Teenagers and High School Security

This is not going to impress anyone who believes strongly about the value of feelings and instead play down the value of analyzing anything. (I guess it's the difference between right and left brain thinking.) But it is my way of looking at things, and for what it's worth, it keeps me out of trouble.

Lately I'm hearing lots of talk about our teenagers and school security. I just read in one local paper about three new similar incidents - two local and one in another state. It seems that teenagers everywhere are forming some kind of opinion that they have the right to 'speak out violently' or that violence is the best 'media' to express the way they 'feel'.

But I don't believe it is all wrapped up in 'feelings'. Feelings don't come out of the blue. They are "generated" by beliefs, which in turn are 'generated' by attitudes, which in turn are 'generated' by experience, which are colored by beliefs. From this over-simplified model, feelings are a by-product. They are not at the grassroots of our experience and behavior. Feelings are a result of thought and behavior. How we 'feel' about something is what we describe more as a body sensation than anything else. To say 'my feelings are hurt' is to recognize that you physically feel something going on in your body that is a chemical reaction to brain functions resulting from a combination of thoughts and experiences. When we 'feel strongly' about something, we identify more with the 'fight or flight' sensation that comes when confronted with a conflict concerning our beliefs.

Based on what I just said, I conclude that feelings and emotions are derived. As such, they are not real. If we deal with the facts, with what is real, we discover a new peace that allows feelings and emotions to take a back seat without throwing them out the window. They become as much a part of our experience, of enjoying life, as pure thought. At that point, they do not become a means to an end or even the end of a means (they are not used to get something, nor are they the goal for which we live).

So much for that. What good does any of that do for an angry teenager bent on proving their 'justice' or freedom or 'space' has been trampled on?

Well, it could lead to a solution.

I last mentioned on this subject that I strongly felt that the real training for teenage behavior starts at home with the parents. I've been hearing a lot of agreement about this in the news from some very noteworthy people. But I recently saw a connection, a thread, a pattern, in all this violence. When I last read that four teenagers (average age of 13) were planning to force their principal at gun-point to assemble students in the auditorium, then attempt to kill everyone in the assembly including themselves, it occurred to me that someone or some group or some 'guiding principle' is at work here.

First, no teenager, in fact, no person I can think of anywhere at any age, would commit murder if they had any intrinsic appreciation for life. Secondly, I believe that if a child has strong, positive 'feelings' about their parents, that they would think twice about bringing dishonor to them through improper actions (of any kind).

As a child, I had developed a fairly strong distaste for my parents (mostly my mother - I simply feared my stepfather). It didn't seem unjust to me to think that my mother would be humiliated if I were caught doing something 'bad', so I did all the bad that I could dream up. My religious training went out the window completely then. I was really only trying to prove my 'worth' by opposing my mother's wishes. I actually trained myself to become a criminal. It was intentional. And if my mother got hurt in the process, all the better!

You see, based on my own childhood, I think I understand the inner thoughts and feelings of these distraught teenagers. But there's one more element to be explored.

While I was a child, had there been any movement afoot in my community aimed at enlisting young children into the service of racial or crime orientated activities, I would have been right there volunteering to become a new top dog. Instead, I was the 'ringleader' of sorts of my own 'band of renegades', enlisting the services of my friends to join me in my battle against my perceived oppressors - our parents.

It would have been mostly through the 'outside' but direct influence of those dissenting factions that I could have been turned into a real menace to society. And I believe that something like this is happening to our children today.

The Swastika signs, the racial hate slogans, the proliferation of guns, the mass hypnotic effect of drugs, all these and more are signs of real criminal elements in our society doing their best to prove their 'worth', also opposing the wishes of whatever was their authority figure as a child. And the 'criminals' may be nothing more oppressive than parents at home decrying their beliefs around their children: "Those ______ ought to be shot!"

And it isn't just children that are feeling the effects of this kind of mass propaganda to lash out at society. Adults have turned their backs on Love when they have had enough of whatever it was that trampled on their ego (e.g., the Una-bomber). But in order to come to that decision, the individual had to have already had a fair amount of a feeling of worthlessness; some degree of low self-esteem had been glimmering in their consciousness at the time they 'turned'. I heard that one of the problems of our teenagers is that they are being fed too much false praise, that whatever they do or say is worthwhile even if it doesn't reap the same rewards as one who truly excelled. This may well be. But this kind of propaganda doesn't measure up to the kind of propaganda that promises instant gratification. Being a radical promises instant gratification. Isn't that what rebellions are all about? Isn't that what spurred this nation to rebel against the King of England? Isn't that what the rebels of Rwanda are fighting for? Isn't that what Hitler espoused? Isn't that what is really driving our teenagers to commit heinous crimes?

It seems to me that a new kind of propaganda needs to be spread now. A propaganda against fanaticism. A propaganda against hate crimes. A propaganda identifying radical groups and their methods of spreading their 'truth'. But the propaganda itself should not bear the same marks as the propaganda it is trying to guard against. The not too sly attempts of TV programs to identify radicals and spread propaganda against them (referring to a recent TV special on Scientology) may be working on some people, but it isn't having much of an effect on Scientology as a whole. They are still able to recruit new members. But we could say the same thing about the Mormons, the Catholics, the Protestants, the Muslims, etc. If indeed any of these groups are brainwashing people to deny a fellow man for the sake of an ideal, then I think there is a case for investigating and exposing their operations if only to inform the public of the possible consequences of their choices. But the TV programs aren't doing the job they hope to do. The parents are disregarding the warnings, and consequently the children aren't being prepared for reality (they often prefer acting on their parent's choice of beliefs than what they hear or see in a documentary anywhere - it's often the 'safe' thing to do).

Notice I carefully said "guard against". I didn't say "overthrow" or "tear down" or "conquer". Just as we try to teach young children to leave real guns alone, we should be teaching all our children to recognize and properly interact with dissenting factions. We need to show, by example wherever and whenever possible, how those factions behave and what their results are. Instead of saying "don't' touch", we should be saying "get close" and discover first-hand the devastating effects of radical movements gone astray. This is similar to showing a child what happens when a gun is fired - I have no objections to letting them experience it first-hand under careful adult supervision. Similarly, we have 'debate' classes to teach how to have a safe encounter with differences of opinions. So how do we teach how to recognize and interact with radical movements and criminal factions? Is that only for police academies and government protection forces?

Being a "radical" isn't altogether bad. Radical ideas and radical actions are often good for a community, but they can be non-destructive when one learns how to be a radical with proper interaction in a society, just as a debate is 'safe' when engaged in properly.

My point is that there is a major difference between smoothing over someone's hurt feelings and determining and correcting the root cause of those hurt feelings. My point is also that we seem to be doing little as a body of mankind to discover and implement preventive measures for hurt feelings. From a purely religious perspective, the answer is quite simple: love one another. But it can't work that way when those same religions are also promoting separatism in their doctrine (mine is better than yours).

My job is not the best. My car is not the best. My house is not the best. My friends are not the best. My philosophy is not the best. And just because someone else shines better than me does not justify that I can wipe out all those that seem to be putting me down. There is no justification for me to climb over the dead or injured bodies of others so that I may become top dog. I learned that lesson over many years, and long after becoming an adult. I don't have the best way of helping others learn that lesson. But it seems to be that if we don't start education the masses with mass educational methods that we are in danger of losing the masses to 'the other side' of Love.

CAUTION: Fanaticism appears in many shapes and represents 'truth' in varying ways. I do not hesitate to say that most if not all religious orders have proven decidedly that their methods of spreading the 'truth' involve teaching hatred for their 'enemy' and promising 'death' to their oppressors. The message "we shall overcome" is not a message of Love, it is a message of violence. Hitler wasn't any different than any person who pushes their form of 'truth' on others at the expense of lives, homestead, and personal choice of religious and/or political beliefs.

We need a method of teaching that clearly teaches the error of a non-Loving conduct without also employing a non-Loving conduct. We need a method of propaganda that spreads the message of Love without becoming what it proposes to counter. We need to discover a new message that, while not being religious nor politically motivated, describes how to live in conflict from the perspective of tolerance, but not at the expense of self-esteem and safety, be it personal or collective.

As a finale, from my own experience, there is no way to change a person whom will not be changed. That does not mean we give up trying, but it also means we have no more right to force them to change than they have to change us. We must learn to live with each other as best we can. Conflict surprisingly can be a benefactor. If the other person refuses to accept this kind of living arrangement, as is evidenced in Yugoslavia today, then self-preservation methods do seem to be appropriate. Just as there is no reason to stand in the way of an oncoming train, I see no reason to stand in the path of oppression. But just as we can devise methods of safely dealing with a runaway train, we can devise methods of safely dealing with runaway oppression.

We will never be without conflict in some form. Learn to live with it.