Well, duh. I knew that when I was 12.
Paula Boylard makes some good points:
I’d like to suggest that 100 years ago someone (or several someones) would have “leapt the table” to defend the honor of those families and those slain teenagers. They’d have at least risked being removed from the courtroom to make sure those families and everyone in the room knew exactly how offensive the “KILLER” shirt was. But I fear a century of progressive policy—in particular, progressive education—has turned us into a nation of obedient zombies, unable to question authority and unwilling to stand up in the face of injustice.
***
But she doesn’t go far enough, and is too equivocal.
For instance, notice that the killer in question went on a murder spree in his school.
Hey, he probably thinks he did what Boylard wants others to do: rebel against the educational system.
He just did it in a sick and twisted way, in a place where — just as Boylard says — people are encouraged to respond like sheep.
(See the Montreal Massacre, and my “Ban schools, not guns” argument.)
To put it another way:
Everybody hates school.
0.0005% of those people end up shooting the place up, and the other percentage sit around waiting to be shot.
“The fool runs to the east. The wise men run to the east. Both men run to the east. Their purposes differ.”
I agree that one hundred years ago, “none of this would have happened.”
But she’s annoyed that everyone involved in this story said, “Someone should do something,” and then adds, more or less, “Someone should do something” herself, in a column full of great observations but also too full of questions and tap dancing.
“Perhaps.” “Maybe.” Boyard embodies the very attitude she’s criticizing.
