May 09, 2007
The Animal Side
There's a widespread discussion in my city about what to do with the sixth-grade boy who murdered a mother duck and two ducklings with a pencil. Some observe that this is what serial killers do when they are young. Others question what his home life must be like. There are calls for counseling and mental-health evaluations. The animal rights nuts want him prosecuted. The teachers want him watched. His parents probably want all this to go away.
I don't know how to respond to this except with sadness. I remember something David Gelernter wrote: "A society too squeamish to call evil by its right name has destroyed its first best defense against cutthroats." We recoil, of course, at calling a sixth-grade child evil, but that's what this boy is. That doesn't mean counseling and therapy and the host of interventions modern society would unleash on him might not do some good. It doesn't mean we shouldn't show him mercy and forgiveness. But I wonder how we can ever really heal the sickness in such a child if we can't allow ourselves to talk about it in its fullness. This is more than a chemical imbalance, or a lack of training. It is moral vacancy, which is the animal in us unchecked, which is evil.
I wonder if he can sense, somewhere deep down, that something in him is broken, or perhaps dead. I wonder if all this clinical attention will help, or if it will marginalize him further. I wonder if he will respond with more twisted acts, or if he will learn to suppress the animal. And if the latter, will it remain in check, or will it surface five or ten or twenty years from now?
Posted by Woodlief on May 09, 2007 at 09:46 AM
Hello, I read your blog regularly, and I find your entries and thoughts fascinating.
Reguarding this entry - in my opinion, this act sounds evil too. My son, who is two, has taken on crushing snails. Does this mean he's evil? With today's labels thrown around, and over-reaction (which I agree, this duck case is a very bad sign), can we call it evil? How do we know?
This is the problem I think with society today. We have zero tolerance policies that make no sense. People have muddled the signs of alarm versus just boys being boys. How can we recognize what is wrong anymore? We have both sides of the spectrum, those who call EVERYTHING evil, and those who EXCUSE ALL evil. How can those of us in-between recognize a cry for help/intervention when we need to?
Basically, if we intervene on this boy... what is to prevent someone intervening on my own two year old son when he crushes snails and plays with their guts? (my husband assures me he crushed snails and played with thier guts too, but I think it's disgusting and disturbing).
I'd love for you to write an entry discussing this.
Posted by: ns at May 10, 2007 9:08 AM
Hmmm, I was going to make a profound comment to go along with an attaboy for this post - until I read the first comment.
Yes, that made me think. A few weeks back at super I was telling my boys how we use to have fun when I was a kid without game boys, playstations and wii devises. How that in the summer from 12:30 to 4:00 we were not allowed to watch TV, (that is when the soap operas were on) therefore we had to make our own fun. And my boys said, "what did you do for fun?"
Well, we played baseball with a tennis ball and wiffle ball bats that we cut the ends off of and stuffed with news paper and taped with duct tape. And, much to my wife's horror, we use to capture June bugs from this little June bug catcher that my neighbor had to protect his apple trees. After these were caught we would get some of my mother's thread and tie thread around their legs. Oh, not just one or two, I remember one day in particular that we had 10 to 12 of these poor hapless beetles all tied together. They were flying in all different directions. All but one destine to lose a leg at the very least.
I must admit that even writing of this tale now i have the goofy grin of an 8 year boy. I swear it makes me giggle just to think about it.
My wife saw it much differently. She thought it was both sadistic and evil.
So we have got to ask a question: What is the difference between a slug, a beetle, and a duck with ducklings?
Mr. Sand in the Gears I could answer this question but I know that those who faithfully read these postings would much rather hear your take on it than mine.
By the way for those of you who don't know me...
I am father of 4 (the 5th is on the way) who is an evangelical Presbyterian who has blown a tire and bent a rim to save a squirrel that ran out in front of me. (all this said to say that I am not morally vacantly evil at this point in my life). I am however, woefully inadequate in my desire to walk the Christian walk in a manor befitting the savior who died for me. This on bad days makes me feel as though I am evil, but that is a different comment for a different post.
Posted by: Gray at May 10, 2007 11:10 PM
I too have a problem with this current trend in "evil".
I once had a conversation with a man raised on a farm and the stuff they did to gophers was way worse than stabbing a duck to death with a pencil. Sure these were pests, but as 7 to 14 year old boys he and his friends basically spent a lot of time torturing small mammals for fun.
It seems to me we do this to protect and comfort ourselves. Evil people are not like us and therefore we need not consider how we have failed them as individuals or as a society. We don't have to worry that we may fail our children in the same way.
Defining people as evil removes them from humanity and negates any responsibility humanity might have for them. Beyond apparently labeling them correctly.
Posted by: Mont D. Law at May 13, 2007 10:09 AM
Re posts #1 and #2:
There's a big difference between a two-year-old and a six-grader.
Posted by: John D. at May 19, 2007 9:47 AM
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