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There was the predictable cry for gun control from some politicians. Most Americans no longer buy this; they know gun control isn't the solution, but many citizens haven't a clue what is. And we'll continue to be both perplexed and fearful until we face an uncomfortable fact: We share the blame for schoolyard slaughters by allowing our kids to form a parallel culture almost completely free of adult supervision.

Leon Botstein, president of Baird College, characterizes American schools as "a gang in which individuals of the same age group define each other's world." Within this alternate universe, kids are free to determine not only hair and clothing styles, but also moral fashions: They decide the rules governing sexual behavior and drug and alcohol use. And if those rules sometimes produce bloodshed as at Santana—well, we shouldn't be surprised. The classic novel Lord of the Flies warns what happens when children go without adult guidance: They quickly descend into savagery. At least the children in William Golding's novel didn't have adults encouraging them, as real-life kids do. For, ironically, it is business-suited adults who support the parallel teen culture.

For contemporary teens, the highest value is simply being "cool." How do kids define cool? It's an amalgam of ideas fed to them by corporations that covet the $150 billion-a-year teen market. As the PBS documentary The Merchants of Cool reports, these are the clothing manufacturers, media empires and soft-drink companies that make it their business to know what teenagers want.

And what do they want? First, an adult-free universe—which is why TV programs marketed to teens feature so few adults (or when adults do appear, they are portrayed as buffoons or hypocrites). Second, teens want to see, on television and movie screens, what New York University's Douglas Rushkoff calls a "version of themselves."

These versions are the templates for two TV stereotypes: "mooks" and "midriffs." The mook is a character created to appeal to adolescent males, characterized by "infantile, boorish behavior" and trapped in a state of "perpetual adolescence." Mooks are a staple on MTV. The midriff is, as Rushkoff describes her, a "highly sexualized, world-weary sophisticate" who manages to retain a bit of the little girl. Shows like Boston Public and singers like Britney Spears provide America's midriffs-in-training with role models to emulate.

Even more menacing are the McMorals taught by electronic game companies. Col. Dave Grossman, a former Army Ranger who researched the psychology of killing in combat, says violent video and computer games are conditioning teenagers to be violent. And then along comes Hollywood, telling kids through movies like Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Urban Legend, and Scream II that violence and killing are cool.

Should anyone be surprised when kids act on these messages? We can and should get angry with the companies that market violence to our children—but we should be just as angry at parents who allow their kids to become the companies' prey. The fact is, the parallel teen culture would be impossible without the complicity of parents. Many middle-class parents are so stressed from chauffeuring kids from one activity to another that they have little time together as a family. So today's teens enjoy unprecedented autonomy.

Christians ought to be the first to see the dire consequences of this parallel teen culture. Shootings like those at Santana and El Cajon are merely the most visible expressions of what happens to kids who live in their own dangerous universe.

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June 11 2001, Vol. 45, No. 8