The foiled plot to exceed the carnage Columbine put writer Walter Kirn in a reflective frame of mind. He’s been filling in for Andrew Sulivan for the past couple weeks. His post put what a lot of us have been thinking quite well:
“There’s something about the world these days that brings out the worst in the lonely and the obscure and feeds their grudges until they grow enormous. And I don’t think it’s violent video games and movies. I don’t think it’s access to firearms. I think it’s the simple message that you’re not anyone until you’ve done something worthy of media coverage, whatever that thing may be. The star-system has become a kind of moral code with only one commandment: Thou Shalt Not Go Unnoticed. When the concept of fame broke free from its old grounding in the concept of public virtue — when it was supplanted by the lesser idea of Warhol-ish celebrity — the lid was off the jar.
Luckily (I think), the Web has come along, where anyone can make his presence felt — or have the illusion of making his presence felt — without having to perpetrate a sensational crime. The Kansas kids were eager to do both, of course, and they foiled themselves. Perhaps the Web’s promise of liberating people from anonymity will aggravate their mania, but here’s hoping it will bleed it off some.”
