A077513

While on one of my ritualistic excursions through the net, I came across this article on Wiki about the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, listed as America’s deadliest high school tragedy. I went through the whole thing, starting from the strategy of the two kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their blood stained tour through the school, before they killed themselves. With a whole lot of debates raging from Cassie Bernall’s questioning and Rachel Scott’s Christian martyrdom, psychiatrists blame the megalomaniac nature of the two students for the whole incident. I also went around looking for Harris’ blog page, which seems to have been removed, where he documented all the hatred he bore towards the society in general, the making of the pipe bombs and the propane explosives, and the death threats he issued to his neighbours and family friends. This might all seem like me digging up an issue so known and old to the readers out there, but to me this is something new. I come from a very secular and conservative society, and all children are taught patience as a virtue even before they begin schooling. The need of tolerance is very high in a country in India, and though it seems to restrict our personality developments in the earlier stages of our lives, we come to understand it later on and also appreciate it. But what’s interesting to me here is not the mental structure of Harris or Klebold, but the social phenomena that may have provoked them to commit this crime. I for one believe that not everyone is a fool, and even though foolish decisions exist, there must have been some reason or the other that provoked them to commit this misinformed and misguided act. Looking beyond the role of one’s parents to take responsibility for their child, the role of the society also plays a very important role in one’s upbringing. The friends you make, the relationships you hold on to, the people you turn to in times of crisis, and the people whom look up to or look down on.

The impressions you have in the minds of the people around depends on many social factors. At the same time, one other factor that inhibits a complete assumption and ‘display’ of one’s own personality is bullying. While bullies seek to overshadow some other moment(s) of failure in their lives by picking on younger kids, the effect they have can even be devastating. Bullying exists in the childhood of every child, either as the bully or as the victim. If you had been the bully, you’d have experienced some sort of overwhelming sensation that makes you think that you’re in power at that moment – a compensation for your megalomania. But the victim feels helpless in a world that is supposed to have helped. It blunts the display of your character and makes the issue seem rudimentary and inconsequential in your eyes, further deepening its nails. This will lead to a suppression of emotion on a temporary basis but as the child matures, it will all pour out in one form or the other. The need for a friend and a friendly touch is always necessary for an adolescent youth, and this need is projected in our conformity to a given set of rules and regulations in order to find acceptance and a sense of belonging and, most importantly, identity. A loss of identity is equivalent to having home no go back to at the end of the day, an absence of an ideal reference point for all your decisions. As for the blames on the violent video games and all that, I think those wouldn’t have mattered much as long as the child had in mind the fact that it was a just game, a portrayal of some event as it would have been if it ever happened.