Has America's Culture of Hate finally Metastasized?

books:

	• Nobody Left to Hate Elliot Aronson Holt Paperbacks, 2001 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Finding solutions after Columbine

This book is recommended to anyone who deals with children and adolescents, is in the field of education, parents, and teachers.
In his book, Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine, Elliot Aronson provides the public with many unanswered questions about the Columbine tragedy. He gives his readers the reasons why it is so important to address such issues as bullying, taunting, humiliation, and exclusion in the atmosphere of our classrooms across the country.
Elliot Aronson is a social psycholigist with a vast amount of experience in research and experimentation in his field. Through his experience on a social psychological level he provides his audience with specific examples that are easily understood to back up his theories. These examples are typical real life issues that face teachers and students in our schools. In addition he provides strategies for classroom teachers to promote emotional intelligence, respect, empathy, and cooperation instead of competition. His ultimate goal is to create a more compassionate and supportive environment in our schools to prevent another tragedy like Columbine.

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An interesting approach

This book is recommended to anyone who deals with children and adolescents, is in the field of education, parents, and teachers.
In his book, Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine, Elliot Aronson provides the public with many unanswered questions about the Columbine tragedy. He gives his readers the reasons why it is so important to address such issues as bullying, taunting, humiliation, and exclusion in the atmosphere of our classrooms across the country.
Elliot Aronson is a social psychologist with a vast amount of experience in research and experimentation in his field. Through his experience on a social psychological level he provides his audience with specific examples that are easily understood, to back up his theories. These examples are typical real life issues that face teachers and students in our schools today. In addition, he provides strategies for classroom teachers to promote emotional intelligence, respect, empathy, and cooperation instead of competition. His ultimate goal is to create a more compassionate and supportive environment in our schools to prevent another tragedy like Columbine.

for more information click here

Has America's Culture of Hate finally Metastasized?

As one with great respect for Professor Aronson's work; one who has read and reviewed several of his other books, and one who also respects and believes that the practical advice given here as part of his "Jigsaw technique" is both sage and useful, I still believe the Professor's solution too is but a "stop gap," or to use his own phrase, a "pump handle," solution.

No one would know better than he that the title of this book "Nobody left to Hate," has a much deeper meaning in a culture that virtually runs on hatred -- mostly racial and political hatred. Surely this dramatic instance of school violence in Littleton, Colorado, was not (as almost everyone at first assumed it to be), just another isolated case of "white kids gone wild" in the classroom. The fact that as of today it has been repeated in more than a dozen cases, almost certainly means that it has a much deeper cultural meaning.

As an ex-Professor at the University of Denver, just up the street from Littleton, myself, I have a special and deep interest in the events that took place at Columbine. But as noted above, subsequent history has confirmed that Columbine was far from an isolated incident. So lets get serious here: All of these "so-called school crimes" have had a distinct tribal and gender coloration to them: Psychologically, they can all be neatly categorized as "white male crimes of youthful existential desperation," period.

Indeed, one might reasonably ask: Why is it so difficult for Americans to see the connection between school bullying, taunting, threats, humiliation, physical abuse and violence, social isolation, and overt attempts to dehumanize and exclude others, given our long history and practice of doing so through racism and racial degradation?

Surely those who reside outside our borders would readily see this not so deeply embedded connection: that the actions of these "young white men to be" are just the unresolved residual feelings of the lost of white racist entitlements being discharged by other means. In short, anyone but we Americans with our cultural blinders in the "on" position can readily see that these, and many other exclusively "white male self-destructive tribal behaviors," are just another of the many fruits of a racist culture, slowly tamping down and transitioning into what hopefully will be a post-racist society.

That we are becoming a "post-racist society is perhaps the only silver lining there is in these events, and this analysis of our culture is all so self-evident, that it makes me worry about the collective sanity of the nation I love so dearly.

But putting a much more graphic face on the analysis that is missing from this book, one need to look carefully at the new socially defined "unacceptable others" of any high school environment. These days, those who do not fit the consensus view of what it means to "be properly peer adjusted" are summarily place outside the "in" circle. That is to say, "being in" among today's teens, means "looking like the latest cool fashion ad," demonstrating conspicuous wealth, being uni-sexed, or being a "super jock;" In short, to be "in" means winning by the same rules as white adults used to win during segregation: by social fiat. Amorphous cliques, arbitrarily arrogate unto themselves the right to either "socially adjust" or socially define who is "in" and who is "out."

Queers, nerds, jerks, fat people, ugly people, handicaps, poor people, and ordinary klutzes of any color, just don't count in the "new scheme of the American teen peer social order." Post-racist America needed and got a new post-racial social hierarchy, but sadly it is still a "junior caste system" based on the same mindset as adult American racism. It redefined and re-classified the proverbial "unacceptable others" so that a lot of the "white boys" who once were automatically "in" are now automatically "out." Just being an ordinary white boy today, no longer guarantees or counts for anything in the newly arranged post-racial peer social order.

At this slightly deeper level of analysis, it is easy enough to see that these new "ad hoc" teen social arrangements are just a simple case of moving forward of the old "white entitlements," retro-fitted from the same psychological mindset of the old segregationist ways of thinking. There is a new teen caste system created by not getting rid of hatred, but by simply moving it forward with a slightly changed vector into the future. That way the old racist mindset becomes the new post-racist way of thinking too. It is a one-to-one mapping into the future: mutatis muntandis, everything remains the same except that blacks are no longer the exclusive target; now blacks are just one of many other additional targets: instead of getting rid of racism, hatred has just been expanded to a larger cohort group, which just happens to now include "ordinary white boys."

Since racism was not dismantled, but just covered over with political correctness, the old social rules, the old hatreds, and the old means and ends calculations, all remain exactly the same: that is unchanged. They have simply metastasized and expanded to new areas, and therefore there is nothing new under the American sun: The disease just changes its colors and its vectors direction and keeps on marching forward on the same self-destructive path. Except for a change in colors and vector directions, from "blacks exclusively" to "also misfit white boys," Columbine is the best evidence there is that the psychological cadence of racism has not missed a beat. The racist mindset has not changed, just moved over to younger, newer, more fertile grounds.

The problem with this new teenage social construction is that some of the members of the male white tribe did not yet get the memo. That is to say, some white males like Kelbold and Harris, who still retained a lingering hope of inheriting a sense of their own white entitlement, in the face of all the recent changes (that is feminism, racial equality, a new influx of colored minorities, and a definite demotion of white male-hood), simply refuse to be re-defined, re-classified and ascribed to the class of "outsiders" in the new teenage caste system.

Their black trench coats proved that they were not about to sit still and have done to them what most non-whites accepted as a way of life during the century of segregation. White boys know how to get a gun and "act" even when they do not know how to "be." They do not trust "the new informal social rules and arrangements" or their "new pseudo social (mostly white feminist) authorities" to define who they are: White boys know instinctively that existence, as well as self-definition is a matter of psychological survival, born and expressed through action. The name of the game of existential survival when threatened: is to act. And what defines the heroism of the white male tribe more than anything else is his ability to act when his survival is threatened, and to especially do so with the most profound symbol of white male testosterone, the gun.

In every instance of school violence, these "self-respecting white men to be," have chosen to stand up with their guns in defense of what they loosely perceived as a more dignified alternative existence: a last resort alternative to this novel, but very much arbitrary, form of teenage social tyranny, which to them amounted to little more than an impending "social death." They realized, as many blacks and other minorities did not realize during the days of segregation, that a social death, however defined, is not a life worth living; and that the next best course of action when one finds himself trapped in such an existential black-hole, is to take ones life into ones own hands, and in doing so, to take a few of the enemy down with you.

Nihilism and self-destruction as a heroic act of last resort is a well-worn existential choice and theme; one to be preferred over an "ascribed certain social death." Choosing ones form of martyrdom has been a last resort act of heroism since man learned that his existence is mostly symbolic. It does not take "Rocket Science" to see that what these boys did is psychologically the same as what the all terrorists and anarchists do. Death by martyrdom is always a viable action plan when all other options are perceived to be "closed off" and when the only other alternative is to sit idly by and allow others to define one into a psychological corner in which they also dictate the terms of your very social existence, and indeed orchestrate your social death.

Grabbing a gun as a "last gasp effort" at heroism was the only plan these tragic members of the white male tribe had, and that is why they put it into action. That is what they did. That is what others like them will continue to do in the future. That is, unless the social psychologists end this infatuation with "stop gap" solutions, and begin to seek the "real" root causes -- dealing with the hate at the base of American culture: that is seek the systemic solutions in earnest.

The title "Nobody Left to Hate, if it suggests anything, suggests that our culture is the carrier of the disease of hatred; it is a disease that is a deeply embedded structural component of our collective cultural mind; it has cast a moral shadow over everything we do. We all know that it is there, so let us stop kidding ourselves. The racist worldview is the meta-psychology that rules our way of life. It is no longer only about skin color, but has metastasized to a generalized hatred of the proverbial "other." Our kids have adopted this structural psychological model in toto, and are just doing through osmosis what they have learned by watching adults.

School violence is not the only place we see this delayed reaction to "the stripping away of white male entitlements." It is equally self-evident in white male-on-white female murders, and in child abduction cases, and in the general increase in violence among so called vigilante groups. However, since none of these can be discussed openly as "white male crimes" in a racist society, (only black-on-black crime is permitted in polite American discussions), the psychologists and social psychologists alike have buried their collective heads in the racist sand, "pretending not to know that these tribal and gender-related crimes are going on." It is much easier to pretend that we need more compassionate teaching and more cooperative class projects among the kids. In American culture it is always easier to find acceptable excuses and pretexts for these phenomena than to face the much more bitter and much deeper implications and truths. I call it "lying by cultural omission."

When will we grow up and become the self-confident nation that we know we can become?

I believe that professor Aronson got the title of this book just about right "Nobody Else left to Hate," but shied away from its deeper meaning, and thus shied away from giving the complete analysis that I know was in his head: When There is Nobody Else Left to Hate, then of course the mind turns in on itself." Professor Aronson's knows as well as anyone, that "self-hatred" follows "hatred" as the night follows the day.

But since he has done so much good in his many other contributions to psychology and social psychology he gets a pass from me this time and Five Stars, anyway.

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Good thoughts!

As a seventh grade mathematics teacher, studying to be a school counselor, I found this book to be helpful. It is an easy read and offers, not only a clinical explanation why Eric and Dylan did what they did, but suggests ways to transform the atmosphere in schools so there will less likely be another event like Columbine. Unfortunately, Aronson only suggests two possible solutions for transforming the school atmosphere; increase emotional intelligence and implementing the "jigsaw" method of teaching. I agree, teachers should implement "teachable moments" on empathy so that there is nobody left to hate, but I often find it difficult when teaching algebra to use the "jigsaw" method. As I start the new year, with this book in mind, I plan to do more cooperative group work, however, it would also be nice to have other "tricks" up my sleeve to create empathy and a less competitive classroom.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

On April 20, 1999, the halls of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, reverberated with the sound of gunshots as two students, highly armed and consumed with rage, killed thirteen students and seriously injured twenty-three before turning the guns on themselves. It was the worst school massacre in out nation's history. Can we prevent a tragedy like this from happening again?

In Elliot Aronson's Nobody Left to Hate, on of our nation's leading social psychologists argues that the negative atmosphere in our schools--the exclusion, taunting, humiliation, and bullying--played a major role in triggering the pathological behavior of the shooters. At the very least, such an atmosphere makes schools an unpleasant experience for most normal students.

But it doesn't have to be. Nobody Left to Hate offers concise, practical, and easy-to-apply strategies for creating a more supportive, stimulating, and compassionate environment in our schools. Based on decades of scientific research and classroom testing, these strategies explain how students can be taught to control their own impulses, how to respect others, and how to resolve conflicts amicably. In addition, they show teachers how to structure classes to promote cooperation, rather than competition, without sacrificing academics. On the contrary, education is greatly enhanced.

For parents, teachers, or anyone concerned with what is happening in our schools, Nobody Left to Hate provides a simple and effective plan of action that will make their children's school not only a safe place, but a more humane place of learning.

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