Van Dylan Klebold's Experiment

Columbine Essay French philosopher Michel Foucault said, “He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection” (Foucault). In his book In Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault is claiming that the mere illusion of being observed can alter people’s behavior. By multiple accounts, this is true. Researchers Melissa Bateson and Daniel Nettle conducted an experiment in which posters of human-staring eyes were put up to see if it would modify behavior, in this case littering: it did (Van

He started school a year earlier than the rest of the kids and was even enrolled in a program for gifted children, his specialty being math. The early start may not have hampered him intellectually but it stressed his shyness further (Cullen 125). He was in Cub Scouts, enjoyed fishing trips with his dad, and took a big interest in baseball up until the day he died. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Dylan was growing up except for his emotional outbursts. “He would be docile for days or months, then the pain would boil over and some minor transgression would humiliate him,” Cullen writes (Cullen 126). As Dylan grew up, his head was bursting with “ideas, sounds, and impressions” (Cullen 173). Dylan felt as if no one understood him and this led him to be depressed. Suicide began consuming him on a daily basis. On March 31 1997, Dylan got drunk and began a journal he titled “Existences: A Virtual Book.” This journal is the main source that was used by experts to profile the killer. Initially in his journal, there was never any violence or murder mentioned. Any anger that was expressed was always aimed at himself. “My existence is shit,” he wrote in one entry. Dylan was lonely and depressed and everybody failed to see it, including his parents. Years after the tragedy, Sue and Tom Klebold accepted responsibility for that tragic mistake. “I think he suffered horribly before he died,” Sue said. “For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself” (Cullen 340). Dylan did experience happiness sometimes, like when he got his drivers for example, but he was unable to remain so. Dylan had friends, he was social, and there was even a girl who liked him, but none of that seemed to matter. In another journal entry, Dylan wrote, “He had no happiness, no ambition, no friends, and no LOVE!!!” (Cullen 187). When Dr. Fuselier was attempting to profile the boys after the Columbine massacre, one of his