The Unanswerable Why Question of Rage-Based Youth Violence
This article contains information about the Netflix series Adolescence.
A new Netflix series called Adolescence is winning critical acclaim for its revealing glimpse into the mind and social sphere of a fictional minor suspected of murdering a classmate. Similar to a type of tragic youth violence in England it illustrates, the 4-part miniseries is ultimately unable to answer the question of “why” the perpetrator committed the act.
Adolescence introduces the idea boys can sometimes be bullied via social media, and when such activity happens within a context of toxic masculinity, horrific criminal behavior can ensue.
In Adolescence’s last episode, the father of the guilty boy visits the room of the once innocent, simple joy-loving son he helped raise. But this time, Dad self-tortures about whether a lack of parental attention precipitated his son’s being pulled in by an undercurrent of unhealthy content on his electronic devices.
Even with the identification of deteriorating influences— along with the recognition that 13-year-olds are susceptible to being told to do crazy things by their brain— the series reaches no definitive conclusion as to why the homicidal action was committed.
Ever since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, CO, both the inability to conclude ‘why’ and a high amount of parental soul searching have plagued a long, sad span of real-life, rage-based violence committed by young people.
Like the parents portrayed in Adolescence, Sue Klebold thought of herself as a good mom who prioritized the role of helping her kids become caring, healthy & responsible adults. After her son was identified as one of the shooters who committed the atrocities at Columbine, she— like the parents in the Adolescence— scoured her family’s past looking for parenting deficiencies.
”In the end, I know it comes down to this—the tragic fact that even the most vigilant of us and responsible of us may not be able to help. But for love’s sake, we should never stop trying to know the unknowable.”
-Sue Klebold 2/27/17 Ted Talk “My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story.”
At the time of the Columbine shootings, social media and podcasting were not yet developed, but violent entertainment in the form of first-person shooter video games had existed for six years or so.
Although Klebold dismissed the notion that shooters go on rampages for having played violent video games, she did see them as a toxic factor in the losing of the son she thought she knew. And also a primary influence she regrets not having curbed more.
As the current, fictional story Adolescence and the factual account of Columbine a quarter century ago both illustrate— an insidious chipping away at the heart, mind and moral compass of a young man can occur through virulent social media or video games.
In the end, neither kind of degradation fits neatly into one sweeping explanation of why a person behaves criminally, but both are significant contributing factors whose reduction or removal may have prevented the criminal actions.
For as Briony Ariston, the Adolescence psychologist accurately observes in an extensive interview of the suspect:
“I think you, and everyone else for that matter, are far more complex than straightforward questions allow for.”
Just because homicidal people are too complex for easy categorization doesn’t mean we shouldn’t limit corrupting influences that can feed in to their taking of lives.