America missing the key lesson of Columbine

April 21, 12:37 PMPolitical Issues ExaminerJudah Freed

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Ten years ago, America and the world was shocked to hear the news from Littleton, Colorado, that two students had gone on a lethal shooting spree inside Columbine High School.

In the decade since that tragedy, we've seen numerous changes instituted to prevent such attacks.

Schools have become almost as secure as prisons with metal detectors at all the entrances, armed guards patrolling the premises, plus audio/video surveillance in every hallway and classroom.

Schools are now monitoring students' thoughts and behavior more closely while fellow students are encouraged to report all signs of anti-social behavior and tendencies toward violence.

Schools are doing a better job of engaging the parents of troubled students like the Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Schools now offer anonymous tip lines to report students talking about violence, which often leads to home visits by social workers, family counseling and related social services to address any dark feelings of alienation that could erupt in mayhem at school.   

And when such strategies fail to avert school attacks, law enforcement agencies have developed new strategies to deal with the attackers. Before Columbine, the standard operating procedure was to surround the school building and treat the crisis as a hostage situation through negotiation. Now officers enter the building immediately and move toward the sound of gunfire as rapidly as possible, to shoot first and ask questions later.
 

Candles are placed beneath a plaque at the Columbine Memorial to mark the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School, in the southwest Denver suburb of Littleton, Colo., on Monday, April 20, 2009. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

The problem is that all these measures address the symptoms of a shadowy social illness without really bringing the root causes into the light. My judgement, therefore, is that America has still not learned the true lessons from Columbine.

Shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007, U.S. News & World Report cited a Secret service report claiming "a remarkable similarity in the more than 30 major school shooting incidents that have taken place since 1974." For me. the most telling similarity us that "nearly all the shootings were committed by boys or young men," most of then enamored with guns and bombs and other instruments of violence.

My concerns is that we have created a "culture of violence" in America through mass media programming that specifically targets boys and young men.

Look at the Saturday morning cartoons, for instance, where program after program delivers the message that manhood is all about egotistical pride in being the strongest and most aggressive. The hero is the one most able and willing to use force to defeat the monsters and bad guys out to destroy or rule the world.

We see similar messages glorifying violence in video games, movies, music, and even books aimed at the youth. The underlying message is that violence is the way to solve all conflicts, that the strong are the only ones fit to survive and rule.

(Actually, the natural science of evolution teaches us that the ones most fit to survive are the one who intelligently adapt to changing life conditions, not the ones who rely on violent strength, as proven by the extinct dinosaurs.

I'm not saying to pretend violence does not exist in the world, nor am I saying that media should avoid all depictions of violence. I'm saying we should not glorify it.

Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story, Treasure Island, for instance, would not be so enthralling without the swashbuckling "action" in that tale. Yet Stevenson's heroes see violence as the last resort for self-defence, and even then their violence is tempered by mercy. As another example, Stephen Crane's novel of the U.S. Civil War, The Red badge of Courage, uses scenes of bloody carnage to effectively deliver a penetrating message about the futility of war.

Therefore, as we mark this somber anniversary, the most important lesson from Columbine is not that we need more school security, more anonymous phone lines to report planned violence, more state intervention in troubled homes, or more training of crisis response teams. These are all useful and valuable steps, but they miss the point. 

If we truly want to see the end of school shootings, we need to fundamentally change the lessons that popular culture teaches the youth about violence. We need to teach youth that violence is almost never the answer, except perhaps in extreme cases of self defence. We need to teach the communication skills that empower people to resolve conflicts peacefully. We need to teach the global sensibility that we're all interconnected, that all actions have consequences for ourselves and others, so we innately begin to practice responsible self rule in daily life.

Until we learn and implement these profound culture-changing lessons from Columbine, we are tragically doomed to see history repeating itself in schools throughout our land.
 

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