Columbine: Dispelling the myths, answering 'Why?'
Why did they do it? That's the first question most people ask me about Columbine, so let's plunge right in. Why did two boys walk into their high school one morning and start shooting people in the head?
There's a problem. One big reason we got ten years of bogus answers is a question designed to lead us astray. They. Why did they do it? Even before we shooting was over, we were already repeating that. We fused Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold into a single entity. They are indistinguishable to most of the public: two lonely outcasts from the Trench Coat Mafia, of one mind in revenge against the jocks. Almost none of that is true. Dylan was lonely, the rest is nonsense. Eric and Dylan had dramatically different personalities and motives. We can understand Columbine, but only once we look at it from the killers' points of view. That's an unnerving proposition, because it sounds perilously close to sympathizing, justifying or forgiving. Those judgments are up to you. But we're in no position to even consider them, until we explore the murders from inside two radically different heads. Why did Eric do it? Why did Dylan do it?
We can cover the basics of all that this week. Eric is more diabolical, but easier to understand. Dylan is tougher, and to me, far more tragic. I wrestled endlessly over how to convey his strange progression to murder.
But only half my book is about the killers, and I hope we can spend as much time on the victims, and especially the survivors. That's what first got me hooked on covering this: what happens to a community shattered by an event of this magnitude. I was particularly unnerved by the kids in Clement Park the morning after. How would they recover from this? Who would lead them to emotional safety? And what bozos would stand in their way?
It took me five years to figure out that I wanted to tell this story through ten different characters, who had wildly different responses to what happened in the school that day. There is no single truth to this tragedy, no universal response. Another question I get asked all the time: How are they doing now? More misplayed theys.
I opened chapter one with the principal, Frank DeAngelis, who played a pivotal role in getting those kids through it. He's been a controversial figure, but mostly in the media. I'd like to talk about how him this week, and his friend, Coach Dave Sanders, who bled to death because he stayed in the building to get kids out. His wife, Linda, had a rough time without him. Patrick Ireland, "the boy in the window," who tumbled through a break in the glass on the second floor on national television with a round of buckshot six inches deep in his brain, did much better. His recovery, and his attitude about it, still kind of amaze me.
I'm looking forward to this week. There are so many questions to tackle. I'm eager to hear what's on your minds, but here are some big ones to get us started:
· What are the biggest Columbine myths? Where did they come from--how did we in the media botch it so badly? Have we repeated those mistakes in later tragedies?
· What have we learned from Columbine? Can anything good come out of this?
· What have we learned about recovery, and PTSD? Is there anything the survivors want us to know?
· Could Columbine have been prevented? Where were the parents? Where were the cops? We know now about warnings, and a cover-up: did anyone pay?
Columbine was a shocking incident, but this book certainly sounds as though it will do a better job of reviving and reprising the shock than explaining how to prevent future reoccurrences. For that second, and surely more important matter, there is scarcely a relevant thought to be found in this summary.
"Why did they do it?" Maybe that truly is the first question most Americans ask about Columbine, and if so this book should sell well. But who else even cares? Not many among the 95% of the world's population outside the US. Give mentally and emotionally disturbed people easy access to deadly weapons and from time to time those disturbed people will use the deadly weapons to deadly effect. End of story, and little need if any for a book elaborating the endless range of possible variations of the obvious.
A question of much greater interest to the other 95% of the world is: Why DO they do it? Why DO Americans continue to act so stupidly by endlessly pandering to gun manufacturers and gun nuts?
With all due respect, I am with the 95% majority on this, and will wait for a book addressing their question.
September 14, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
whatever. tell it to the friends and families of victims of school shootings in germany.
September 15, 2009 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
After reading the book, one of the questions that dogged me was why Dylan Klebold's parents were completely unable to recognize that their son was mentally ill. Not, of course, on the level of Eric Harris -- I agree with the commenter at the psychiatric conference that Harris was a full-fledged psychopath -- but Klebold's parents seemed to remain totally clueless to their son's clear break from reality. I can't simply accept that this is their coping mechanism -- they need to acknowledge that their feel-good parenting methods failed and their son was mentally ill.
September 14, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe because he wasn't always mentally ill? No parent wants to believe their child could do something like this, or even that their child could have more serious issues than typical teen angst.
September 15, 2009 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why they did it is less important, ultimately, than the fact, so neatly phrased by Eddie Izzard, that if a crazy person points his finger at you and says "bang", much less happens than if that crazy person has a loaded gun in his hand.
Take away the "how" and the "why" becomes an academic curiosity rather than the (literal) post-mortem to a tragedy.
September 14, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except this wasn't intended to be a shooting. It was intended to be a bombing that would kill 500 or more kids. The bombs were made out of full 5 gallon propane cylinders primed by pipe bombs. They were supposed to go off in the lunchroom when the lunchroom was at its peak of use.
The shooting only happened when the bombs failed to explode. If the bombs had gone off (and they could easily have done so) lots more kids would've died.
September 15, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
hey, stop interrupting the gratuitous diatribes against guns!
September 15, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not dismiss the jerk jocks theory too quickly though. Might not be the only answer but it's part of the answer.
If you check out the book "Going Postal" about workplace shootings you'll see that hazing of outsiders is a pretty common thread in these outbursts of public violence.
September 14, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
And yet, humiliation as a motive for revenge is a common literary topos.
And one that is guaranteed to seduce the previously humiliated high school nerds (editors of their school newspapers), now reporters, who were charged with constructing a narrative to "explain" the incident.
September 14, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
One reason that incidents like Columbine are difficult to report upon, deal with, etc is that we have a difficult time dealing with the complex human nature.
Many want to simply say they were evil. Just like all those Germans who made the Holocaust a reality. Evil. Many people have a difficult time dealing with the idea that given the right circumstances they, too, have the capacity to commit such "evil."
People can even see this in how people talk about those with mental illness. There is "them," the insane ones, and "us," the sane one. A distinct hard line, them over there us over here.
I could through the examples from the college experiments in power dynamics of prisoners/gaurds to the "personality" shifts that can happen with a single traumatic experience, let alone the subjective nature of what constitutes a traumatic experience.
I would posit that many who repel of asking why is driven in part in their own desire to avoid internal reflection, to see the true dimensions of their own nature. Whether we like it or not, Dylan and Eric are a reflection of the human potential, and the consequences of humans negotiating this world.
September 15, 2009 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
not meant to be a reponse to ellen
September 15, 2009 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "Them" and "Us" split is normal. I think that it comes from the way we think using language.
We apply a label (a word) to something in order to think and talk about it, then work to carefully define what makes different labels distinct from each other. Language is all about making distinctions, after all.
Only in real life the things we are carefully distinguishing from each other are often a lot more alike than different, even as we try to focus on what we think the differences are. How much really distinguishes someone who is "sane" from someone who is "insane?"
Whatever it is, it's not very much. Which is frightening to think about, so we normally don't. The nature of language lets is avoid recognizing the similarities.
September 16, 2009 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, we are caught in the prisonhouse of language, always once removed from the world. And as soon as we label something "sane," we inevitably must create that which not sane, whether we create a word for it or not. When some says these are the "real Americans," there is the inevitable creation of the fact that there are those are the not-real Americans, even if you don't say as much.
In terms of law, education, the workplace, the demands of daily life we need to have a distinction for sanity in order to operate, as well as various sub-categories. Yet the reality is that each of us operates along a spectrum that is in constant flux depending on the interaction between our internal environment and the external environment.
Having worked in a half-way house with the "chronically mentally ill," there were plenty of times when I would be one moment conversing with one of the clients, who was about as sane and lucid as one could be, then have to deal with one of the staff members who because of personal issues outside the office or because of some incident at work was having a total melt down. In a snap shot moment, operating on behavior and mental status alone, you could say that the one residing at the halfway house and the one behind the desk would need to switch places.
Who was it that said in an insane society only the sane shall appear insane?
It is frightening to think about, but as society we must never settle into our self-constructed categories about what constitutes sanity, patriotism, etc. and those who are inside those groups and who is outside.
There are still those who would classify homosexuality as a form of insanity and those who are homosexual as individuals suffering a mental illness, as one of the insane.
September 16, 2009 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Humiliation is not an isolated emotion. Consider that there is deep anxiety in walking onto campus each and every day, along with humiliation, feeling that things are out of control, grief and anguish and of course anger that has no outlet.
September 16, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
But Eric Harris wasn't really hazed. He was a psychopath. According to Robert Hare, a leading researcher of psychopathy, psychopaths have no conscience and have a very, very shallow emotional response. They do bad things right from the start and do so -- the theory goes -- because they seek thrills as a kind of substitute for the rich emotional experiences they cannot have.
If you hook a psychopath up to an MRI and then show the psychopath pictures designed to elicit an emotional response, the pictures stimulate activity in the language centers of the psychopath's brain. In normal people the same pictures stimulate activity in the brain's emotional centers. In other words, psychopaths, instead of actually having the emotional experience, instead start thinking about what they'll say about the picture.
Eric Harris was relatively popular. He was not hazed nor picked on. He was a smart, socially adept kid. Dylan Klebold was also not hazed. He actually had friends Dylan Klebold was depressed. Very very depressed and suicidal.
Dylan picked a particularly horrible way to kill himself. He let Eric bring him to suicide, which meant doing it Eric's way -- going out with a bang.
September 15, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
For my own work, I've done quite a bit of research on serial killers (which Klebold and Harris were not, obviously).
There is a soul-murdering effect to digging too deeply into any study of monsters, as Nietzsche suggested. I think that's why people are both fascinated by murder at the surface level, yet unwilling to delve into the subject at the personal level, metaphorically speaking, of course.
September 15, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read your book, and have purposely resisted the subject of Columbine for a decade, but from your brief post here, one of the most refreshing approaches I apprehend is that you avoid as explanation ridiculous "society created them" squat. This jackass social and psychological topos (thanks, Ellen) was trendy among talking-head "experts" for far too long a time. Society is a thing, a construct we've cooked up to help us live together without chronically disemboweling each other; it has no morality. Only individuals can discern right from wrong, and act accordingly. Columbine, from my perspective, wasn't the work of "good boys gone bad"; the massacre couldn't have been committed by "just anyone". It's difficult to believe such profound detachment and disturbing aberrance wasn't more conspicuous beforehand. In 2004, Klebold's mother mother told NYT's David Brooks about once snapping at someone that she wasn't guilty of anything; I'm not so sure about that dearth of culpability.
These weren't merely troubled youth, and to the extent we believe any teen could have committed Harris' and Klebold's murders, we disregard the innate humanity and decency of our children, regardless of who they are, or what they believe. This we know: If these two were common, we'd have vanished as species long, long ago.
September 15, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
But if there is an innate humanity and deceny in our children (which I believe to be the case), and they weren't good boys gone bad, then the explanation for their action lands into the "bad seed" territory. This is a dangerous place to go since where do you draw the line when using it as an explanation, given that it also offers no hope for rehabilitation.
Of possible interest: John Waters on Fresh Air talking about his efforts to help free a former Manson Family member http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111585116
Are sociopaths born that way? Are some, but not all? What point do we hold responsible parents for recognizing a sociopath in their midst? And what of those who follow the sociopath? What of other disorders? And where is the line between sanity and insanity? Is there one? Where post-traumatic stress order come into play? At what point is our society facilitating the dehumanizing of others?
And if those who kill think they are discerning right from wrong? That the right thing to do, for the sake of justice, to put the balance back, is to kill, what do we say to them? Especially when so many states kill prisoners for just those reasons. When collateral damage is justified, or turned into entertainment on youtube.
No easy answers, especially when we don't fully understand why?
September 15, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can there be personal freedom without personal responsibility? Does society have the right to delimit personal freedom, if only to the extent that those misdirected by, say, murderous solipsism are prevented from taking others' lives? Aren't we ultimately responsible for our own actions? Can we blame an individual's misdeeds on something as amorphous as his "environment" or society? Why do most adjust well to their surroundings, and a few go so wrong?
By "bad seed" I suppose you refer to genetically inherited traits that blossom into psychopathology. That may be part of the cause; maybe not. There are billions of malfunctions that can go wrong with biochemistry in the womb, while a new human is bubbling up. Brilliant people can produce retards; sane, stable folk can bear monsters.
Nobody, no God or gods, no science or signs in the stars promise easy answers, acamus.
September 15, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are on the same page, basically. I think the task is how do we have a society in which there is personal responsibility, but also one which commits itself to truly understanding that which we would call "evil." It is too easy to call what the "sane, stable folk" produced a "monster." Something went wrong, but what? and why? The split personality is merely a coping mechanism to deal with trauma. How can we treat such people if we just think of them as freaks.
All of us are better off understanding why the Nazis were able to rise to power, why Hitler was able to hold sway over the German people, why they were capable of participating in concentration camps. To dismiss Hitler simply as an evil monster, the German people as evil monsters is to miss an opportunity to enlighten ourselves a little a bit about our humanity, and to maybe move closer to ensuring something like that never happens again.
Nature and nuture, and the infinitely vast mix of the two. There was responsibility, but how much lies at the foot of the boys, the parents, the bullies, the society in all various manifestations in which they engaged.
There was a time when no court of law would accept battered wife syndrome as a valid reason for why a woman killed her spouse. We sought to understand the why and not just the how she got a hold of a gun or a knife. We sought to understand the internal landscape and the forces that played upon it, before rendering our judgment.
September 15, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
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December 16, 2010 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I remember that the parents didn't think it at all odd that these boys had the weapons that they did - in plain sight. That was chilling.
September 16, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been reading the book (listening to an audio version, actually) since last week. Unless there's a surprise in the last quarter that I haven't hit yet, the Klebolds (Dylan's parents) didn't know about the guns at all. The Harrises (Eric's parents), when they learned about the pipe bombs, immediately got him counseling.
I'm by no means impressed by the Harrises' denial, but neither set of parents are the "didn't even care" types they'd been stereotyped as.
In fact, what I'm finding most fascinating is how quick we as a society are to try to find scapegoats and to cling to myths.
September 21, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think it is necessary to forgive to understand.
Let's just say that at least one of the shooters was bullied endlessly, absolutely dreaded going to school each day and lacked the coping mechanisms to deal with the torment he dealt with on a regular basis. Can you imagine that? In high school, it feels like this is your whole world; this is how it will always be. Conceptually, there isn't much of a grasp that life is very different after high school. When you look at it that way, you understand the hopelessness and desparation. High school bullying isn't what it used to be either. It is truly a blood sport.
That being said, the moral leap that it takes to wish ill of someone and to actually plan and carry out their death is inconceivable to me. And to take the lives of others that had nothing to do with the bullying, well I cannot fathom how that could enter into the equation.
I remember viewing Gus Van Sant's Elephant and the feelings of dread watching it unfold. I realize it wasn't Columbine, but it was the closest any of us will get to that experience.
September 16, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who says life after high school is really different? It's played on a larger stage, and it's easier to avoid the bullies (usually) and sometimes we have learned a few new coping mechanisms. Other than that, what's the big difference?
I'd bet that Sarah Palin is still reliving her high school experiences in new settings every day, and learning very little from the new settings.
September 16, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Im a graduate of Columbine. Family and friends still in the community. Im intersted in the what we can learn, I would read the book for another persepctive. I also agree we should try to understand what happened without projecting our own biases and get beyond the natural tendencies of blame and defensiveness. I believe there is some good for us to learn- or remind us- from that terrible experience.
September 16, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I lived just up the street from Columbine, Wadsworth and Bowles, and I have nver seen an area more in denial about it problems. from open drug dealing at the strip mall on Coal mine or people in Columbine letter jackets looking for people to beat up at Southwest Plaza, it is one of the roughest areas I have ever lived in.
Part of the problem is that the area is not really a city so the only law enforcement is a sherrifs department that is headquartered ten or fifteen miles away and especially back in the nneties didn't seem to patrol at all. plus, most the parents are absent, working during the week and spending evenings and weekends at church functions.
Even though it is a very affluent area it is not a surprise that a shooting happened there.
September 16, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for a great book recommendation! I started it late last week, after noticing the write-up, and am surprised how many of the myths *I* took comfort in as well. Turns out Dylan & Eric *weren't* bullied much. They *weren't* Goths. Their parents *did* care.
With every myth that's disproven, I can recognize my own anxiety rising. The myths bring comfort. If we just stop bullies... set dress codes... parent better, then we can stop this kind of thing, right?
Most of all, their attack didn't start out as targetted against jocks or Christians or whatever. Their plan was to blow up the entire school.
They hated everybody.
So far, all I can see on the "how could we stop this" front is better and more efficient law enforcement and communication between agencies. The boys had been arrested before, because most violent types ramp up to something this huge. But their parents (esp. Eric's) were in denial. The Judge who gave them probation for a break-in hadn't been informed about violent websites or complaints about pipe bombs. A search warrent drafted after another family's complaints about violent threats had never been served. And after the incident, the County denied for years that that family had never filed complaints.
Most law-enforcement officers are heroes, but the administration of that enforcement failed them and everyone else through disorganization. How do we fix THAT?
September 21, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do we fix that? You mean fix the way people failed these murderers? I think we should fix the problems that created the murderers.
Sometimes we find answers in fiction.
Watching Homicide Life in the Streets, the young detectives keep asking "Why?" which goes beyond the so-called motive. They are told that their job is to find out who, when, where but not the "why." Most of them are tormented by the "why" for the rest of their lives.
If more people would broaden the search for the "why" by including a close look at middle-class American culture in small towns we might get close to the why of this case. The murderers did not spring up in isolation, they had a context. It's too easy to blame law enforcement, the courts, the social services, even the parents. Let's look at the cultural context and then we might be able to prevent more murders.
September 24, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric and Dylan = the two Columbine murderers. Mass murder is a huge thing to have in common so forgive me if I think of them that way and not as individual boys.
The were boys once but I can't think of them as boys anymore. The way they looked people in the face and shot them dead indicates they had lost their humanity. My question is what formed them, what fostered the hatred in each of them? If the book attempts to answer those questions, I will read it.
September 24, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink