Martin Henry

Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, the worst in a series of mass murder school shootings over the last few years, is bound to raise the question 'WHY?'

The shock effect of 33 killed and 15 wounded in the space of two hours on one university campus by an accomplished shooter has overawed us. Some Jamaican parents have even already made decisions not to send their children to U.S. schools. But Jamaica probably has a higher per capita concentration of cold-blooded killers, most of whom are very young men, 15-25, than anywhere else in the world. On any ordinary day, one is more likely to get killed here than almost anywhere else in the world.

Values-free sociological analyses of 'Why?' are going to come up very short. Clearly there is going to be a complicated tangle of social and cultural factors producing people like the Virginia Tech shooter and our killers. We shall have to dig deeper and listen to the voiceof higher authority. American culture, followed by much of the world, is now suffused through and through with endemic lawlessness and disregard for authority. Freedom is degenerating into chaos and anarchy. And the root of the rot is the same root from which children first derive their social values and moral compass - home and family.

Continuity of society

All civilised and stable societies have 'known', particularly through their religious codes, that the continuity of the society in peaceful order depends upon the careful training of children to respect and adhere to the values which make for social order. America itself was calculatedly founded on the principles of Judaeo-Christian faith with its powerful emphasis on training children for respectful adherence to a lofty moral code. Moses told the fledgling Israelite nation that the key to peace and prosperity was adherence to Law which "you should teach diligently to your children in your house and when you walk by the way." The American founders seriously believed that, and built an early school system centred on the inculcation of moral values. In the most amazing evolution, the current school system has become largely a destroyer of religion-based moral values.

I have just completed reading Karl Albrecht's new book [2006], "Social Intelligence" in which he cites an anthropologist saying, "the most dangerous animal on the planet is an unmated human male between the ages of 16 and 24." Precisely the age band of our ruthless, conscienceless gunmen and the school shooters in the U.S. and more and more places around the world. Girls without appropriate social controls pose their own danger to society and self of a less overtly violent nature. The loosening of age-old social controls is letting loose that dangerous animal and wreaking havoc upon society.

Albrecht points out how home influence has been lost to a popular culture projecting cynical, narcissistic values as he enquires, "Is it too late to do anything about the psychological kidnapping of our children?"

Begin early

Albrecht advocates what any religious leader could well have told him from the long experience of faith and history: If we hope to provide children with positive influence and socially intelligent life strategies, we need to begin early, to diligently counteract and contradict the influence of the narcissistic messages that bombard them every day. And early means well before age 10 since after that other influences tend to have a much stronger effect than home.

The school shooters may be low on conscience and regard for human life, but they seem to be pretty good marksmen. A retired U.S. army officer, David Grossman [www.killology.com], who studies the social impact of violent video games, which he describes as 'murder simulators', has found that teenagers who play the shooting games are better shots than adults without firearms experience who don't play and are nearly as good as people who actually practice shooting on a range.

Clearly we don't know specific motives or the details of the formation of a U.S. school shooter or a Jamaican gun boy, but an endemic lawlessness and disregard for authority fed by an I-centred pleasure culture are destroying moral formation and social controls and turning youth in particular into fearsome destroyers.