Another take on Columbine
Hey this is a reply to Renata's take on Columbine. I think she is an intelligent girl but I don't think she is completely right in her assessment of the situation here.
First, I think the wrong question is being asked. Was it wrong what these kids did? Yes of course it is wrong. There is no disputing that. You can't just go shooting people every time you feel like you have been wronged in some way. There would be no one left. (Even though countries have wars regularly for just this reason. " Hey, Iraq, I do not like what you are doing. Stop it or I will beat the shit out of you." "Go fuck yourself U.S.A." And thus is born the Gulf war. At any rate, it is still wrong.
The question we should be asking is WHY did these kids do what they did. Because there is obviously something wrong here. Chalking it up to these guys are nuts and we are all better off for their being dead, just doesn't cut it. There are other kids just like them around. We need to take this kind of attack seriously. Something is HORRIBLY wrong here. What set these kids off? What made them feel so isolated that they saw no other course of action but to act out against their piers?
I think the most important point to remember about this particular incident is that NORMAL people can and do think of these kinds of things. Normal people can think, "I wish this person were dead." And thinking about it is not such a bad thing in itself. We all think things we probably shouldn't. The place to draw the line in this matter is, ACTING upon your malicious thoughts. These kids had lost the one thing that made them a part of society, rather than a menace to it. They no longer had any conscience. That Renata is precisely what makes you say THEY ARE WRONG.
They, whether by how their parents brought them up or by how they were treated by their peers or by some chemical imbalance in their disturbed minds, no longer had the capacity to recognize that what they intended to do was FUCKED UP AND WRONG. Some how these kids had become so isolated, so alienated from their society, that they had no attachment to any of us. We were they enemy to them. How did they get like that? That is what should be of interest to us.
As for them asking for help. If these kids were disturbed enough to think that they could just walk into a school and shoot anyone in sight. How can you honestly expect them to be able to go. "ohh gee you know I am thinking in an unhealthy manner. Maybe I should seek some assistance." I think that is a bit too much to expect from these guys.
In our times things move so FAST that some people get left behind. Maybe we need to slow down a bit and actually look at what is happening around us. Get back to the basics of humanity. We shouldn't just let people fall to the side the way we do. THAT is what is wrong. And Columbine is just the warning shot. Ignoring problems or just saying something is wrong will not make it better and it will not go away. We have lost something in our society. I am not sure exactly what it is. Respect, a sense of community, unconditional love? Whatever it is, some or all of those things. We had better get act together, or useless and horrifying events such as Columbine will happen more often with more devastating consequences.
- Ellen