librescu’s son, on what his dad might say:
“‘What’s the fuss all about? I only did what I had to do.’ From our childhood, you taught us to care for people, to work hard to succeed. But you never taught us to be heroes. That was more theoretical a lesson than aerodynamics,” he said. Then he added: “The course in aerodynamics are over. On April 16th, you started a new career, teaching a new subject – heroism.”
In the last few days I’ve heard a couple of people ask why someone didn’t fight back, why a group of students didn’t rush the killer, using desks as shields and weapons. I think a lot of people don’t understand how paralyzing the fear can be the first time you hear shots fired in anger, and I imagine that paralysis is magnified when you see people killed around you in as unexpected circumstances as a Monday morning German language class. Shock, I suspect, may be coupled with an irrational hope that one might be bypassed and rationality might be restored as suddenly as it has vanished. I suspect an immediate impulse to rush the killer is extremely rare, and the will to do so even more so.
The military uses fear, punishment and repetition to rewire recruits and make make them useful in combat. I do think experience or training, and in Librescu’s case, the adversity faced in a long, hard life, can make it easier to do recognize and act, and do what you have to do. But I also think it might be useful, in these days of terrorist threats and madmen, for every one of us to not simply admire heroes but to think long and hard about the realities of facing death and evil, the futility of wishful thinking and the value of self-sacrifice. What you would do, and how you might do it.
Gateway has some more details on how it went down in Norris Hall, and art from the funeral.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 5:44 pm Comments (3) on Friday, April 20, 2007
3 Responses to “Open Your Books to Page One”
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April 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
If you think about things in advance then you have an internal model to act on. Models aren’t only useful in the science and engineering world, they give the average individual a head start on future actions. Although sometimes those models are called daydreams.
April 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I run mental “what if” games all the time. When I’m driving, in a store, etc.
What if that kid on the bike lurches out into the street…
What if that guy who just walked into the 7-11 pulls out a shotgun…
What if that guy loitering around the corner from the ATM wants to rob me…
I know for a fact that probably 3 little kids are alive today because I anticipated their stupidity.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Most of us are not prepared for the sudden finality of death. We have little experience with it in our culture, and when it takes us by surprise, we freeze. It’s why I believe that merely owning a gun for self-defense and having a license to carry it are not enough. Training and unending practice are also needed, and the commitment to a decision that if such a situation arises, you can’t let yourself freeze up like that. But my father, who impressed this philosophy on his children, always said that you won’t really know what you’ll do until you’re there.