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Sacred spaces are usually associated with churches, synagogues and mosques
and are characterized as areas in which members of a community congregate
to worship in a shared belief system. It is qualitatively different than
profane space. School yards are also sacred grounds where members of a
community congregate, engage in highly ritualized activities and have a
shared belief system. When students choose to kill on school grounds their
actions go beyond random acts of violence to embody qualities of sacrilege,
blaspheme and desecration. They are iconoclastic actions. By viewing school
yard murders in the context of aesthetic and ritual theory I will demonstrate
that these acts of violence are neither random, inexplicable or illogical.
They are contemporary manifestations of iconoclasm.
Unfortunately there was no shortage of examples to choose from while
researching this paper. In the past five years there have been more than
a dozen school yard shootings that ended in murder. In this paper the focus
will be on three recent separate incidents each of which entailed the murder
of students and teachers by adolescents ages eleven through sixteen. These
were all highly publicized events in which you will most likely recognize
the names of the towns if not the names of the children. On March 24, 1998,
in Jonesboro, Arkansas eleven year old Andrew Golden and thirteen year
old Mitchell Johnson dressed in camouflage, stole a van, stole handguns
and rifles, secured a site in the woods, pulled a fire alarm and then proceeded
to open fire on their schoolmates killing four girls, one teacher and wounding
ten others. On October 1, 1997, in Pearl Mississippi, sixteen year old
Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death went to school and opened fire
with a rifle killing two of his classmates and wounding seven. On December
1, 1997, in West Paducah, Kentucky, fourteen year old Michael Carneal opened
fire with a .22 caliber semi automatic pistol on a prayer meeting that
had assembled at the school killing three girls and wounding five, one
of which will remain in a wheelchair the rest of her life.
It became evident after the investigations into these incidents that each of the teenagers felt like outsiders, loners, and misfits that were shunned from the school community. This led them to retreat into their own worlds in which they tried to obtain some sense of importance. Some of them found other outsiders which served the purpose of support for each other. Since they had already been outcast it only seemed to inspire a tremendous sense of loyalty among each other, even if it proved to be a misguided sense of loyalty.
Mitchell Johnson was relatively new to Jonesboro and was trying desperately to fit in only to be ridiculed by other students for attempting to pose as a gang member. In several accounts his final insult is attributed to the rejection of Candace Porter one of the girls who was injured in the shoot-out. Candace who was the object of Mitchell's affection had told him she was not interested in him. Andrew Golden the youngest of the murderers had a reputation among his classmates for being meanspirited.
Luke Woodham was teased and considered a chubby bespectacled nerd. He stated, "I killed because people like me are mistreated everyday" "the world has wronged me and I couldn't take it anymore."(1) In a five page handwritten note that the police described as a manifesto he wrote "Throughout my life I was ridiculed. Always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do?"(2) It was discovered later that his shootings were part of a larger conspiracy involving seven other students who were involved in Satanism.
Michael Carneal had been teased by other students because he was a little
small and was ridiculed by being called a faggot. The principle of his
high school Bill Bond stated that Michael's essays and short stories indicated
"that he just struck out at the world because he felt weak and picked upon
and had been teased his whole life."(3) Later reports claimed that he was
upset because he had a crush on a girl that did not feel the same way about
him. Nicole Hadley the unfortunate recipient of this crush was the first
to be killed in the shooting spree. Although taunting and teasing is not
considered unusually cruel behavior among children, in his book On Violence
Harvard psychiatrist James Gilligan explains that shame is consistently
the underlying emotion for violence.
The central role of shame in the causation of violence has been overlooked
for two inextricable reasons. First, because the magnitude of the resulting
violence is so far out of proportion to the triviality of the precipitating
cause that it becomes almost impossible for any normal, rational person
who operates by the criteria of common sense to recognize that the cause
could in fact precipitate it. And, second, because an essential but seldom
noticed characteristic of the psychology of shame is this: If we want to
understand the nature of the incident that typically provokes the most
intense shame, and hence the most extreme violence, we need to recognize
that it is precisely the triviality of the incident that makes the incident
so shameful. And it is the intensity of the shame, as I have said, that
makes the incident so powerfully productive of violence.(4)
Once you understand the logic of shame these actions can no longer be
viewed as random, inexplicable or illogical. What makes them seem so inexplicable
is that the simple taunting of a teenager with words like faggot, nerd
and the rejection of a schoolboy crush could provoke murder. Jack Katz
in his book entitled Seductions of Crime states,
Central to all these experiences in deviance is a member of the family
of moral emotions: humiliation, righteousness, arrogance, ridicule, cynicism,
defilement, and vengeance. In each, the attraction that proves to be fundamentally
compelling is that of overcoming a personal challenge to moral - not material-
existence. For the impassioned killer the challenge is to escape a situation
that has come to seem otherwise inexorably humiliating. Unable to sense
how he or she can move with self -respect from the current situation, now,
to any mundane-time relationship that might be re-engaged, then, the would-be
killer leaps at the possibility of embodying, through the practice of 'righteous'
slaughter, some eternal, universal form of the Good.(5)
Dr. Katz's concept of righteous slaughter exemplifies how these teenagers
did not immediately think they were doing anything wrong. It also moves
the act of violence into a moral category which is appropriate to acts
of iconoclasm.
Although not immediately obvious; the murders in Pearl, Mississippi,
West Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro Arkansas are situated in the aesthetic.
In their book Cultural Criminology Jeff Ferrell and Clinton Sanders describe
how participation in a criminal subculture means participation in the symbolism
and style, the collective aesthetic environment of criminality.
Members of a criminal subculture learn and negotiate motives, drives,
rationalizations, and attitudes; develop elaborate conventions of language,
appearance, and presentation of self; and in so doing participate, to greater
or lesser degrees, in a subculture, a collective way of life. In turn these
often intensely emotionalized subcultures shape the ways in which their
members come to understand and value themselves. Intimate participation
in a collective way of life demonstrates and displays, to oneself and to
others, personal attributes that make one worthy of belonging, being accepted,
and potentially becoming important. Much of this subcultural meaning ,
action, identity, and status is organized around style that is, around
the shared aesthetic of the subcultures members.(6)
The emotions of shame and alienation that each of these teenagers experienced led them to embrace alternative styles. The significant aspect is that the aesthetic that these children chose to identity with was invariably comprised of violence which served to instill a sense of strength that would gain them the respect of their peers.
Andrew Golden was depicted on the cover of several magazines in hunting attire with weapons in hand. Andrew was very comfortable with hunting culture, he attended militia camps and Santa gave Drew a shotgun when he was six. "He was always wearing camo clothing and talking about hunting and shooting targets,"(7) says a neighbor. Drew was already enmeshed in a violent aesthetic which embodied a toughness that 13 year old Mitchell was looking for. Mitchell who was desperately trying to fit in began obsessing over gangs. His cousin stated, " he said he'd give anything to be in a gang, he'd kill anyone to be in a gang." Schoolmates in Jonesboro say Mitch began wearing red to signal his membership in the Bloods, a ruse that they saw straight through. A wannabe, most of them concluded."(8), Mitchell was attempting to identify with the Bloods, attempting to be taken as a serious threat, someone to be respected only to look even more ridiculous among his peers. When superficially identifying with a gang did not succeed in restoring respect Mitchell found Andrew and quickly embraced the hunting style.
Michael Carneal acted alone although the investigating sheriff was so disconcerted by this incident he suspected that another person may have been involved. He did not actively embrace another style, indeed that was what was so confusing about this particular incident, the fact that Michael was so plain and ordinary. However, his craving for attention was evident in classroom pranks and seriously trying to impress the other students. It was his attempt to impress other students by showing off guns that he had stolen that initiated the shooting. He stated "He did not plan to shoot anyone but just wanted to show the guns off. Everyone would be calling me and they would come over to my house or I would go to their house. I would be popular."(9) When he got to school and unwrapped the bundle of guns near the prayer circle he was extremely disappointed when he did not receive the adulation he had planned on. Unfortunately guns are so commonplace in Kentucky that the boys were not impressed. When he opened fire he said he was trying to get people to notice him he stated "I had guns, I brought them to school I showed them to them and they were still ignoring me."(10) Michael Carneal finally succeeded in getting their attention. Murder was the result of failed attempts to find an aesthetic style that would impress his peers.
Luke Woodham was part of a larger group of kids who had embraced Satanism. His new peers which were part of a group known as the Kroth which sought to destroy its enemies and practice satanic worship instructed Luke that 'murder was a viable means of accomplishing the purposes and goals of the shared belief system"(11). Satanism is an especially violent and highly ritualized belief system. It is intrinsically related to Christian ideology as a reversal of it's ethical tenets. This reversal is expressed symbolically by performing rituals that are specifically prohibited in the bible, for example incest, sacrifice, bloodletting, backward prayers, reversed writing, etc. in order to empower the worshipper with magic. This style would be very attractive to an alienated teenager who had been ridiculed as a chubby nerd.
Dr. Katz describes the attitude of what he refers to as the Bad-ass
to exemplify how toughness is not just an adolescent act but a complete
aesthetic lifestyle. He explains; "In many youthful circles, to be "bad",
to be a "bad-ass," or otherwise overtly to embrace symbols of deviance
is regarded as a good thing."(12) He then proceeds to describe three degrees
of intimidating aggression and gives examples of the various levels of
aggression as they are manifested in the style and aesthetic of various
street gangs. This is applicable to this study in that each of the teens
failed attempts at being tough as evidenced in mimicking gangs, joining
a satanic cult and making feeble threats only managed to bring further
humiliation upon them which subsequently forced them to establish through
murder that they should be taken seriously. According to Katz;
The person who would be tough must cultivate in others the perception
that they cannot reach his sensibilities. Adolescents who would achieve
a foreign and hostile presence in interaction must go farther and participate
in a collective project to produce an alien esthetic. But the shaping of
a tough image and the practice of an alien sensibility are insufficient
to ensure that one will be "bad." Those who would be bad are always pursued
by powerful spiritual enemies who soften tough postures and upset the carefully
balanced cultures of alienation, making them appear silly, puerile, and
banal and thus undermining their potential for intimidation. To survive
unwanted imitators, you must show that unlike the kids, you're not kidding;
unlike the gays, your not playing; unlike the fashionable middle class,
you understand fully and embrace the evil of your style. You must show
that you mean it.(13)
Mitchell Johnson who wore red to demonstrate he was a gang member was not tough enough, Andrew Golden riding around the neighborhood in Military fatigues and carrying a knife was not tough enough, Michael Carneal showing off guns was not tough enough, and Luke Woodham joining a cult and threatening harm was not tough enough. It took the deaths of their schoolmates to demonstrate that they were serious bad-asses that meant business.
The individuals and community of students who rejected the teens were
idolized by them which is what made the rejection so much more devastating.
Idolatry is characterized by the worship of sacred objects. Iconoclasm
is the destruction of sacred objects, hence killing what one worships can
be considered an act of iconoclasm. Iconoclasm has been studied thoroughly
in association with social, political and economic climates throughout
history, but the significance for this study is the psychological attitude
behind the destruction of images. Art historian David Freedberg examines
the theory of response to images from a behavioral and psychological perspective.
Freedberg focused on the most striking assaults on well known, publicly
displayed objects in our century and he determined that individual acts
of iconoclasm were revealing about the interaction between people and images.
Although he is referring to attacks of images such as paintings it provides
valuable insights into attacks on people that are worshipped. Freedberg
proposed three distinct motivations implicated in the destruction of images.
He identifies one motivation in iconoclasm "as an attention seeking act
which is usually successful in it's aim."(14) That clearly applies to the
high school shootings. Another motivation "evidently has to do with the
hold a particular image has on the individuals imagination and the iconoclastic
act
represents an attempt to break that hold to deprive the image of its power."(15)
This motivation is also applicable to the teenagers in that they were simultaneously
attracted to the group but also wanted to deprive the others of the power
they held to mock them. The third motivation "characterizes iconoclastic
movements such as the sixteenth century where it is felt on the broadest
level that by damaging the symbols of a power - the Spanish regime or the
Catholic church- one somehow diminished the power itself."(16) This is
applicable in that they chose school grounds which symbolizes a safe haven
in the community, a place which is neither safe nor symbolic of community
to them. By violently attacking their idols in public they diminish the
power of the community to protect it's chosen members, and albeit briefly,
enjoy a sense of empowerment. Freedberg poses an explanation for the psychology
behind violent iconoclastic attacks on paintings which provides insights
into the psychology of these violent crimes.
Allusion has already been made, in semiotic terms, to the tendency to
conflate image and prototype, as all image theory, from it's very beginnings,
has either explicitly or implicitly acknowledged. We worship, venerate,
give thanks to, make promises to not the image itself, but the Virgin or
saint in the image. At the same time we know that it is but an image, manmade,
of a substance that is not flesh. When critical pressures come to bear
on this tension, men and women break images, as if to make clear that the
image is not living, no supernatural embodiment of something that is alive.
We fear the image which appears to be alive, because it cannot be so; so
people may evince their fear, or demonstrate mastery over the consequences
of elision, by breaking or mutilating the image; they disrupt the apparent
unity of sign and signified by making plain the ordinary materiality of
the sign.(17)
Freedberg is describing a psychological power struggle to distinguish
between the animate and the inanimate. This is consistent with another
phenomenon that seems to occur in these murders; the teenagers consistently
express feelings that the murders were somehow unreal indicating that they
do not seem to comprehend the consequences of their actions. Iconoclasm
is an ontological category in which similar perceptions of reality are
questioned. In regard to Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson a Newsweek
article reported "it was doubly shocking a day later when they turned back
into frightened little boys, crying in their cells for their mothers and
requesting under a childish misapprehension of the meaning of jail to exchange
their chicken dinner for a pizza."(18) Michael Carneal immediately stated
after he was talked into dropping his gun, "Kill me, please. Please Kill
me"(19) when the meanings of his actions sank in. For Luke Woodham and
Michael Carneal regret was intertwined with emotions of elation at finally
receiving attention and respect. Katz states, "When people kill in a moralistic
rage, their perspective often seems foolish or incomprehensible to us,
and, indeed, it often seems that way to them soon after the killing."(20)
It is no coincidence that similar reactions are reported in acts of iconoclasm.
After an attack in 1975 of Rembrandt's 'Nightwatch' the police said of
the assailant that "we do not think he realizes what he has done; everyone
concurred that he was plainly mad, ."(21) The same man announced at a church
service on the Sunday before he attacked the painting that he would make
front-page news the next day. Michael Carneal told people that something
was going to happen on Monday which was not taken seriously because he
had a habit of making empty threats. On the day before the shootings in
Jonesboro, Mitchell told a friend that "tomorrow you will find out if you
will live or die."(22) Iconoclasm and murder are both attention seeking
acts that aim to restore respect by destroying objects of adoration.
Although I did not discuss the most common suggested motivations for
these incidents which include media influence, lack of parental guidance
and access to guns I do not exclude them either. Each of these factors
constitute part of American culture hence contributing to the violent manifestations
that are erupting in children. If it is still difficult to think of murder
in religious terms let me conclude with some observations. These shootings
are occurring in what is referred to as the Bible belt of this country,
they entailed a former choirboy and children who received confirmation,
a prayer meeting was the target of one incident, Satanism is mentioned
quite frequently in reports, and finally violence has never been a stranger
to religion. These are not simply manifestations of rage, they are eruptions
of moral indignation at being shunned from a community that preaches love
thy neighbors. From the perspective of contemporary iconoclasm it is not
surprising that the sacred grounds of the school yard have become the altars
for sacrificial acts of righteous slaughter.
1 Geoffrey Cowley, Why Children Turn Violent (Newsweek Magazine, New York: Newsweek Inc.,
April 6, 1998) 25.
2 Teen-Agers Charged With Plotting to Kill in Satanic Campaign (New York Times Newspaper,
Section: A, National Desk, The New York Times Company, October 17, 1996) 33.
3 Rick Bragg, Theories but No Answer in School Shooting (New York Times Newspaper, Section A,
National Desk, The New York Times Company, December 4, 1997) 26.
4 James Gilligan, M.D., Violence, Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes (new York: G.P. Putnam's
Sons, 1996) 133.
5 Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime, Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil (New York: Basic
Books, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers, 1988) 9.
6 Jeff Ferrell and Clinton R. Sanders Cultural Criminology (Boston: Northeastern University Press,
1995) 4-5.
7 Nadya Labi, The Hunter and The Choirboy (Time Magazine, New York: Time Inc., April 6, 1998) 31.
8 Labi 30.
9 Jonak Blank, The Kid no one noticed (U.S. News & World report, Vol. 125, October 12, 1998) 27.
10 Blank 27.
11 Teen-Agers Charged With Plotting to Kill in Satanic Campaign (New York Times Newspaper,
Section: A, National Desk, The New York Times Company, October 17, 1996) 33.
12 Katz 80.
13 Katz 99.
14 David Freedberg, Iconoclasts and their motives (Montclair, New Jersey: Abner Schram, 1985) 25.
15 Freedberg 25.
16 Freedberg 25.
17 Freedberg 33, 35.
18 T. Trent Gegax, Jerry Adler and Daniel Pederson, The Boys Behind the Ambush (Newsweek
Magazine, New York: Newsweek Inc., April 6, 1998) 22.
19 Blank 27.
20 Katz 12.
21 Freedberg 24.
22 Labi 36.