U.S. School
Shootings and the 'Externalization of Evil' (O Globo,
Brazil)
"It is a
known propensity of American life to repress social problems through the
externalization of evil. ... This externalization of evil produces a spectacular
catharsis on film, as extraterrestrials, the Soviets, and more recently,
Islamic terrorists, are annihilated. But the genre of school massacres - which
contain similarities to Islamic terrorism (the sacrificial act of the executioner,
for example) - in addition to the tragedy itself, brings an added difficulty:
the lack of an external enemy."
I've been reading articles from the American and
Brazilian press about the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. I've
repeatedly read the sentence: "The police don't yet know the motive for
the killings." Regarding young Adam Lanza, the author
of the massacre, the testimony of former classmates insist on his intense
difficulty adapting socially. According to a New York Times report, some suspect Lanza
suffered from a "developmental disorder," Asperger's
Syndrome, which is considered a form of autism. This latest massacre - there
have been at least 31 since Columbine in 1999 - reignited the discussion about
the need for laws that hinder access to guns in a country where children can
order weapons of great destructive power on the Internet.
School massacres have become a kind of genre in the U.S.
They happen in many countries, but with much greater intensity in the land of
the NRA (National Rifle Association). A genre is a cultural form that taps the
potential of individuals for creativity - or destruction. Nowadays, a young man
can inspire through recreational digital culture, by posting a home movie on
YouTube; or be inspired by the deadly culture of massacres, order his weapons
online, and act (Lanza didn't even need to do that -
he just grabbed his mother's, which were all legal).
It is a known propensity of American life to repress
social problems through the externalization of evil (this propensity coexists
with its opposite, that is, facing such problems head-on and transforming them
into state policy, as is the case with racism). This externalization of evil
produces a spectacular catharsis on film, as extraterrestrials, the Soviets,
and more recently, Islamic terrorists, are annihilated. But the genre of school
massacres - which contain similarities to Islamic terrorism (the sacrificial
act of the executioner, for example) - in addition to the tragedy itself,
brings an added difficulty: the lack of an external enemy.
Perhaps that explains this absurd phrase about how police don't yet know the motive behind the
killings. Well, we all know what it's possible to know. School massacres
are an act of pure negativity, a vendetta of a few socially-dysfunctional individuals
against a society that engenders their dysfunction. Given the difficulty of
assuming this - that American society produces the same force that wants to
assassinate it - the disease takes the place of an externalization of evil. In
this way, a social disorder becomes a developmental disorder, and collective
responsibility is transformed into individual responsibility. But even the
subject is somehow morally absolved of his act, because in the land of
behavioral psychology, illness is seen as a chemical externality (or better: a
psychic process involving chemical agents, but which is irreducible to these and
is disconnected from its social and pathological cause). Therefore it is an "autistic"
person, and not a kind of "other" society produces, and yet still an "other"
- which revolts against the whole.
The whole, in turn, activates its defense mechanisms.
Among the opinions that form the profile of the assassin in the press are those
that point out that Lanza was the son of divorced
parents, and that his mother took him out of school, leaving him to study at
home alone. So, considering the differences that threaten the self-image of
satisfied normality, the whole reacts by further excluding the
"other": "Attention" it says, "every parent should
remain married and children should attend the societal normalization provided at
school." Hence, it treats the (supposed) autism as a psychopathy that is
not merely irresponsible, but a symptom of totalitarian normality.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
But these tragic acts of differentness are another form
of integration - an integration capable of harboring the different without unintentionally
coercing it into normality. It's no coincidence that these massacres originate
in bullying, or that they are generally committed by adolescents or
almost-adult youth - much less that they are carried out in schools.
Adolescence is a critical moment of differentness, and school tends to be the
place where normality exerts its greatest pressure (if they make it to adulthood,
subjects will no longer participate in that kind of compulsory coexistence).
Michael Moore is right in saying that the root cause of
these massacres is American culture itself, which is a culture of weapons, war
and violence (note that the weapon used by the shooter, highly lethal, carries
the name of former President Bush: The Bushmaster). But the measure to be taken
in the short-term is legislation that drastically hinders access to guns.
President Obama hinted that he will now engage in that effort.
