The Motivation Behind the Columbine High Shootings Essay -- Columbine

The Motivation Behind the aquilege naughty ShootingsEvery major spectacle carries with it the potential of a new authority of looking at the past and implications of a future. Usually within a brief period after the typesetters case, a consensual explanation is fashioned through the intelligence information media and by the political pundits who occupy much of the home and time dedicated by the media to the counterbalancet. Political pundits seated in apparent motion of the camera become break of the event, often becoming a part of the process of transforming an event in time to a spectacle.In this case, the event was the murder of 13 and wounding of 23 persons at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The event took domicile on April 22, 1999 and, because of the subsequent self-destruction of the twain teenage perpetrators, observers could lonesome(prenominal) speculate on their motivation. While students were solace hiding from the gunmen and while the poli ce were still plotting their strategy, the media coverage began. perhaps two impulses led to the coverage. First of all, the victims were non the children of the Hutus or East Timorese or even the Kosovos. These were our children and the parents our friends. Their grief could have been ours. In fact, in a month plus a few days, five million dollars were donated to the survivors and the victim families even without there being a major fund-raising drive (Morning Edition, NPR, June 8, 1999).Secondly, the event had the earmarks of a media spectacle, that is, by transmogrifying the event to something beyond itself, the news media knew they would again be sufficient to maximize their profit margins on the grief and graves of others. Events are news stories spectacles are dollars. The old tv newsroom characterization of if it bleeds, it leads has been replaced in their duty office from graves to the gravy train.In its societal context, the Columbine aim shootings are not an obvious part of a discernible sociological pattern. We know that approximately 4,500 youngsters are killed every year in learned shootings, with thirty per cent of that number probable suicides. Thats almost 13 a day, the same number as were killed in Littleton (The Washington Post, April 25, 1999). The data on school shootings, according to the Center for Communicable Diseases, indicate that only virtually 28 per cent actually occurred inside the school and that one-third of the victims were not... ...de quarter my choices.You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES....You taught these kids not to accept what is different.Harris and Klebold, armed with guns and bombs, grotesquely mobilized what little power they thought they had. Perhaps at another time or in another place these murders would not have occurred. But right now, the fall out is power. That is our final lesson. star Georgia school board member -- obviously aware of the issue -- said following th e Conyers, GA shooting Weve got to let these kids know whos in charge of the schools (New York Times, May 24, 1999).Violence in all of its manifestations is based on an exercise of power. It represents a means to gain power, to maintain power, or as a response to a threat to ones power. As long as a society maintains the legitimacy of social hierarchies, of the right of some mass to have power over others, there will be violence. nonpareil can either seek to diffuse the concentration of power or to deem violence. By its very character, the attempt to control violence is self-defeating. The control will itself become violent. The quest for a society without coercion is only now being charted