David Brooks writes, in a New York Times op-ed column,
“After I wrote a column a few weeks ago about the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, I got e-mail from Tom Klebold, the father of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters. Tom objected to the column, but the striking thing about his note was that while acknowledging the horrible crime his son had committed, Tom was still fiercely loyal toward him. Which prompts this question: If your child commits a crime like that, what do you do with the rest of your life?”
Klebold’s parents, who gave Brooks access because they “trust their daily paper”, the Times, deemphasize the murders and speak of what their son did as suicide. They blame the ‘toxic culture’ at his school and, describing a moment when somebody said “I forgive you”, Klebold’s mother objects that they did nothing they need to be forgiven for. On the other hand, they can imagine that their son “…suffered horribly before he died. For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself.” But, true to form, the incisive David Brooks simplifies it beautifully for all of us who might be wrestling unproductively with the complexities of such an act and its aftermath:
“My instinct is that Dylan Klebold was a self-initiating moral agent who made his choices and should be condemned for them. Neither his school nor his parents determined his behavior.”
