Having recently enjoyed the Canadian version of "West Side Story" in Stratford, my mind went back to my Bronx childhood and awareness of gang wars ("rumbles"). They were rare, but they were scary. Nobody seemed to ever get killed in those days, but people did get hurt. There was no apparent way to prevent them.
As a young boy in an idealistic New York public school, we were taught tolerance and the evils of prejudice. These principles were part of the 'melting-pot,' where we were all Americans, first and foremost, Christians and Jews secondarily. At the time there were no blacks or Hispanics in our neighborhood, but racial prejudice was ubiquitous. Our principal was a large woman with a booming voice and she insisted that we be civil to each other. She personally would deal with any pupil caught throwing a snowball.
Despite what the principal said at assembly, boys were fighting, sometimes over turf, sometimes just to exert dominance and power. There were girls who would go with the most aggressive males, just like in the rest of the animal kingdom. And there were boys who simply wanted sex for pleasure and feelings of power. These behaviors were Darwinian--- survival of the fittest, reproduction of the dominent.
At first I thought "West Side Story" was more violent and tragic than "Romeo and Juliet," but upon reflection, the same killings happened. Tony killed Maria's brother (accidentally, after trying to stop a rumble), after 'Nardo killed Tony's best friend, also with a knife. Then Maria's intended performed a gang revenge by killing Tony, this time with a pistol. The 1957 "West Side Story" brought a gun into the Shakespearean drama, which may have proved to be a prophetic symbol.
In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" there were bloody and fatal swordfights between the young men of the Capulet and Montague families, because of an age-old feud. It was all the prince of the city could do to maintain peace. In Jerome Robbin's "West Side Story," the talk of weapons went from bats and rubber hoses to tire-irons and knives. Tony, in love, and under the influence of higher aspirations, suggested "skin," meaning fists, so no one would get badly hurt.
In the intervening four hundred years between the two plays, all of society's attempts to moderate such conflicts have failed, leading to tragic deaths of young people over the centuries. We have not yet found a way to get some adolescent boys to moderate their behavior.
This analysis brings us to Columbine and Littleton. They were not about family feuds or gang wars. What we have now are personal vendettas carried out by mentally disturbed high school boys. In real life there were no gang leaders singing, "play it cool, boy" at the recent high school shootings. One can only guess how many potential shootings were actually averted by teenage leaders who exercised some reasoning power and exerted control.
The thrust of my realization comes as rather a shock--- that teenage boys have been out of control for millenia. The ancient Greeks and Romans decried the wildness and irrationality of youth, seeing it as regressive, primitive and uncivilized. (What's the world coming to?) Shakespeare's play points out clearly that no matter what the reasons, coupled with threats, are voiced by the authorities and parents, many adolescents disregard them. They are feeling their oats, wanting to bust loose, needing to assert themselves against all the rules and authorities. It is the call of the wild. They want to demonstrate their power and freedom to determine the course of their own lives, in opposition to the the rules of society and parents' attempts to control them.
Psychologically, given the sum total of adolescent boys, it can be expected that some will go off the deep end. The teen years are times of great turmoil and torment for some, so much so that they feel they cannot endure the world as it is, and so commit suicide. The recent trend is to take others along, so that the suicidal person is not alone. He wants company.
What is even more scary is Kubrick's vision of the future, "A Clockwork Orange," in which young men are wantonly getting sex and being destructive. Their parents are pictured as hapless, weak, ineffective adults, who have no control, let alone knowledge, of what their offspring are doing. Their heads are in the sand. They have relinquished any parental responsibility. In that classic movie, civilized society is at bay, trying to stem the tide of lawlessness, and erects a diabolical scheme to rehabilitate offenders.
There seems to be no effective means of combatting the potential power of raging hormones. Psychological knowledge points to the channeling of emotions and creativity into the humanities, the arts and sports. It makes sense for parents to civilize the child from the earliest age on, to contain emotions and restrain from destructive behavior, to be able to postpone and delay. Most teenagers from a good home, with a neurochemical balance are civil, polite, reasonable and friendly. But there always will be some who are instinctively warlike and dangerous. They have to be spotted early and remedial action taken.
Dr Bloom is clinical associate professor, department of psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the Wayne County Medical Society. He welcomes comments and questions at his email address--- vbloom@comcast.net.