Columbine as a formative event in youth.

Ben Lerner, writer:

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I also wanted to return to the nineties, to revisit the middle west white middle class back when people were proclaiming that we had reached “the end of history,” the notion that, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, liberalism—capitalism—had triumphed once and for all. But we were the generation of Columbine, more or less—not all was well with the privileged subjects of the empire that had supposedly brought history to a benevolent end.

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that if I was going to write something in relation to the other two books that was about the thinking that comes out of being a father – or the feeling more than the thinking – that the way to do it would be to write it in Topeka in the 90s. And I’ve always been interested in the 90s, right before Columbine, and the ‘end of history’ discourse, and the advent of the Clinton dynasty.”

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Older millennials and younger Gen X-ers came of age in the late 90's so we had Columbine and then 9/11 then a lot of stuff went downhill from there.

I know there are survivors of Columbine who think it was everyones tragedy if you were in middle/high school when it happened, it affected so many people but others are like "no, back off, this has nothing to do with you." both are valid and I understand completely why they would feel like this.

Those two events really shaped us I think.

myshame wrote:

Ben Lerner, writer:

Quote :

I also wanted to return to the nineties, to revisit the middle west white middle class back when people were proclaiming that we had reached “the end of history,” the notion that, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, liberalism—capitalism—had triumphed once and for all. But we were the generation of Columbine, more or less—not all was well with the privileged subjects of the empire that had supposedly brought history to a benevolent end.

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Quote :

that if I was going to write something in relation to the other two books that was about the thinking that comes out of being a father – or the feeling more than the thinking – that the way to do it would be to write it in Topeka in the 90s. And I’ve always been interested in the 90s, right before Columbine, and the ‘end of history’ discourse, and the advent of the Clinton dynasty.”

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Topeka in the 90s? I was there...I guess we were one state over and it had a lot of people around here on age. People in Kansas were also on edge because of the OKC bombing, Timmy McVeigh stayed in a motel in Kansas the night before.
I maintain that Columbine doesn't sum up the 90s though so much as its teen-soap-opera aspects play on the mindsets of those who either got bullied in high school to this very day or whom simply wished they had had a better time in high school, but can never return to that.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

myshame wrote:

Ben Lerner, writer:

Quote :

I also wanted to return to the nineties, to revisit the middle west white middle class back when people were proclaiming that we had reached “the end of history,” the notion that, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, liberalism—capitalism—had triumphed once and for all. But we were the generation of Columbine, more or less—not all was well with the privileged subjects of the empire that had supposedly brought history to a benevolent end.

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Quote :

that if I was going to write something in relation to the other two books that was about the thinking that comes out of being a father – or the feeling more than the thinking – that the way to do it would be to write it in Topeka in the 90s. And I’ve always been interested in the 90s, right before Columbine, and the ‘end of history’ discourse, and the advent of the Clinton dynasty.”

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Topeka in the 90s?  I was there...I guess we were one state over and it had a lot of people around here on age.  People in Kansas were also on edge because of the OKC bombing, Timmy McVeigh stayed in a motel in Kansas the night before.  
I maintain that Columbine doesn't sum up the 90s though so much as its teen-soap-opera aspects play on the mindsets of those who either got bullied in high school to this very day or whom simply wished they had had a better time in high school, but can never return to that.  

Ahh that's where Ben Lerner was from too. His book is The Topeka School.

I guess Columbine could be seen as a dry run of 9/11. Smaller stakes, fewer deaths. But yet, similar legacy. I remember the aftermath of 9/11 as it happened. I was too young to know about Columbine when it happened.