Violence Is a Symptom, Not an Inevitability

Oh no, we say, reading the news with horror and helplessness, another teenage boy on a murderous rampage. This time it’s a 15-year-old in Oregon who killed his parents and two fellow students. We haven’t recovered from the 11- and 13-year-olds in Jonesboro, Ark., who killed a teacher and four students on March 24.

These acts of vengeful cruelty, occurring not in the mean, bad big city but in close-knit small communities, are especially threatening to our sense of safety and order. But before we leap to simplistic solutions--Build more prisons! Execute teenagers!--let’s think about what these murders tell us.

First, they are the aberrations of disturbed individuals, not necessarily a sign that society is falling apart. On the contrary, rates of violence have plummeted in recent years, and nowhere more noticeably than here in Los Angeles and in New York--the twin evil cities to most of America. When I moved back to Los Angeles in the 1980s, deaths caused by gang warfare were constantly in the news. The sharp decline in gang-related killings has been one of the most remarkable events in this city’s recent history.

Second, consider the locations of the last seven school killings in the United States: Pearl, Miss.; West Paducah, Ky; Stamps, Ark.; Jonesboro, Ark,; Edinboro, Pa.; Fayetteville, Tenn.; and Springfield, Ore. All of these states promote the use of guns for hunting and “protection,” and foster what social psychologist Richard Nisbett calls a “culture of honor” that teaches its males to avenge perceived slights and insults. The boys who committed these murders had been taught to use and value guns all their young lives.

Third, all of the perpetrators are male. Psychologists have identified a major divergence in the way boys and girls handle emotional problems, starting in early adolescence: In general, girls begin to internalize anger, anxiety or low self-esteem by developing eating disorders or depression; boys externalize these problems by drinking too much alcohol or attacking others.

Fourth, from what has been reported thus far, the psychology, history and motives of the perpetrators differ, which is why efforts to find a single explanation for their actions are likely to fail. Kipland Kinkel, the Oregon teenager, apparently had some of the classic symptoms of antisocial personality disorder--torturing animals and being resistant to parental discipline. But one of the two boys in Jonesboro may have suffered no more than normal adolescent misery and the other normal vulnerability to a more dominant peer.

By understanding the similarities and differences across these horrible acts of murder, we can focus on the diversity of solutions necessary to prevent further ones. Gun control is at the top of my list.

However, there are other interventions to be made. Boys (and girls) need to learn that loneliness, despair, anger and insecurity will always be part of the human condition, but that there are ways to cope other than by the destruction of oneself or others. They need skills to counter the lessons of the media, which may be summarized as “Mad at someone? Just blow the guy away.” Some schools across the country have developed anger-management classes that teach kids constructive alternatives to acting out.

Further, we have cut off mental-health resources to our schools and parents at our communal peril. Parents and teachers need help in recognizing the symptoms of potentially lethal aggression, especially in boys, so that they will not dismiss these symptoms as normal boyishness.

“Cultures of honor” are harder to change, but even here we can be hopeful. Cultures change when the need for violence within them diminishes. The Vikings were once the most aggressive and barbarous of men; today, you don’t hear about squadrons of marauding Scandinavians. But we needn’t look to other nations or centuries to see improvements; we can look to the progress of gangs right here in Los Angeles. The lesson they teach us is that violence is a symptom, not an inevitability.