noxcorpz:

i’m so tired of the claims that dylan was just a naive follower who didn’t really want to be part of the massacre

so so tired

Shifting The Blame: Violent Video Games?

We’ve all seen it, right? The second another mass shooting hits the floor of news rooms across the globe, out come the explanations and the psych babble that are meant to tell us why we’re bombarded by harm in the places that are meant to be safe. Some say “oh, it’s all that sex and violence in today’s movies and shows that’s numbing our kids and making them unable to empathise with others and relate to them”. Others say “it’s that pounding music that sounds like you’re going to war that makes them think it’s cool to pick up a gun and have a blast”. Yet again others say “it’s the shift in family cores, in our moral values, in our religions, in our acceptance of a myriad of cultures, in anything that is somehow different from how it was before”.

Others say it’s the video games, really. Not the Candy Crush variety or the Farmville variant, either, though a strong case can be made for violence when you’re hung up on a particular level that’s just not budging on you. The news channels don’t mention any dress-up games when they’re talking about what could make someone grow used to killing before they actually kill. Instead, it’s the first person shooters and all the things they call ‘gratuitous’. The Grand Theft Doom War Special Ops Train of Disaster and Apocalyptic Events, coming soon. But how fair is that, really?

I turned to Jamie Madigan’s “Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People Who Play Them” to help me figure out if shifting the blame onto those actually is worth a damn. The book looks well worth the read overall and you should definitely skimread chapter 14, but here’s a small excerpt from that chapter that really summarises that the extent of the contribution of violent video games to real-life violence is.. well.. not quite that simple to determine:

Is playing violent games a significant risk factor for violent behavior in real life? As much as this might annoy you to hear if you’re a gamer, I don’t think we know for sure. The research clearly shows that exposure to violent games (or media of any kind) can increase the accessibility of violent thoughts through priming. So I would believe you if you said you and your brother sometimes came to blows while playing Street Fighter. Priming is an established psychological phenomenon, even if the strength of its effects is sometimes overstated.

But the long- or medium-term effects of video game violence are not equally well understood or researched, for all the reasons described above. The kind of research needed to answer that question is very difficult to do, and there have been few attempts. I think it’s safe to say that anyone uttering the phrase “murder simulator” can safely be ignored, but outside of such extreme claims the data are mixed or simply unknown.

• The evidence from research on violent video games is not as clearcut and definitive as people on the extremes of either side would have you believe.

• “Social learning theory” describes how we can learn new behavioral scripts and internalize action/reward pairings simply by watching other people beat the daylights out of a clown.

• The General Aggression Model (GAM) holds that in addition to personal and situational factors, our aggression can be triggered by cascades of associations between violent acts and thoughts. This can prime violent scripts that lay out how to interpret and react to a given situation.

• GAM also predicts prosocial behaviors through the same mechanisms.

• Critics of the “yes, there’s a link” research argue that the behavioral measures of “violence” used in most research are unimpressive and far removed from actual, real-world violence.

• The “file drawer problem” (also called “publication bias”) refers to the fact that studies finding no relationship when one is expected are unlikely to be published or included in meta-analysis. This is another criticism against the “yes, there’s a link” camp.

• There are also often uncontrolled-for, alternative explanations for video game violence research. These are called “confounds.” That the complexity of game controls might cause frustration and violent thoughts is one example.

• Violent shooters are appealing, in part, because they often do a good job of satisfying self-determination theory’s needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Some research suggests that this is irrespective of the violent content.

Who wrote the Dave Cullen book? I thought he died?

Uh, Dave Cullen wrote the Dave Cullen book..?

Cullen’s a Chicago-born journalist and published the book Columbine in 2009. He claims to have done ten years of research for it, but the results are heavily criticised by other researchers and the immediate community surrounding the tragedy. He’s still very much alive and is set to publish his next book, Soldiers First, some time next year. Until that time, he seems to be content adding numerous new pages to ‘new editions’ of his tripe. (He keeps on touching the writing genres I love and I need him to stop, basically.)

I agree the structure of the book was really irritating – as soon as you’ve got the hang of the narrative it just switches to something completely different. I do think Dave described some of the victim’s experiences quite well and I thought the Cassie chapter was interesting, and kind of ironic and sad that she was going through a lot of the same things as the boys but ended up being a victim of them. But as you say, Dave just isn’t trustworthy so who knows. Looking forward to the review :)

Exactly what I was talking about, thanks! I used to be in the flow of one chapter during my reviews and then kinda balk at the next chapter because it would be another “cold open” with a sentence completely unrelated to the narrative I’d just come from. Couple that with chapter length (some chapters aren’t very long at all) and you’re in for a jarring ride. I keep thinking he must’ve had someone to edit this for him, but that editing work just doesn’t show at all in the way it’s presented in the final product.

I also think that Dave did a far better job with the victim narratives, though comments from Anne Marie Hochhalter (among others) have me questioning the validity of some things he presented as fact in there. The Cassie-chapter is indeed interesting – it reads like she was very close to the mindset Eric and Dylan were in, but was in the midst of scraping herself toward a better future when she was brutally shot and killed in the library. It just goes to show how random the kills really were and how little the boys knew their victims.

The Pseudo-Commando Mass Murderer

adeadlyinnocence:

This term was first widely used by forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz. According to him, the pseudocommando is driven by strong feelings of anger and resentment, in addition to having a paranoid character. He plans out the offense ritualistically, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons. The attack is usually carried out after long deliberation, maybe even months or years in advance and takes place in public during the daytime with the killer having no planned escape. Psychiatrist James Knoll further writes in this study of mass murderers “pseudocommandos are ‘collectors of injustice’ who nurture their wounded narcissism and ultimately retreat into a fantasy life of violence and revenge.” The report goes on to say that on top of being well armed, the offender is often in warrior gear or camouflage seeking out a personal act of vengeance.

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, James Knoll openly talked about people’s reactions to these shootings and what can be done to prevent them:

“We think far too shallow about these events. We concern ourselves with
metal detectors, security systems, ‘profiles,’ preventing ‘the mentally
ill’ from obtaining firearms. This is shallow, facile thinking. Want to
make a material impact? Think deeper. Cultivate a respect for how to
teach compassion, nonviolence and personal responsibility in individual
minds.”

The shooting at Columbine High School was something more than a sensational, long-running news story. It was the centerpiece of a national conversation about the state of late-twentieth-century America and the causes of and cures for a newly emerging problem (or a newly emerging understanding) of youth violence. More specifically, it was an illustrative example of how dramatic news events are defined in the news in ways that contribute to the social construction of public problems. (Lawrence, 2001, pp. 91-92)

The Columbine event was a problem-defining event, in that it has come to characterize the problem of youth violence and the general understanding of youth social problems. Key to Columbine’s status as a problem-defining event was the large scope of the victimization, the dramatic qualities of the victims’ narratives, the story’s interest to significant demographic audiences, and the public and/or political reaction generated by the shootings (Lawrence,2001, pp.  98-100). In the same way that Columbine “typifies” youth social problems, the Columbine victims, despite being victims of a rare type of attack, have come to characterize the victims of youth violence.

The ethnographic content analysis of the news media content about the Columbine vic-tims revealed four themes:

1. ID/Description of victims: The media concentrated on identifying and briefly describing the victims. These included the age, gender, and class standing of the student victims. As more details about the victims began to emerge, journalists  sought out details about the victims’ lives and personalities
   such as activities in which they had been involved and their personal interests. This theme appeared in 169 (39.8%) articles and 330 (31.6%) paragraphs.

2. Details of victims’ deaths: Second, the news reported details about the victims’ deaths, such as where they had been when shot, or how they had reacted to the attack. This theme appeared in 103 (24.2%)articles and 202 (19.3%) paragraphs.
3. Memorial services for victims: The news heavily covered many of the funerals and other memorial services for the victims. This theme appeared in 160 (37.6%) articles and 445 (42.6%) paragraphs.
4. Special issues: The news media also reported on a number of social issues relevant to the victim narratives, including race, religion, protest to an informal memorial for the victims, and an anti-National Rifle Association (NRA) protest. This theme appeared in 79 (18.6%) articles and 178 (17.0%) paragraphs.

In its more abstract senses, Columbine has become a keyword for a complex set of emotions surrounding youth, risk, fear, and delinquency in early 21st century United States. The outrage evoked by the rhetoric of victims in the Columbine story may preclude us from moving beyond our knee-jerk reactions to this horrible event. At some point, we will need to acknowledge the suffering and anguish Klebold and Harris caused in their community and beyond, and then move forward with sober assessments of the associated social problems.

Even in bleak conditions, hope can persist, and my hope is that, as a society, we can begin to look for the lessons in what occurred at Columbine. As this article has demonstrated, the myth of the superpredator is alive and well following the Columbine shootings, and the demonization of the perpetrators had more to do with the victim narratives than with the characteristics of the perpetrators themselves.

[read the rest of this interesting piece here]

Hi, it’s great that you’re semi-returned from hiatus! Personally what I would like to see is the rest of the Dave Cullen book reviewed because I just subjected myself to reading it and think your reviews would be cathartic for all the rage that Davie Boy’s book has given me ha ha (Totally get if you don’t want to do that though)

Thank you very much! I’m glad to get positive reactions to my semi-return.

I’ve
got chapters 46 to 53 left to go on that book, so that seems very
doable in comparison to all the other 45 chapters I already waded
through. I hardly think that anything will be worse than chapter 40 when
it comes to apoplectic rage on my part, anyway, haha. I’ll definitely
review the remaining parts of it!

How did you find the book? I
always hate the way it jumps back and forth between the boys and the
survivor stories. Something about the narration itself annoys me,
especially when Dave hardly explains some of the things he’s referring
to. The only value I can see in the book is that it sheds a light on the
community Eric and Dylan lived in, but because Dave embellishes and
lies so much I’m left wondering if his depiction is even the most factually accurate. This book basically just makes my eye twitch, lol.

“Ever since I went on a Bob Hare course, I’ve believed that psychopaths are monsters,” I said. “They’re just psychopaths, it’s what defines them, it’s what they are.” I paused. “But isn’t Tony kind of a semi-psychopath? A gray area? Doesn’t his story prove that people in the middle shouldn’t necessarily be defined by their maddest edges?”

“I think that’s right,” he replied. “Personally I don’t like the way Bob Hare talks about psychopaths almost as if they are a different species.”

Tony was standing alone now, staring at the wall.

“He does have a very high level of some psychopathic traits,” he said. “He never takes responsibility, everything is somebody else’s fault, but not of others. He’s not a serious, predatory offender. So he can be a bully in the right circumstances but he doesn’t set out to do serious harm for its own sake. I would also say you can never reduce any person to a diagnostic label. Tony has many endearing qualities when you look beyond the label.”

I looked over at Tony. I thought for a second that he was crying. But he wasn’t. He was just standing there.

“Even if you don’t accept those criticisms of Bob Hare’s work,” Professor Maden continued, “it’s obvious, if you look at his checklist, you can get a high score by being impulsive and irresponsible or by coldly planning to do something. So very different people end up with the same score.” He paused. “One needs to be careful about Tony’s endearing qualities though—many people with very damaged personalities have charisma, or some other quality that draws people in.”

excerpt from Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test, showcasing that Robert Hare’s view of psychopathy is not necessarily the only worthwhile professional view of it out there.

Note how this excerpt mentions Hare’s tendency to speak about psychopaths as though they’re from a different species. It is something I encountered in Dave Cullen’s book as well when he wrote at length about “what was wrong with Eric Harris” and attempted to explain why a barely 18-year-old was diagnosed post-mortem with something as severe as psychopathy. Dave essentially referred to Eric as “less than human”, which I believe is exactly the type of description Hare would approve of.

Note also that this same excerpt criticises the tendency to reduce a person to their respective diagnostic label and questions the nature of the so-called psychopath checklist when it is apparent that a high score on that can be attained by very different people, not all of whom may fit the psychopath label. I outright questioned the validity of the latter before when it became apparent to me that many teenagers would fit the diagnostic criteria purely based on what’s going on in their brains from a developmental perspective at the time.

It’s worthwhile to read up on the intricacies of psychological components to a massacre such as Columbine, particularly when the components featured are subject to heavy debates within their respective community. It would mean a lot for our future dialogue on mass shootings if we were to exercise greater care and caution in how we speak about the perpetrators. People such as Dave Cullen state we should not refer to them by name. I think that referring to them by name is still less damaging than referring to them by (possibly inaccurate) post-mortem diagnosis is.

Let’s cut the crap: psychopathy has little to no value placement in dialogue on Columbine and should not inform our impressions and thoughts on Eric Harris beyond more than a cursory nod of acknowledgement as one of the many, many trains of thought to entertain about him. Stripping the diagnosis away from the dialogue could be the most beneficial thing we’ll ever do here.

nbkgodlike answered your question “Resources & A Question..”

great to see you back! ❤ tbh i love u & your content, anything comes from you is worth following. ❤

Thanks, that’s appreciated a lot! ❤

Resources & A Question..

Aside from a new blog theme (hi, I guess this sorta counts as me being semi-back from hiatus), I’ve also taken the time to add more resources to the ever-growing resources page I compiled for you guys! It’s a work in progress that will likely grow exponentially in future. I hope you’ll enjoy the content and that it will be interesting and engaging to read. I’ve also taken the liberty to include body/mind-exercises and some personal favourites that help me out a lot when I’m feeling miserable. If anyone has an interesting link for me to add to this, please shoot me a personal message and I’ll check it out!

Also, I want to take the time to ask you the following question. Please think it through carefully and let me know if anything in particular comes to mind. I’m trying to come back from my big Columbine-break, but I may need some help to get going again..

What are some of the things you’d like to see on this blog? What would you like thedragonrampant to focus on? Do you want to see Q&A sessions, evidence posts, general information on mass shootings/true crime/psychology, observations of Eric & Dylan, other things..?

klebold-kleitalics-kleunderline:

One person that I don’t think gets enough recognition from the Columbine massacre is Dave Sanders.

From the moment he heard the gunshots, he started clearing out the cafeteria as well as the whole school. While he was trying to save everyone else, he ran into Eric Harris and was shot. Then he proceeded to bleed out for THREE PAINFUL HOURS before dying.

Dave Sanders died a hero. He’s the one we should be making a movie about.

Defining School Rampage Shooters

Upon reading Jonathan Fast’s Ceremonial Violence, I was struck by one of the earliest chapter’s definitions of school rampage shooters. A part of it works with the categories of mass murder that were defined by criminologist Eliot Dietz. Another part of it works with the five conditions that were outlined by sociologist Katherine Newman and her colleagues. Combined, it is the clearest definition of school rampage shooters like Eric and Dylan that I have seen to date.

School rampage shooters, obsessed with weapons and planning, often
donning militaristic or terroristic costumes for their shootings and
even playing theme music to “pump themselves up”, fall into
criminologist Park Eliot Dietz’ category of pseudo-commandos.

(The other two categories describe family annihilators and set-and-run killers. You can read more about them here.)

These are the five conditions or characteristics common to school rampage shooters:

First, the shooter perceives himself as “socially marginalized”
(whether he is or not!). He bears the brunt of bullying and teasing. He can be the target
of negative rumors and other exclusionary behaviors.

Second, he suffers from psycho-social problems – learning disorders,
psychiatric disorders, dysfunctional families, and the like – that
“magnify the impact of marginality”.

Third, he follows “cultural scripts” for problem-solving, meaning
that he buys into the machismo mythology of violence as a
problem-solving strategy. In other words: school shooters buy into the idea of “if people are treating you badly, make them respect you through a show of force”.

Fourth, he “flies beneath the radar”, meaning that his seriously
problematic behavior goes unidentified by the traditional gatekeepers:
the teachers, guidance counselors, school psychologists, and social
workers. His parents collude by being secretive, isolated from the
school, or in denial about his problems. The shooter himself may have
several strategies for avoiding juvenile court. He may be the class
clown, whom no one takes seriously; a practical or skilful liar; or a
boy who keeps to himself. He may be avoided by otherwise helpful adults
because he gives off a strange, menacing “vibe”.

Fifth, he has access to firearms. Without the availability of guns,
there are no school rampage shootings. Places with more guns have higher rates of
adolescent suicide, homicide and injury than places with fewer guns.

Fifteen crosses for fifteen people. They call their presence a memorial. The community brings them flowers, which is as much a plea to come back as it is an apology. There are words humming in the air around the crosses, singing their anger and their grief in blackest black upon their wood, and it feels like the world itself has stopped to listen.

They say that crosses are markers for the dead. They say that the names written on these crosses are all that encompass someone’s being. We are nothing but our names and the date upon which we left this Earth. Even when the crosses are torn down, these names and that date hallmark some turning point in time.

Crosses are, in all honesty, markers for the living. Their entire meaning comes from the struggle of life itself. We have been told that we all have our own cross to bear. That we shoulder our own cross throughout all the days of our lives. That we sometimes stumble under it, and fall, and get back up again. And a standing cross upon a gravesite becomes nothing more or less than the symbol of completion. A row of fifteen crosses in the centre of a community marks nothing else than the recognition that fifteen people planted their life’s cross upon the Earth and walked away from it forever.

None of these crosses say anything about the people they immortalise. They don’t speak of their brightest days. They don’t remember the cry of a newborn baby, or the laughter of a child. They don’t know which bones were broken, which scratches and scrapes were kissed and tended to, which worries were soothed in the dead of night. They didn’t sit with terror upon waking from a dream that foretold the end of the world. They didn’t hear a whispered prayer of please and thank you. They don’t recall moments of failure or victory. They don’t recall what it feels like to be embraced and loved throughout all the days of life.

Those memories are for the living. These memories are the ones scribbled upon the crosses of the people that were left behind. They walk hand in hand with those other memories that are nothing but That Day and After That Day. Some remember That Day and After That Day more than they remember Before. That Day is always remembered today, on a day in April, and we all live within the After.

I would like to think that Before is primarily the domain of parents, of friends, of loved ones. Before are the photographs on the wall, the handwritten cards, the drawings from childhood years, the memories that make the dead come to life again. Before inspires the fight that takes place After. Sometimes, however, Before is the entire world’s domain in fleeting smiles dancing before our eyes and long-gone voices whispering nothing of import in our ears. Sometimes, Before becomes a waking companion in the dead of night when the loss of fifteen souls becomes the loss of fifteen universes.

Sometimes, Before is all I see when looking at fifteen crosses.

Sometimes, Before erases the divide between thirteen and two.

I have no crosses with which to mark the passing of That Day. I have nothing but names and infinite stories great and small to share.

Rachel Scott
Daniel Rohrbough
Kelly Fleming
Lauren Townsend
John Tomlin
Matt Kechter
Isaiah Shoels
Daniel Mauser
Corey DePooter
Dave Sanders
Kyle Velasquez
Steve Curnow
Cassie Bernall
Dylan Klebold
Eric Harris

I have nothing but the thought that I would have liked to know you.

Review of Sue’s book from the UK’s Real Crime magazine.