Progress Report on Violence

And despite the current frenzy in the States over the school massacre in Littleton, coupled with the painfully remembered incidents of Jonesboro, Springfield, West Paducah, Fayetteville, Pearl, and Edinboro, American violence is also statistically not on the rise.

In fact, the Bureau of Justice states that since 1991 overall homicide rates in America have been steadily decreasing, and the best evidence shows that murder, school violence, drug abuse, criminal arrest, violent death, and gun fatality have declined for all teenagers over the last five years, and for middle- to upper-class teenagers over the last 15 to 30 years. Any semblance to the contrary may be due to widespread media coverage, the high profile nature of certain incidents, and the fact that the reporting of crime is up 800%.

Encouraging statistics, however, do not lessen the pain for the families who experience loss, nor should they muzzle the voices "calling" for a safer society. In order to eliminate or reduce violence, must one first unriddle the causal chain, untangle the elusive mystery of "why"? This is not an easy task.

As the Senate orders a federal investigation of violence in the entertainment industry and as gun control advocates march outside the National Rifle Association's headquarters, "talking heads" insist that a lack of values in society has created a poison saturating the minds of today's youth and piercing their bodies with weird metal objects. Social demise? Bad parenting? Who do we blame? How do we differentiate between scapegoats and "scape artists?"

Although there are numerous causes (stemming from both nature and nurture) associated with donning fatigues and blasting into a high school with an AK-47, there is one causal factor that has slivered past the masses and mass media without a trace: progress. Progress is defined as moving forward, onward, advancing. The "Clueless" and "Beverly Hills 90210" generation of today has arguably advanced beyond its years, puppeting their elders in word and deed at a younger and younger age, even when it comes to the objectionable acts of mischief and murder.

But progress does more than tempt teenagers to turn into mini-adults. It replaces the fistfight in the alley with a sub-machine gun in the library; The black eye is supplanted by the bullet wound. Delighting in techno-advancement, progress first invents the handgun that injures, then transforms it into a precision-like tool of death and makes it available everywhere. Accessibility, availability, variety, and consumer choice are by-products or perks of progress and often synonymized with it. A small village in central Africa may be judged "backward" because it sells only one type of footwear, while in America, the word "progress" is stamped in invisible ink on the tags of hundreds, if not thousands, of assorted shoe styles. Weaponry may be a little shinier and more perilous than high heels, but it is no less inaccessible in modern-day America.

Alluding to the hazards of progress in no way suggests that we should halt, rewind, click our heels into an "about face," or pretend to be a village in Africa. We should instead plunge ahead, combating progress with progress. Reverting to the homogeneity of family values or adhering to a single religious authority may have been a godsend to past generations (although this is indeed debatable), but the grievances of current culture require "progressive" solutions.

To point our angry fingers at the so-called contributors to violence, such as video game manufacturers or the producers of "The Basketball Diaries," is to judge, condemn, and foster hatred, paving the way for a war zone between competing interests. To point instead to "progress," a natural phenomenon, as the culprit is to elicit nothing more than a chuckle, paving the way for a discussion zone.

A discussion zone could likewise be established within the classroom, taking at least two distinct forms: that of a "diversity of values class" and that of a "violence preparation class." The value-neutral nature of the "diversity of values class" would not jeopardize the separation of church and state and might even combat what psychologists call the "alienation problem," the latter catapulting some teens into criminal acts because they are unable to vent their feelings and express their views.

With the recent and obsessive search for a scapegoat, violence has merely shifted from the streets and schoolyards to the nightly news and talk radio. Our children are smart enough to know that the hurling of accusations, the incessant moralizing, and the current climate of animosity is merely another form of brutality. Perhaps it is we, not our children, who need a progress report.

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