The angry adolescent

ADULTS AROUND THE world must begin to worry about the forces that have of late been letting loose angry adolescents on American campuses with such distressing regularity. Apart from problems of maladjustments in fast evolving societies that this underlines, there must be concern among parents and social scientists about where in particular the so-called txt generation of youth is heading? Where all it is heading, one must say, considering that technology and change at mind-boggling acceleration have made youth a rising power. But, as the shocking incident of campus shooting by a 15-year-old in a school in a California suburb demonstrates, there is a darker side to teenage life that continues to baffle America, which remains as clueless as the rest of the world. The American experience - violence on school campuses seems confined to that land of plenty - must certainly hold lessons for all. Even if it is granted that a few punches thrown and some fisticuffs have always characterised school life, a conservative Indian society rose in anger two summers ago following incidents of ragging in some professional colleges that tended to exceed ``acceptable'' limits of adolescent cruelty. What then should one make of a society where a school boy, hardly into his teens, pumps bullets into a class full of friends and teachers after bragging about his macabre plans?

After the incident at Santee, which comes almost two years after an even more incomprehensible shootout on the campus at Columbine, there are increasing calls for greater security in schools in the U.S. As an instant reaction this is understandable, especially in a country where firearms are ridiculously easy to buy and liberal family relationships ensure easy access to dad's guns and pistols. But law enforcement and gun control can only be partial cures. More fundamental questions relate to measures going beyond security. The malaise must be traceable much deeper in the society, requiring the attention of professional experts in various fields relating to human relations. A fascinating study in the New York Times last year, extending beyond the campus to cover what are called rampage killers, provided a profile: these killers give lots of warning and even tell people explicitly what they plan to do. They do not

try to get away. In the end, they half turn their guns on themselves. They not only want to kill, they also want to die.

In the ultimate analysis, the shootouts, whether they happen on the campuses or at work places or in parks and open spaces, must be traceable to society's own problems with its values, the long- abhorred gun culture being one of them. Studies in recent years have also revealed that society's current problems can no more be entirely blamed on the widely accepted villains: violence on television, the cinema or video games. The teenager who pulled the trigger on his friends in school last week has remained remorseless, confirming the profile of the angry American adolescent. But he exhibits characteristics of restlessness that his peers show in other parts of the world too. The schoolgoer today, whether in the developed or developing country, belongs to the first generation that has grown up with the computer and knows that it presents him with unbounded opportunities - and simultaneously poses challenges of maddening uncertainty in this fast changing wired global village. It is a return to Darwinian survival of the fittest, of a sort. For the youth, these are testing, exciting times that they alone must learn to live with.

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