>I would like to see a longer discussion of the idea that student rage at
>school has a source within contemporary schooling--as opposed to blaming it
>on a failed society (liberal answer) or failed families/personal values
>(conservative answer).
One possible starting point of such a discussion would focus on the compulsory attendance laws. Every one of the states requires at least 10 years of attendance at school or some satisfactory state-approved alternative. Failure of parents to obey the law can result in the state taking over custody of the children, parents being fined or even imprisoned, or other penalties. Schooling is unique in that no other such service is required to be "consumed" upon penalty of imprisonment. Even libertarians seem to have largely agreed that the state has a right to require education to be "consumed" -- much of the libertarian-oriented right focuses on vouchers, school choice, etc., rather than questioning the compulsory attendance laws themselves. The home schooling movement does go a bit further, by insisting on the right of families to produce their own education, but even this movement doesn't challenge the right of the state to require a certain number of years of consumption of approved schooling. Even most fervent believers in the efficacy of "the market" seem to have no serious objection to the government requiring years and years of compulsory education of some sort (the content is, of course, highly debatable). If the body politic were truly convinced that schooling was truly good surely more people would let families decide how much of it should be consumed. In fact, much of the rationale behind the serious enforcement of compulsory attendance laws goes back to 1930s and the decision to keep children off the labor market for longer than had been true in earlier times.
On cause and effect, you wrote:
>It is almost as if schooling
>spontaneously produces this rage, especially amongst adolescents who are
>far too developmentally advanced to be treated like toddlers.
Well, yes, and many of us have felt enraged by high school, even if we haven't had exactly the fantasies you say you shared,but when you go on to write that
>It is just
>that a 'normal' release of this killing rage is in pranks, gossip, or (in
>some case) activism against school and parental inanity.
I don't know that calling it "killing rage" is close to an accurate description of an anger that normally is released in such harmles, even benign, actions.
As to the question of the possible influence of films on teen-aged mass murderers, in the Littleon case it seems that the perpetrators made a video last year in which they enacted the scenario they played out for real this week. This may move the question of the influence of "media" to a new place, even though we will obviously never know for sure what motivated these two guys.
K.Mickey