Somehow, someway, Columbine has etched itself into the collective, national consciousness. There's been dozens of other school shootings in other places. Other horrible terrorist acts have been done to Americans. But Columbine still sticks out. It remains with us.
Every time there's a school shooting, Columbine is referenced in local papers and on local TV. When the Columbine memorial opened up over 2 years ago, it made national news. Michael Moore did a movie with Columbine in the title to talk about guns and American culture. When the authorities released the perpetrators diaries, it made national news. Columbine stands as the memorial, the altar if you will, of all school shootings. Maybe because there were two shooters and not just one. Maybe because the perpetrators themselves were kids. Maybe because it was the first of its kind on such a large scale. I don't really know.
And so I take intrigue whenever someone has a new take, a new spin, or new news about that fateful event. The most recent is a fairly comprehensive book titled simply, Columbine by Dave Cullen. Lev Grossman of Time magazine wrote a review. Grossman's penetrating questions about the nature of Cullen's book:
Should this story be told at all? There's an element of sick, voyeuristic fascination to it--we don't need an exercise in disaster porn. But Columbine is a necessary book. Narrating an event is a way to tame it, to give it a meaning, and the Columbine massacre is an aggressively, catastrophically meaningless event, a rip in the smooth fabric of an otherwise comprehensible world. It's a vacuum that urgently demands to be filled.These are interesting questions indeed. I just have a couple of thoughts about taming this narrative. I will list them simply and without substantive argument. I'm not sure Harris and Klebold's diaries and video logs should have ever been made public. I'm not so sure Time should contain a picture of Harris and Klebold in the school cafeteria in their article (as it pictures them minutes before their deaths). I'm not so sure anyone outside this community (especially the teachers and administrators that are still here 10 years later) should get to comment on the human nature of Harris and Klebold. But I suppose you can decide for yourself.
The question is, Who gets to fill it?...
The principal of Columbine has said that as long as he is principal that Columbine will take April 20 as a no-school day. That day is quickly approaching. It's hard to believe it's been ten years. Seems like just yesterday....
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On a related note... Meggan and I were in Borders the other day at Park Meadows, and (not surprisingly) Cullen's book was displayed prominently. I paged through it a bit; couldn't bring myself to read too much. I heard Darrel Scott speak about Rachel a few years ago, so that was my personal interest in the book: I wanted to know if Cullen would address Mr. Scott's claims that some of his daughter's journal entries prior to the event were prophetic. I couldn't find anything on it (again, not surprisingly). He addresses the phenomenon of evangelical reaction to the event, but there's no mention of these miracle claims that would be difficult to explain humanistically. This book will probably become the unofficial official history of the event, but it's been whitewashed of the elements that would most threaten the comfort zone of our cultural worldview. Welcome to the world of journalism/history. I know this is a tiny slice of the picture when it comes to this book and this catastrophe, but it's sticking out as important to me at the moment.
I also heard that another book is coming out that is autobiographical. A kid who was shot and severaly maimed (and now recovered) is coming out with his book in a few weeks to remember the 10th anniversary (a terrible word in this case). His story lends a little more credibility and I heard him on the radio today. It's amazing how much callers and the hosts of the radio show wanted to blame parents, video games, guns, etc. No one blamed the students or the corrupt human heart that performed these acts. The kid who wrote the book (who's actually our age) merely said that it's important to forgive. No blame from him, and he was personally involved.
And yet it's funny- why do people still feel like they need to be the adjudicator's of where blame goes? I think this is why the Columbine community closed up to outsiders. Everybody has a take. Everybody has an angle. Everybody has a theory. The more I live here the more I'm at home in its darkness, ambiguity, and horror. I try not to have an angle or explanation but really try just to understand the community. No prescriptions, just openness to the people.
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