Gun control, mental illness, popular culture -- these are just a few of the factors that have been used by various pundits seeking to explain last week's Virginia Tech massacre.

The shortcomings of theoretical explanations for this nightmare extend even to those theorists whom I admire. Sarah Baxter in the Sunday Times of London quotes Camille Paglia on the Blacksburg killer:

Trapped in the perpetual adolescence of the student, he has become a new monstrous poster child for boys who would rather kill themselves and others than grow up.

Camille Paglia, professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and author of Sexual Personae, believes Cho is emblematic of the crisis of masculinity in America. "Women have difficulty understanding the mix of male sexual aggression with egotism and the ecstasy of self-immolation," she says. ...

Paglia, who has taught in American universities for 35 years, describes America's residential campuses as vast "islands of green and slack conformity where a strange benevolent and tyrannical paternalism has taken over. It's like a resort atmosphere."

Paglia believes the school Cho attended would have been no better equipped to deal with frustrated young males. "There is nothing happening educationally in these boring prisons that are fondly called suburban high schools. They are saturated with a false humanitarianism, which is especially damaging for boys.

"Young men have enormous energy. There was a time when they could run away, hop on a freighter, go to a factory and earn money, do something with their hands. Now there is this snobbery of the upper-middle-class professional. Everyone has to be a lawyer or paper pusher."

Cho is a classic example of "someone who felt he was a loser in the cruel social rat race," Paglia says. The pervasive hook-up culture at college, where girls are prepared to sleep with boys they barely know or fancy, can be a source of seething resentment and alienation for those who are left out.

"Young women now seem to want to behave like men and have sex without commitment. The signals they are giving are very confusing, and rage and humiliation build up in boys who are spurned again and again."

The sex, Paglia argues, "is everywhere but it is not erotic," as can be seen by the sad spectacle of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears flashing their lack of underwear during a night on the town. "It's not even titillating. It's banal and debasing."

Interesting, if not persuasive. It is possible to share Miss Paglia's view of modern public schools as "boring prisons" and her disdain for the "hook-up culture," without thinking these factors constitute a sufficient explanation for an act of insanity like the killing spree at Virginia Tech.

Social criticism cannot explain Cho's violence for the simple reason that such violence is so extremely rare. There are millions of American college students, and only one of them has ever committed such a horrific massacre. The factors cited by Miss Paglia affect all students; only one reacted as Cho did.

Long before the April 16 shootings, Cho's behavior was recognized as unusual by teachers, fellow students and family members. His grandfather told a Seoul newspaper that, even when Cho was a boy in Korea, he was so quiet there were concerns he might be mute.

Extremely rare events are difficult to explain by theoretical reference to general factors. What happened at Virginia Tech was a rare event, although sadly not rare enough.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times

Republican political consultant Angela McGlowan, author of "Bamboozled," is profiled on today's Culture page. She says she was inspired by her father, James Thomas McGlowan, who died when she was 12:

Her father, a Methodist minister and educator born in 1915, worked to improve educational opportunities for blacks in segregation-era Mississippi, then worked during the civil rights movement to promote integration.

"He helped build a bridge between the black community and the white community. ... He brought hope to the hopeless and desperate," Ms. McGlowan says.

Along with the importance of hard work, Ms. McGlowan also learned from her father the importance of helping others.

"He brought pride and self-worth to people," she says, "and one thing that I do today is, no matter how successful I am -- especially as a woman and a person of color -- we have got to reach back and help others."

As might be imagined, Ms. McGlowan disapproves of the comments by Don Imus that earned the radio host a two-week suspension. However, in a press release today, Ms. McGlowan says the Rev. Al Sharpton -- whom she interviewed for the book, and who has publicly denounced Mr. Imus -- should be consistent in his criticism:

"There is no doubt that Don Imus was wrong and should be held accountable. But what of our own people? Gangster rappers and others use this language every day. To not hold those people accountable as well would be a double standard. So if Sharpton is going to ask Imus to step down and call for a boycott of Imus' show, then he should boycott all radio stations playing gangster rap."

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor

Sean McDowell's reflections on the entitlement culture are featured in today's Culture Briefs:

If you were going to give a label for the generation of under-35-year-olds, what would it be? ... San Diego State professor Jean Twenge ... has aptly offered the name "Generation Me." ...

Young people today have grown up in a culture that takes it for granted that they should feel good about themselves, that they are special, and that they ought to follow our own personal dreams regardless of the cost to others.

The rise of "self-esteem" as the primary value in America's education system has puzzled me since my days covering schools in north Georgia nearly 20 years ago. The indulgence of "self-esteem" is directly contrary to what we know about child development.

A child begins life with a completely egocentric worldview -- a hungry or tired baby will cry until his demands are met, without regard for the feelings of others. In truth, an infant does not even understand that objects have a separate existence outside his own perception of them. This is why a baby so often will cry when his mother leaves the room: To the infant's mind, the absent mother has ceased to exist, and the infant has no understanding of the likelihood of her return.

It is the object of child-rearing and education to expand the child's horizons beyond such narrow limits. One of the most important lessons, is to teach the child that other people have needs, desires and feelings which must be considered in fairness. The child who fails to learn this lesson will grow up to be willful, selfish and cruel, because he will lack an understanding of the full humanity of others.

Viewed in this light, then, the contemporary emphasis on "self-esteem" in education is a perfect recipe for creating a generation of monsters. For if one's feelings about oneself are the primary consideration, other people have no value except so far as they serve to enhance one's self-esteem. People are thus reduced to instruments to be manipulated, and the humane basis for social cooperation is destroyed.

This fundamental flaw with the contemporary pedagogic emphasis on "self-esteem" is so obvious, one wonders how it ever could have been overlooked.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times

Joanna Sugden reports that the Pentagon has deployed a new force on the home front:

The Pentagon yesterday recognized characters from "Sesame Street" for helping children in military families cope when their parents are deployed.

A study by Purdue University's Military Family Research Institute found that eight out of 10 parents who watched a "Sesame Street" video about deployment with their child were more comfortable preparing children to cope with their parent's overseas service. ...

The "Sesame Street" video, which made its debut in July, features the character Elmo preparing for his father's long absence, and children and parents of military families discussing deployment.