Massacre At Columbine High
- An Answer to Chuck Green, Denver Post 4/21/99
Shock Spreads Around The World
© Erick Emert 1999
Actually, sir, the problem is very simple. We live in a cracked
and broken world. It isn't that we don't care enough, it's that we care too much - about
ourselves. Each of us. We don't know what's going on with our children because our
noses are attached to our own belly buttons. We can't raise our children with decent
values because the majority of us have few values outside those that immediately affect
the self.
Yes, we do have "a problem." But it's not just centered among
the most privileged. It's the human cancer. And it effects everyone from the homeless to the
CEO. We want more. More and more and more. Anyone who gets in our way of our gathering more
is our enemy. Anyone who we perceive as stopping us from getting more is the target of hatred
and blame.
Of course "hate thrives." Our society is set up to
fail. Our children are taught by example to shun responsibility, to blame everything and
everyone for failure. They are the products of the fault, guilt, and blame that have been
handed down from their grandparents to their parents to them. There is little affirmation,
little uplifting. Only condemnation. What else can they learn from our example but hate?
Where are they supposed to learn to love? Is it:
| In church? Well, many churches may teach "Love God," but
few teach "Love one another." |
| In school? Hardly. Their differences are put under a microscope for
all to see and are perceived as faults by too many of their peers who have learned the easiest way
to climb the social ladder is over the bodies of those who are 'different.' |
| From their parents? Most are too busy trying to make ends meet in a society that requires both parents to work
in order to put a roof over their family's head. |
| From Television? Right. Count the number of guns
you see on TV programs from Sunday to Saturday. The only lessons learned from TV are that guns
solve problems, usually in 60 minutes or less, and sex is fun. |
"What's wrong with us" isn't hidden anymore, Mr. Green. It's splashed
all over the Internet. Spend a full 8 hours one day jumping from one personal Web page to another
using the guestbooks found on them. Keep to the 15-25 year-old age group. You'll be amazed at what
you find.
The answers aren't really hidden, either. They're not "deep inside the human
spirit," nor are they "beyond the known boundaries of politics and civilized
history." That's just more of the usual sloughing off of responsibility we're so
good at. The answers are simple. You and I and everyone else have to give up trying to be in
control. We have to understand that if we think we're better than someone else... anyone else, that
makes the other person worse. Kids see us do that every day, Mr. Green. Where do you think
they learn it? Our focus has to come off ourselves and be put on others.
The problem is that no one's willing to do that because they're afraid that while they're doing
it someone else won't be and that person will get ahead of them. Wonderful thing we teach our
kids, isn't it?
You ask, "Do we care?" Of course we care. It gives us warm and fuzzy feelings to care. Will
we change? I doubt it. We'd have to accept personal responsibility for what we have in order
for that to happen. And we're not willing to do that until the other guy does it first. Each of
us has to accept personal responsibility for happenings like Columbine High. Who's willing to
start? You? Me?
And, of course, since the headlines and film clips of this and previous disasters like it
have shown kids the national attention they can receive from expressing themselves in this
manner, we can expect there will be more Columbines in the future. Which will beget
more. Which will mean more. It won't end. This is only the beginning.
What a selfish and sad generation we have proved ourselves to be. What a heritage
we have handed down to our children.
