III – Mechanistic Strategies and Research Methodologies: An Indifference to Spiritual Interiority
Immediately after World War II, the principle threats to the health status of America’s youth came from infectious diseases. Polio, diphtheria, measles, chicken pox, and whooping cough – each struck fear in the hearts of parents. But over time those threats receded. Polio is gone. Diphtheria is gone. Measles, chicken pox, and whooping cough are at an all time low. Indeed, for all practical purposes, yesterday’s battles have been won. But, they could well have been lost had we not identified the root cause of those diseases and developed vaccines that could prevent their occurrence.
Today, America’s youth faces an entirely new set of health threats: emotional distress, suicide, violence, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors. Youth violence is especially troubling because of the highly-charged attention it has received.
Yet, having developed over the years a myriad of programs to treat the consequences of such behaviors – analogous to the treatment of infectious diseases prior to the development of preventive vaccines — we still know very little about their root cause. This explains why we have been unable to develop an effective national strategy to prevent them. Effective prevention depends on a knowledge of root cause.
To be sure, much is known about youth violence. Studies have shown that youths experience disconnectedness, and uncontrollable anger and rage. These are facts. We also recognize these conditions often leave youths vulnerable to negative cultural influences as exhibited through violent television programming, music, video games, and anti-social groups. Likewise we know angry youths are easily tempted by widespread access to guns and other instruments of violence. These too are facts.
But – and this is the point — what is lacking in our national awareness is a clear understanding of why certain youths develop negative characteristics and why they eventually become vulnerable to the forces and means of violence. We simply don’t know why this happens; we only know that it happens.
To understand the causal origins of violent behavior requires us to move beyond material conditions to the formal causes of violence. Otherwise we easily fall victim to the same philosophical reductionism mentioned in the previous section. But even a brief look at prevailing prevention strategies and research methodologies indicates a striking indifference to spiritual interiority, not unlike that which was described earlier. Like it or not, we are captive to material causation.
Consider prevention strategies. For four decades, America’s leadership and the nation’s media have focused public attention on six strategies designed to prevent youth violence: 1) the reduction of easy access to guns; 2) the imposition of controls on negative cultural influences; 3) the deployment of tighter school security measures; 4) the improvement of parenting skills; 5) the increased use of early intervention techniques; and 6) the delivery of enhanced mental health services.
Common to all these strategies is an undue magnification of the role that material causation plays in determining the form and intensity of individual acts. Screening for guns at a school’s entrance or adding to the presence of security forces in the hallways do not address root causes. The same can be said of improved parenting skills. When youths are in their school environs, they are vulnerable to the conditions and circumstances that exist there, not in their home. No matter how good their upbringing, youths have to contend with threats that exist outside the home. Even the expansion of early intervention programs or the increased use of mental health services are, in large part, hit and miss.
Common to all these strategies is a Maginot Line syndrome. Multiple defensive barriers are set up to defend against violent behavior. But angry and driven youths can easily outflank these defenses. Thus effective prevention must transcend the limitations inherent in mechanistic strategies. It must attend to the role that spirituality plays in the commission of violent acts.
Similar weaknesses are seen in the dominant research methodologies: risk factor and resiliency research.
Since the middle sixties, risk factor research has shaped the design and development of US social policy and programs. In general, the thrust of this research correlates certain conditions and characteristics to specific behaviors. But correlations, despite being referred to as causes, are really about material causation, not formal causation. Indeed, they refer to an observed association of specific antecedents and specific consequents, not to real causes producing real effects. For instance, the lack of affordable housing is correlated with homelessness. But that correlation in no way indicates that homelessness will be prevented if each homeless person is provided with a house. There is more to homelessness than housing or any combination of economic factors. Thus for reasons of an incongruity between causes and correlations, risk factor research is not a good basis on which to construct a national prevention strategy. Prevention needs to alleviate causes, not just subtract risk factors.
Resiliency research holds greater promise for prevention. Contesting the assumption that a high percentage of youth with risk factors develop problem behaviors, resiliency research finds the opposite to be true. Their findings reveal that only a small percentage of high-risk children develop problem behaviors. The vast majority become healthy, competent adults.
Why is this so? The answer is simple. Protective factors tend to nullify the impact of multiple risk factors, and the protective factor most determinant is the presence of a caring, supportive relationship with someone at some time and place in the young person’s life. This view is supported by the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health which concludes: Independent of race, ethnicity, family structure and poverty status, adolescents who are connected to their parents, to their families, and to their school community are healthier than those who are not. Recent brain research corroborates this conclusion. The presence or absence of love can have a lifelong effect on brain development.
To sum up, youth violence prevention programs suffer from a number of serious weaknesses: 1) they tend to serve only a limited number of youth in specified geographic areas; 2) they rely on risk factors which many now believe to be an unreliable tool of predictability; 3) they treat individuals outside the environment in which they interact; 4) they pay too little attention to root cause; 5) they suffer from a high rate of recidivism; and 6) they fail to explore the role that culture plays in bringing about violent behavior.
But there is a more basic reason for our failure to curb dysfunctional behavior. All effort to date comes in conflict with an insight into human reality that has enormous practical relevance for the future of America. This insight can be expressed as follows: human behavior is inextricably and causally linked to a dynamic spiritual center that transcends the social and material conditions and circumstances of the individual.
The significance of this insight is that it asserts the elemental truth that a human being is an organic unity, not a mere collection of discrete pieces. The elements of behavior are linked to something besides themselves. Thus it is not possible to understand the root cause of individual behavior apart from the dynamic spiritual context of that unity Simply put, the socio-economic processes and the spiritual dynamics of the individual co-exist organically within the same being. They neither exist by themselves nor can they be accurately comprehended apart from this organic unity.
Next: Part IV
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