I see from various press clippings that a new book has come out about Columbine.  I suppose as a marker of the tenth annivesary of that tragedy.  I look at reviews and comments on this book and wonder why anybody really needs to read it.

At bottom, Columbine was one sociopath and one highly susceptible troubled teenager.  Had they graduated high school, the sociopath would have gone on to murderous crime, and the other one would have either managed to get himself together or not, depending.  It would be a cop-out to throw one’s hands up and leave it at that and there were a few too many shooting incidents not to figure out broader societal problems, but after this centrality finding meaning in it becomes cloudy.  The thing that annoyed me, particularly in the week following the tragedy, was the manner in which everyone fit the problem into their own set (high school) experiences.  Hence the floating debris of the Jocks, hence the floating debris of Bullying, hence the rather obnoxious celebration of the martrydom of the Christian.

This was also where the broadside of the “Trenchcoat Mafia” came into the picture.  Take one particular comment found here, for example:

I am not sure is what the problem with this one:  they were stragglers to the, quote – in -quote “Trenchcoat Mafia”.  The relevant items regarding the, quote-in-quote “Trenchcoat Mafia” is that there was a photograph for them in the school’s 1998 yearbook, and was not for the 1999 yearbook.  And the two killers were not in the 1998 photograph.  Nonetheless, looking from the outside, from the vantage point of some other students and even one of the dad’s, it is easy to see how this identifying mark can be inflated.  They put it into the high school context they understood.*

I see that this book’s “findings” are being described as “Revisionist” — a loaded term that sometimes has a bad reputation.  There is nothing wrong with revising a false initial impression.  Myself, never having found any of the matters concerning media influences (video games, natch), bullying (perhaps some other incidents), or the nature of cliques compelling, — and even in the realm of too easy access to guns I am left wondering if they had been kept from guns if perhaps that would have just meant that they would have paid more attention to the wiring of their bombs – my answer for the causes of the problem is an abstraction.  Society has incubated an adolescence that is too self-contained.  A myopic element comes in which obscures a vantage point beyond this “special time of your life” (an immediate question I had regarding Columbine was “You know — you’re a month from graduating.”), and there is this aggrivated degree to which our pop culture bends down to this age set (or, furthering along as we all age, bends down to nostalgic memories of that age set).  On a couple of occasions, I have talked with foreigners regarding some current movie, and been thrown the question “What is it with Americans and high school?” — which is a good question.

* Shortly after Columbine, I’m lagging at the end of lunch-period before heading to my next class.  A fellow student pulls me aside, clearly ponderous.  “I have a question.”  “Go ahead.”  “If [name unimportant] went to Columbine, do you think he would be a member of the ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’.”  I sort quickly through the implications of that question.  “Huh.  Well, he’s reasonably popular, well connected and in his own way beloved by his peers, and.”  “But at a bigger school, perhaps it would be different.”  “Maybe… Well, I gotta get to class.”  “Well, thanks.”  “Sure.”

It was a strange environment, and if at once the implied question was something to the effect of “Would he be a mass murderer?”, the further answer was “Might be a ‘member’, but the ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ are innocent and getting the bum’s rush.”  [Name Unimportant] was fine.  The further implication is this indictment of the social structure of Columbine High School as a parody of high school cliquishness, which I’m tempted to say nothing I read at the time dispelled such a notion, but can catch myself with a statement that the media is rather sensationalistic and does not do nuance.

I place a marker of one week after the shootings because, of course, (of course!) at that point somebody brought law enforcement to see me.  I do find it a darkly comic story, but to relate it would be an act of narcissim, and detracts from figuring out the problems of Columbine.  Also, while I can’t really say I’m embarrassed by much of it, it’s probably a good idea not to place in public view.