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The boys were not angry. They were "wilding." Wilding is not rage, it is anarchy. Anarchy is an excess of freedom. Anarchy is the absence of rules, of ethical limits, of any moral sense. These boys are psychic amputees. They have lost, perhaps never developed, that psychic appendage we call conscience.
Conscience may be inbred, but to grow it needs cultivation. The societal messages that make it through the din of inner-city rap 'n' roll conspire to stunt that growth. They all but drown out those voices trying to nurture a sense of responsibility, the foundation of moral character.
For example, the ever fatuous Cardinal O'Connor could not resist blaming the park assault on, well, society. We must all "assume our responsibility," he & intoned, "for being indifferent to the circumstances that breed crimes of this sort." What circumstances? "Communities which know nothing but frustration."
When the Rev. Calvin Butts III of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church was asked by CBS about the attack, he spoke of "the examples that our children are faced with." Such as? "We've had Presidents resign, foreign Prime Ministers resign in disgrace. We've had Oliver North lie publicly on television . . . And many of our youngsters, across racial lines, see that and then act it out."
Richard Nixon, Noboru Takeshita and Ollie North may have much to answer for in the next world, but the savaging of a young woman in Central Park is not on the list. The effect of such preposterous links is to dilute the notion of individual responsibility. Entire communities are taught to find blame everywhere but in themselves. The message takes. New York Newsday interviewed some of the neighbors of the accused and found among these kids "little sympathy for the victim." Said a twelve-year-old: "She had nothing to guard herself; she didn't have no man with her; she didn't have no Mace." Added another sixth-grader: "It is like she committed suicide."
There is a rather large difference between suicide and homicide. For some, the distinction is not obvious. They must be taught. If not taught, they grow up in a moral vacuum. Moral vacuums produce moral monsters.
Young monsters. The attackers are all 14 to 17. Their youth is yet another source of mitigation. In addition to class and racial disadvantage, we must now brace ourselves for disquisitions on peer pressure, adolescent anomie and rage.
Spare us the Garlanding. The rage in this case properly belongs to the victim, to her family and to us.