User:Zacherystaylor/preventing school violence
The following is not intended for addition to the article although I believe it is backed up by the sources provided. I put this here to address what I consider legitimate concerns and to try to convince people how important this subject is and that it is worth improving instead of deleting and making as meaningless as possible to avoid political incorrectness or putting anything in that someone disagrees with.
Media violence
This section is pending further information and may be added to the recomended article. there is very little agreement about this so if I add anything it will probably be vague unless I find better sources.
According to a review by psychologist David Grossman many soldiers were reluctant to fire on humans after practicing shooting bull’s-eyes. After training these soldiers to shoot targets of human figures. This desensitized the soldiers and made them more likely to shoot at people. the same principle is believed to apply to children who watch a lot of media violence and play with violent video games. This type of media violence combined with abusive background is believed to desensitize children and make them more likely to kill. Some researchers including Gavin de Becker has argued that media violence is a contributing cause but he doesn't believe that it is as much of a contributing cause as an abusive family background. [1][2]
Does punishment work?
The mass media and the politicians are always focusing on punishment after the fact as a deterrent to stop crimes. There is also some attention to rehabilitation once someone is already a trouble child or criminal. Rehabilitation after the criminal is already prone to crime is much tougher than preventive education before they are prone to crime. This is what this article is supposed to be all about. It is based on research that is done by experts in their field not on demagoguery or political commentary. One statement made by de Becker and echoed by other researchers is that punishment without discussion only teaching respect for authority without understanding. In other words they obey because they are told to not because they understand what they are doing. The clear indication is that punishment alone doesn't work. Another problem with relying on punishment alone when dealing with abused children is that they have been punished already for no good reason. To put it bluntly they were punished before they commited their crimes and no one protected them. They are in a position where they are damned if they do damned if they don't. They no longer care whether they are going to get punished all they care about is immediate rewards that they may get from committing crimes or striking out in anger. The actor who played Charles Manson put it best when he said "You beat a man with a whip and he likes the whip you're just making a fool out of yourself." Whether this is a real quote or not isn't the point, Manson and many other trouble makers including Klebold and Harris come from troubled backgrounds. If someone paid attention beforehand these disasters and many others could have been avoided. Unfortunately after they committed their crimes no one wanted to hear about the reasons that led upto the crime saying "its no excuse". Whether its an excuse or not it is a major contributing cause to violence. By down playing the importance of the abuse that led to a crime because of anger people are less likely to recognize the underlining cause of the crime and correct it. I can't think of anything that would do more to prevent violent crime than to reduce child abuse and bullying that leads upto the crime.
Wikipedia isn't neutral and there is advocacy
Wikipedia claims to be neutral or at least that it tries to be. If this isn't presented as an absolute I have no objection but when someone claims that it is neutral this is clearly false. It is much easier to declare Wikipedia to be neutral than to actually make it neutral. The same thing goes for advocacy and censorship too. If someone declares there isn't any censorship at wikipedia and then they delete material without reasonable discussion this is clear evidence of censorship. If unreasonable informations is being deleted to give priority to reasonable information this is one thing but in order to know this is happening you need to go through the discussion first in a reasonable manner. Priority should be given to facts that can be confirmed and people that have actually looked into the subject.
There are also plenty of cases of advocacy on wikipedia. In many cases when people say there is no advocacy on wikipedia it seems to mean that we just wont call it advocacy. One obvious example of advocacy is the section on arming teachers previously mentioned. There are many more if you look for them including a comment from Ted Nugent and plugs for politicians as well as numerous vigils and much more I'm sure if you look for it. If we can have comments from Ted Nugent but research from reputable scholars is being disputed because of a rule about advocacy there is something wrong at wikipedia. The Mass Media is negligent if not grossly incompetent in the way it addresses this subject and by following suit without even trying to improve on what the Mass Media is doing so is wikipedia. This wouldn't be so bad if they allowed those that want to improve the way the subject is addressed but when they call for deletion academic work and allow political pandering this is highly un-encyclopedic.
Prevention and flat earth
Among the academic community of people that research the subject it is clear that early intervention to prevent violence is much more effective than waiting until it after it escalates. There is an enormous amount of information to back this up including the sources that I have cited. If someone were to read the material that I have cited and check for themselves to see whether this is extreme I doubt if they would find it so nor do I believe there is anything extreme in the article itself, it is mostly simple material that is often overlooked by large members of the public. Unfortunately this is not repeated nearly as often in the mass media, they do mention it occasionally if you watch them enough but what they repeat over and over again is that we need more punishment after the fact as a deterrent to prevent violence. There is overwhelming evidence that this alone is not enough. For uneducated members of the public who haven't read the material about this research it is reasonable to consider it a matter of opinion but to those who are familiar with this material it is clearly a fact that earlier intervention is much more effective than punishment after the fact. This doesn't mean that all the researchers agree on all the details but some of the basics are established facts. A similar argument could be made for those taught that the world is flat it seems quite reasonable if you look around the world appears flat. But when you look at the research done by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton etc. it becomes clear that it is a fact that the Earth revolves around the sun. This is a similar situation unfortunately the point hasn't got to the public and instead of helping to change that the media is making it worse. Wikipedia has an opportunity to help correct this by providing a good article on preventing school violence and putting a link to it from every article about school violence or other related subjects. Instead of repeating all the wrong stuff wikipedia can set a better example than the mass media that appears to be more concerned about ratings than anything else. It could be argued that this is what wikipedia and wikinews is not, however if wikipedia is just supposed to rubber stamp everything the mass media is doing then why would it need to exist at all? In other sections like archeology wikipedia provides some of the most credible information available in brief on the internet. I had looked for material from colleges and found very little their. The most credible stuff was provided by wiki volunteers. The same thing could be done in violence prevention. There are plenty of books in the library primarily targeting concerned parents and a summation of the prevention by reputable academics could be provided on wikipedia.
Wikipedia can also provide a cooperative effort to improve this article if people work together instead disputing everything. When I introduced this article I had hoped that perhaps someone with better writing skills than I would have improved the writing without diluting the content and if others had more productive information to add they could do that. Unfortunately this hasn't worked that way I already put more work into this and accomplished less because of constant objections which I find hard to see any bases for.
Once again by providing something about prevention, by providing a list of hundreds of incidents including many with full articles and one that has a section that covers the idea of arming teachers implying they could stop shootings at the last minute there is an enormous precedent to allow for improved suggestions from credible sources on violence prevention.
Incomplete experiment
The basic idea of any experiment using the trial and error method is that you try things 2 or more ways determine which way works best then do things the best way. When studying history it is often not considered an experiment to learn from although perhaps it should be. A small percentage of the public does look at this as an experiment and tries to learn from their mistakes. Some of these people also try to teach others so that they can also learn from their mistakes. Unfortunately there are also a lot of demagogues who try to manipulate the public for their own purposes. They are often much better at getting their point across even when it isn't valid.
In the case of preventing school violence there are some people including the sources I have cited who have done extensive research into the subject as well as look at the research of other academics to figure out the best way to address the problem. They have determined that a major factor of the school violence problem is abuse preceding the major incidents that get the attention of the public. Unfortunately this message isn't getting across to the majority of the public. Many of the most powerful institutions are declining to deliver this message to the public including the government and the media. This also seems to include wikipedia. Wikipedia is providing information about school violence and there isn't any complaint about that until it comes to providing information that might help people prevent it then there are calls about this being advocacy and forbidden.
Demagoguery and media bias
I write this because many people have based their opinions about school violence on all the wrong sources. There are a small number of people who have researched the subject and come up with good conclusions based on rational science. Unfortunately they have to compete with a much larger number of people who have much more air time and dominate the air ways. These demagogues repeat the same things over and over again without scrutiny. This doesn't mean that I think this should be added to this article, perhaps if it is sourced properly something similar could be added to another article but that isn't what I'm concerned about now.
"A group is extraordinarily credulous," wrote Sigmund Freud, "and open to influences, it has no critical faculty, and the improbable does not exist for it. The feelings of a group are always very simple and very exaggerated, so that it knows neither doubt nor uncertainty."
The orator who wishes to sway a crowd "must exaggerate, and he must repeat the same thing again and again."
Freud pointed out that the mass was "intolerant but obedient to authority...What it demands of its heroes is strength or even violence. It wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters."
He wrote this more than 80 years ago when the public was less educated and they still hadn't learned from WWII. Similar quotes have coming from demagogues like Hitler and Lenin and this one from Charles Manson: "You can convince anybody of anything if you just push it at them all of the time. They may not believe it 100%, but they will still draw opinions from it, especially if they have no other information to draw their opinions from."
Information like this could be used for at least 2 purposes.
First if the demagogue wants to use an understanding of manipulation tactics they can do so to manipulate the public. This is often done by many people including Hitler, Lenin and many more moderate demagogues. Right now the more moderate demagogues are causing a bigger problem because the public doesn't recognize them as demagogues. However some of them aren't quite so moderate if you look at them closely. Including Nancy Grace, Jean Valez Mitchel, Geraldo Rivera etc. Demagogues generally pray on the emotions of the public and the easiest emotions to pray on is anger and hate. This is important when it comes to preventing school violence or any other type of violence. This explains why so many people are quick to seek vengeance but very slow to try to find out what the real cause of problems are. Some researchers have made an exception and have investigated the true causes of violence and it is clear that early abuse is one of the biggest contributing causes if not the biggest. However when they try to point this out to the public it often sounds like they are trying to excuse the Behavior of violent predators. Demagogues often start screaming loud and clear and more qualified researchers often back off and do more research. The advantage is that more research is being done but it isn't getting through to the public and it isn’t achieving the desired goal. James Garbarino has argued that we need to get away from the idea that researching the cause of violence means excusing it. Vincent Bugliosi has also made a similar argument if you look closely at his book Helter Skelter. He has stated that "both (Hitler and Manson) suffered deep wounds in their youth, the psychological scars at least contributing to if not causing, their deep hatred for society." He has not attempted to say this is justification quite the opposite he continued arguing for the death penalty in Manson’s case anyway. This doesn't mean he didn't recognize Manson’s abusive childhood as a contributing cause. He has also appeared in at least one commercial promoting help for troubled youths that were not what he considered beyond salvation. In Helter Skelter he cited several of the Manson family members that he thought were capable of rehabilitation and advocated that they received the help they need.
Second it can be taught to the public so that they can understand when they are being manipulated. They can teach the public how to get a rational education and avoid being manipulated by demagogues. Unfortunately this is rarely done although it may have been what Freud intended. Freud was neither the first or the last to understand these principles many people including Hitler, Lenin, Twain, Machiavelli etc., have demonstrated that they understand this but unfortunately there has been little if any effort to educate the public about this.
"We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." Woodrow Wilson This quote applies to all subjects including demagoguery. By declining to do a better job explaining manipulation tactics the media and government leave the public more vulnerable to misleading information.
The reason I'm pointing this out is that I'm surprised at how much opposition there is to improving the section about preventing school violence. It is hard to understand why any one would object to this yet several people have. It may not do much good to point this out if people get angry and blame the messenger but it won't do much good to ignore it either. It would help if more people tried to understand how they came to their conclusions and tried to double-check the facts rather than dig in their heals.