Another mass shooting. James Fallows reacts to the theorizing that goes on in the media immediately after.

The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre “mean”? A decade later, do we “know” anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy.

James Fallows is a fine journalist but this is just really wrong for me. It’s true that the media chatter after these events is often a grab bag of cliches and trite observations and bad information. I’m sure there is some of that out there this time too. But there are explanations and ways to get at the truth. Good journalism can bring together an accurate narrative behind such events through a close study of law enforcement, science and medicine, the insights of those close at hand and so on. Columbine is a good case in point. The initial narrative about Columbine was almost entirely wrong. The explanation had to do with outcast kids getting revenge on their more popular peers. It seemed to make sense and, as far as I can tell, it stuck. But it’s wrong. Dave Cullen wrote a book after spending years investigating the Columbine massacre. I haven’t read his book, only this part on Slate, and I’ve listened to him speak about it so I’ve gotten the gist of it. Eric Harris was a psychopath, in the clinical sense, and Dylan Kleibold was a depressive who was suicidal and homicidal, not an unusual combination. There is much about the human condition that can be learned from Columbine. So, yes, it has meaning. I think the same applies to Virginia Tech, the Killeen Texas cafeteria murders, and etc. That’s not to say that there is one all-encompassing observation that can be made. There isn’t and I won’t try to make one. The meanings are various and multiple and will be fought over. But they are out there.

Update: And, by the way, Marty Peretz is still a stupid fucking racist and stark raving crazy too.