Columbine: Chapter 40 Summary & Analysis

Insanity, Dr. Fuselier knows, is “marked by mental confusion.” Eric Harris’s journals reveal a cold but highly rational kind of calculation. Fuselier also notes that Eric is both charming and callous, as well as manipulative and egocentric. Most alarmingly of all, Eric seemingly has no empathy: he fits the bill of a textbook psychopath. Fuselier attempts to attack his own hypothesis, but finds that diagnosing Eric with psychopathy holds up against every inquiry. This diagnosis then establishes the foundation for understanding the crime.

Psychopathic brains, Cullen writes, are distinguished by two characteristics: a ruthless disregard for others and, secondly, a gift for disguising that disregard completely. Psychopaths come off as charming and inviting, not “evil” or insane. Lying, and finding joy in lying, is a “signature” trait of a psychopath. Scans of the brain waves of psychopathic brains reveal “activity unrecognizable as human to most neurologists.”

Another psychological phenomenon within the Columbine attack was the presence of a “dyad,” a murderous pair who “feed” on one another. These partnerships—think Bonnie and Clyde—tend to be “asymmetrical,” and the dyad of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold certainly was. Eric was the ringleader and sadistic psychopath, and Dylan was an angry, erratic depressive.