Were Harris and Klebold asking for it?

Great Debates
21

ARG220:

I can understand why they did what they did.

I have found myself at points in my life when that path was- spiritually, at least- open to me, and there have been many a time when I wistfully smiled at the thoughts of applying extremely sadistic tortures upon those who had tormented me as a youth.

In point of fact, a major reason my tormenters stopped was because I exploded one day in the hallway and began swinging wildly at my chief malefactor. Had I a knife, or a gun, I’m not sure I would have hesitated to pull it out and use it.

Now, that outburst was only one time. And certainly I never laid traps or specified plans of how to kill my torturers. When I was in rational moments, such actions seemed extreme and immoral. So Kleibold and Harris were a few more steps down that slippery path than I was. But not many more, and I can very clearly see how one could fall down that path.

And ARG? There’s a difference between what I experienced and ‘rejection.’ Rejection is being excluded. Rejection is occasionally being made fun of. I don’t know what Kleibold and Harris experienced, nor on what scale, nor on what timeframe. But I do know that I was beaten up, tormented, abused, and harassed for nearly every day of 3rd through 7th grade. Including Boy Scouts every Monday night, a weekend every two months, and two weeks during the summer. Including CCD on Sundays. And I thank G-d that it wasn’t until near the end of my torments that the bullies realized that they could make prank calls at me at home at any hour of any day.

I do not condone what Harris and Kleibold did. I would never believe that murder- let alone wholesale, indiscriminate slaughter- is the right thing to do.

But G-d knows I understand how someone could fall into that mindset.

(My apologies if I seem strident, abrasive, or vehement; I react to people downplaying the effects of peer abuse about the same way OpalCat reacts to people insulting strippers as loose or stupid.)

JMCJ

Just confirming that my ass is, in fact, the wisest part of my body.

22

I’ve heard this. Maybe on CNN this morning - what a frightening thought. As if we needed to invite a few more copycats to get in line. Low budget, made for TV.

BTW: Have you seen or heard anything in the way of prevention that you think would be effective in the schools?

Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.

23

John C: Let me rephrase. I was bullied. Sometimes hit, many times verbally abused. The kids had all sorts of obnoxious and hurtful nicknames for me. There was one guy in particular who I was forced to pay, just so he wouldn’t hit me anymore. He made me pay him every other day. I could go on, but you see my point.

In spite of this, I never raised my hand, never raised my voice. Perhaps my strong religious upbringing had something to do with this. Or maybe it’s just my passive personality. Could be both.

“Life is hard…but God is good”

24

Maybe you were just a homo?
n/m…I hope you see my point.

If not, well, it doesn’t matter anyway.

25

That’s nice and all - neither did I.

The question is - did ever, even for a fleeting moment, the thought of your fist impacting just one of the bullies who humilated you ona regular basis, flash into your mind? Not as in a “I want to and can do this” way, but in a “scoring a game winning touchdown in the Super Bowl” kind of way?

Yer pal,
Satan

26

There are times in which violence does solve something. Violence sould never be the first choice, or even the second or third. But it should be the last choice.

The world is full of bullies. And that’s the only thing that bullies understand. Rising up in righteous anger won’t cure them of being bullies, of course – but it means they’ll move on and bully someone else.

Remember that old joke about the two guys hiking in the woods… and a hungry bear sees them and gives chase. One guy starts running, while the other one sits down and starts putting on track shoes.

“What are you doing?” the first guy asks. “Even with track shoes, you can’t run faster than a bear!”

“I don’t have to outrun the bear,” the second replies. “I just have to outrun you.”

  • Rick
27

Satan: To be completely honest, I’m not sure that I ever wanted to beat up one of my tormenters. However, there were many times I wished I were twice my size, and “cool,” so I’d not be a target.

That fleeting thought of hitting someone is one thing. But, the diabolical deeds of those two, is another story. We may never find out, but it makes me wonder what those boys went through. I have a sneaky suspicion that their “suffering” was no worse that what thousands of kids face every day in high school.

“Life is hard…but God is good”

28

Personally, High school was fun. Junior High was where I was truly scared. I did, sometimes do still wish bullies would die a painful death. I overcame the bullies in 9th grade by picking out the ringleaders and fighting them. My cruellest action was jumping them from behind, which gave me an edge in a fight. Dylan and Klebold went out and starting shooting everyone they could see in the school. They should have just killed that dumbass jock.

29

They should have just killed him, huh?

My God, what HAPPENED to create such rage in people? My high school experience was nothing like this!

30

Once again, Harris and Klebold were not members of the “Trenchcoat Mafia”, the nonconformist group in Columbine High School. See the following column from Salon:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/09/23/columbine/index.html

The idea that they were in this group was an idea taken mostly from the jocks and other popular people at Columbine who were convinced that anybody at the school who wasn’t part of their group must be part of some single unified group of nonconformists. Apparently though even the Trenchcoat Mafia were wary of Harris and Klebold.

It’s not clear that it was anybody’s taunting of them that movitivated Harris and Klebold. These guys were sick people.

31

Jeez, and we wonder where the John Rockers of the world come from…as if when asshole jocks get out of high school they’re suddenly flooded with tolerance for those who are “different”…

32

Okay, gang. It’s time to visit PBS.org and find a way to borrow or rent a bone chilling documentary that aired last Tuesday on Frontline…“The Killer at Thurston High.”
It meticulously went through the dysfunctional life of a kid with “normal” parents and a “normal” sister. When it was over I felt completely washed out, drained.
Almost every poster here has touched on some aspect of what appeared in that documentary.

33

I may as well join this fraternity too. I, too, was the target of taunting, insults. I had the fantasy of sneaking into the school at night, turning on the gas in the science lab and lighting a match. I never carried it out, of course.

And I know why it happened, too. I was smarter than they were. I got better grades than they did with very little effort. I actually enjoyed schoolwork and they didn’t, so I was literally and figuratively the odd man out.

I never dated a girl in my school years. The girls didn’t like me any more than the boys did. For that, of course, I was called homo, faggot, queer, you name it. You can only dis-prove those accusations by dating a girl, but how do you date someone when they’ve all rejected you?

My Dad had a shotgun in his closet. I knew where the shells were. I could have very easily taken it to school on my motorcycle and blown away a few of my tormentors.

Why didn’t I? I had something Harris and Klebold apparently didn’t: Parents who loved me. I knew they would’ve disapproved and the last thing I ever wanted to do was disappoint them. With that, I was able to tough it out.

>< DARWIN >
__L___L

34

Well, just like almost everyone else here, I was tormented and bullied by those who were more popular than I was.

And just like some of the people here, I fantasized about rising up with righteous fury and kicking some ass. I ultimately capitulated and only blew up once or twice. Seemed to help somewhat. But I still took an awful lot of crap from people who had used me as a punching bag for years. Old habits, and all like that, I suppose.

Like jab, I was called “faggot”. The worst part of it was that I was a member of the drama society. Hell, my own mother thought I was gay.

I just kept telling myself, “Get through this, and get the hell outta here.”

And I really liked this, Adam:

I also imagine that what they went through was no different than what others have gone through, and go through, every day. But I can absolutely understand the desire to lash out and cause harm to tormentors.

Waste
Flick Lives!

35

NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE.

Let’s examine the first line of the passage in question.
“Evan Todd, the 255-lb. defensive lineman who was wounded in the library, describes the climate this way:”

Now, when interviewed a few months after these two maniacs (and they WERE maniacs) blew away his friends, shot him, and turned his high school into a media circus, what in God’s name do you expect him to say about them? “Uh, I’m really sorry that I made fun of those two fine young men. I now respect people who are different than me.”

You know what’s really funny (not funny “ha ha,” but you know…) about this whole thing? The word “jock” has been used numerous times so far in this thread to make a generalization about atheletes, the same way that “homo” was used to describe Harris and Klebold. I’m really sorry if some of you were tormented in high school, but don’t profess to be taking the high road while you exercise prejudices that are the same in theory as those exercised against you.

I don’t think we can take anything about Harris and Klebold at face value. I don’t know a tremendous amount about their personal lives (I refuse to elevate them to the level of somebody that I would take the time to study or even think about much), but I can guaran-freaking-tee one thing: those two were not abused because of the way they looked, or the music they listened to, or the hats that they wore. They were two seriously maladjusted sociopaths. As mentioned before, this is evidenced by the fact that the “Trenchcoat Mafia” (I can’t even type it with a straight face), who purported to be quite liberal and accepting, wouldn’t even accept them.

This is my general theory about people like the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” who dress or act in a certain way that leads others to torment them, which in turn leads them to bitch and moan about how they aren’t being accepted (you guys are going to flay me alive for this one): they crave the abuse. It reminds them that they are individuals. I guarantee that if the “mainstream” students at Columbine had just left them alone, they would keep pushing the envelope more and more until the abuse began again, so they could continue their bitching (keep in mind that I am now talking about the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” not the two sociopaths). Perhaps this is just my discriminatory perspective on it, since I suppose that I would fall into the “mainstream” high school student pigeonhole, but I tend to take the side of the kids that got massacred.

The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.

36

Actually, the article that I quoted did not say that the Trenchcoat Mafia rejected Harris and Klebold because they were just as bigoted as the popular crowd at Columbine High School. It appears, although it’s hard to tell from the articles I’ve read, that both the popular crowd and the nonconformist crowd rejected Harris and Klebold because they could tell that they weren’t just nonconformist, but a little bit sick.

My point was not that jocks don’t mistreat Trenchcoat Mafia types. My point was that Harris and Klebold’s problems had nothing to do with the mutual dislike between the two groups. Afterwards, the jocks were so eager to show that they were superior to people like Harris and Klebold that they spread the story that they were in the Trenchcoat Mafia. They may have even believed it. The jocks and the other popular sorts of students are (it seems to me) so blind to anything but their own popularity that they feel obliged to reinterpret every event as having something to do with them.

While it’s true (I suspect) that many of the Trenchcoat Mafia sorts belong to such groups because they enjoy being nonconformists, that’s hardly true for everyone who hangs out with them. I suspect that a lot of the people who hang around with Trenchcoat Mafia types do so because they found out quickly that the popular crowd didn’t like them, while the Trenchcoat Mafia were willing to tolerate them.

37

I’m agreeing with you about their relationship with the T.M. I think if you go back and read my post again, you’ll see that I said:

One of the things I meant to convey in my earlier post was that I am a little put off, if at the same time strangely amused, by the generalizations and prejudices being exercised against “the in crowd” on this thread. When you say that they are “so blind to anything but their own popularity that they feel obliged to reinterpret every event as having something to do with them,” are you really any better than Evan Thomas calling Harris and Klebold “homos?”

The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.

38

No, and neither would I have expected to see Time Magazine treat this fellow’s jingoistic rationalization of his own abusive behavior treated as justification for the claim that no significant degree of abuse was going on. Time basically supports the sentiments of this brute to bolster the claim that the abuse doesn’t adequately explain why these kids did what they did, which does not follow from this quote.

39

I understand your point, but to turn it around, when you say that “people like the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” . . . crave the abuse”, aren’t you doing the same thing? I agree that some people (but not all people) in the nonconformist crowd are there because they like to push the envelope and annoy people. I think that some people, but not many, in the popular crowd enjoy torturing people not in their group. I think that there’s a larger group, but still not all, who are blind to the thoughts of anyone not in their group. They simply can’t conceive that someone might simply not want to be in their group. I’m actually trying to be nicer than many posters in this thread toward the popular crowd. I think more of the popular sort are motivated by ignorance than by cruelty. I think there are others in the popular crowd who are genuinely nice people who don’t try to hurt others not in their crowd.

40

A “jock,” in simplest terms, is a person who plays high school sports. A “homo” is someone who has sex with people who are the same gender as they are. I wouldn’t call a 90-pound weakling a “jock,” just as I wouldn’t call Harris and Klebold “homos.” But if the shoe fits…

“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7