The Philosopher Who Became a School Shooter

If there is an ideology far more deadly and toxic than Nazism, then it must be what I call anti-humanist Darwinism. When you're a nazi, you hate all the other races other than your own, but when you are an anti-humanist Darwinist, not only do you hate everyone, but you also would not care watching your own kind become either devastated or extinct at best.

The darkest philosopher wasn't one that was pessimistic and didn't do anything with their pessimism (AKA Schopenhauer), but actually the one who wasn't an "armchair" philosopher, i.e., one that just theorized in the comfort of his home. When your philosophy makes you take up arms and shoot a school, that's when you turn from an "armchair" philosopher, to a self-made lunatic.

(Yukio Mishima is also another example of a philosopher that turns a philosophy into practice)

Pekka-Eric Auvinen was a Finnish student and self-made philosopher who, one day, decided to shoot up his school due to his extreme distaste of humanity; He firmly believed that our existence, both as a race and as a series of organizations, was not only meaningless but enslaving. Calling himself a "dictator of his own life".

Auvinen decided to dedicate his memory to the sabotage of human functionality, in the hope that this act would encourage other people to do the same. He killed himself in 2007 after killing a total of eight people, including the school principal.

That's what happens when you take the concept of "natural selection" into your own hands, as if it were your job to enforce it. Why care for the functionality of the system, therefore, when you can feel stronger than others by "applying" social natural selection to this world? Of course, this is a rhetorical question.

Here are my thoughts about this act -- I don't see why the "weak" must be killed off when natural selection is, obviously, a natural process. Killing other people in its name is not natural selection because, in the end, it's best to kill yourself as well, as otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life in prison, or even executed in some places.

Thus, I don't see why you would kill others in the name of this evolutionary concept when you're not going to survive as well, or at least, not as well as someone who is stronger than you already are.

At most, philosophizing isn't dangerous because the large majority of philosophers were and are "armchair" ones, a.k.a. people who don't do much with their philosophies other than theorize and contemplate. However, Auvinen's case is one of the rare times where contemplating can not only make you an extremist at times, but also one who feels like they have a "reason" to execute their extremist views.

Some religious folk may claim that's what you get when you're a militant atheist who believes in evolution, but one shouldn't forget the fact that people got killed by religious terror as well. 9/11, for example, was arguably caused by religious fanatics, and not only due to their hatred of America.

When you're a philosopher, it is very hard to convince you to do things you are firmly convinced you should not do, regardless of what your philosophy is. That is because philosophizing is a great tool for convincing oneself, if not others as well. It's not enough, therefore, to tell a philosopher that they should do so or shouldn't do something and be over with -- much convincing is required in order to defeat the sense of one's logic-enforced determination.

Auvinen's motive to commit his massacre was simple: I hate human beings, human beings are weaklings, societal systems make people weak, and we humans are not that special from any of our evolutionary counterparts; thus, why not kill off the weak, when natural selection is a fact?

The thing about natural selection is, that it doesn't happen for its own sake; it happens naturally, without conscious attempts at it. Animals in nature do not get beaten up by stronger foes because the strong believe in this concept.

They get beaten up for competition over food, water, territory, partners, and so on. This was Auvinen's greatest mistake, which made him take his own life, along with 8 other people who were innocent. Should he have realized that natural selection is not for its own sake but due to natural circumstances, maybe, just maybe, this massacre would've been prevented.

And it's not like being in school makes you weak, either. Everyone who doesn't have a bulletproof vest at the time of a shooting is "weak". That is actually one of the reasons I, personally, do not wish to visit the U.S. at all, simply due to the fact that anyone can take a gun and commit a shooting. Does my being in a country where guns require licenses, make me a "stronger" person than someone far more capable than myself in America? The logical answer is, of course, no, and that's why "voluntary natural selection" doesn't make any sense at all.

However, I do wish you all safety, regardless of where you live, and if possible, teach yourselves how to protect yourselves should you become victims to such unfortunate happenings, caused by lunatic philosophers and the like. Remember that doubting the orthodox ways of civilization is important, but that doubting could lead to dangerous consequences if it makes you get off your armchair and grab a gun.

For more about Mr. Auvinen, visit this page.