Millions of kids who grow up just as emotionally impoverished as Andy Williams don’t walk into their school one morning and start shooting. The difference is Columbine. Andy Williams was infected by the example of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, just as the suicides of Micronesia were infected by the example of that first dramatic love triangle. It is a mistake to try to make sense of these kinds of actions by blaming influences of the outside world — in terms of broader trends of violence and social breakdown. These are epidemics in isolation: they follow a mysterious, internal script that
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