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I do think we need to keep things in perspective. There are 6,500+ high school students in PPS and people are going nuts that some little fight broke out. 6,500+ is a lot of kids. After thinking about it, my school might have had almost as many fights per capita. Probably not quite, but still close enough not to matter. Lets mellow out on this thing. Kids are kids and there will be some bullies.
I do think we need to keep things in perspective. There are 6,500+ high school students in PPS and people are going nuts that some little fight broke out. 6,500+ is a lot of kids. After thinking about it, my school might have had almost as many fights per capita. Probably not quite, but still close enough not to matter. Lets mellow out on this thing. Kids are kids and there will be some bullies.
I haven’t seen or read anything about people “going nuts”.
There’s also no real concern about students fighting. That’s something that obviously happens and is mostly treated as no big deal.
There also isn’t anything being mentioned about “bullies”.
The concern is with approximately 40 hooligan students fighting at the same time, which isn’t something that often happens, but seems to occur somewhat frequently at this certain location. There’s no reason for these clowns to act this way and possibly end up hurting someone. If they were really so tough and weren’t starving for attention, they’d find an empty lot with nobody around to break them up, and beat the crap out of each other, which would be great for everyone who doesn’t want to deal with their nonsense.
I do think we need to keep things in perspective. There are 6,500+ high school students in PPS and people are going nuts that some little fight broke out. 6,500+ is a lot of kids. After thinking about it, my school might have had almost as many fights per capita. Probably not quite, but still close enough not to matter. Lets mellow out on this thing. Kids are kids and there will be some bullies.
This is news because there have been even worse incidents at this location. Kids fight but when large groups are involved it is more likely there will be serious injuries or even deaths. Add to that this is in a busy location downtown, there is an increased risk of an innocent bystander being hurt or killed. The problem seems to be related to so many teenagers being in that location at the same time.
It can't solve anything since it is no longer a requirement in many aspects of life in our society.
You seem to have missed my point entirely.
Let me go onto another subject as an analogy: obesity. The epidemic of people morbidly overweight has often been considered to be about a failure of "willpower." Basically people are lazy and impulsive, and only if they showed greater self-control, ate less food, and exercised more, they could maintain a healthy weight.
The problem with this attitude is science does not back it up. People in our culture who are not overweight either stay thin because they have a different metabolism (higher resting rate of calorie burn and a natural tendency towards lean muscle mass) or a different psychology (some people are just less interested in eating than others, and studies have found that the people who stick with exercise regimens do so because they find it enjoyable - the whole getting "addicted" to the endorphin rush thing). The thin are not more personally responsible than the fat - they just lucked out.
Add to this societal aspects. Much of human cognition is what has been termed "groupness." Essentially, people unconsciously pick up social norms from others around them. This includes dietary habits. Studies have found one of the strongest predictors of weight gain has been if most of your peer group is overweight. As we live in a culture were the majority of adults (myself included, to be honest) are some degree of overweight - an amount which has generally risen over time - it becomes increasingly normal to eat larger and larger quantities of food, and live a sedentary lifestyle. This is before even getting into the nutritional quality (or lack thereof) of processed foods. But of course, the type of foods we find to be acceptable or unacceptable (picky eaters aside) is also picked up in part through social dynamics (chances are you won't be eating kale unless you have friends who also do).
So cycle this back around to teenagers fighting:
1. Teenagers in general are not known for having good self-control. Indeed, recent studies have suggested the last section of the brain to fully develop is the one controlling executive function - controlling our ability to stop from making impulsive decisions. This was the reason the Supreme Court ruled to end capital punishment of minors - although in fact we don't have a fully "adult" brain until our mid 20s.
2. There is natural, biologically variable differences in people when it comes to issues like impulsiveness and aggression. Some people are more apt to throw a punch than others. Those who choose not to fight don't have more self-control - they don't have more "personal responsibility" - they have a different personality.
3. Humans are social animals, and pick up social norms from their peers. If you grow up going to a school where fights are seen as normal among your peers, you won't have an issue fighting yourself. Indeed, even if the authority figures you know (parents, teachers, etc) frown upon it, it probably won't matter, because all teens believe status in the eyes of their peers is more important. Speaking personally, fights were rare where I grew up. But the only three fights I got into were actually with a friend on the bus in 9th grade - and honestly only happened because the whole bus started chanting "fight" and neither one of us wanted to back down in the face of that.
Let me go onto another subject as an analogy: obesity. The epidemic of people morbidly overweight has often been considered to be about a failure of "willpower." Basically people are lazy and impulsive, and only if they showed greater self-control, ate less food, and exercised more, they could maintain a healthy weight.
The problem with this attitude is science does not back it up. People in our culture who are not overweight either stay thin because they have a different metabolism (higher resting rate of calorie burn and a natural tendency towards lean muscle mass) or a different psychology (some people are just less interested in eating than others, and studies have found that the people who stick with exercise regimens do so because they find it enjoyable - the whole getting "addicted" to the endorphin rush thing). The thin are not more personally responsible than the fat - they just lucked out.
Oh I don't know if I can buy into this really. Society has changed from being more physical to sitting around WAY more. That made a huge difference in obesity. In my neighborhood I see very few fat people and kids are mostly all in very good shape. Go to different parts of town and you see fat people as the norm everywhere. Lucked out? Maybe more of a cultural/driven thing and not just metabolism. There is no doubt some people can eat more than others and stay thin, but the people who can't eat much just don't because they know they will get fat. EDUCATION! They might have to work harder to be in the norm or to be competitive. Just like someone wanting a law degree. There are some that will breeze through the process with ease and not really have to put in much effort because they are super smart, but others will have to work around the clock and might have to retake the bar several times. One must be driven and have a want to succeed and that comes from parenting and surroundings. Some kids will have to work much harder than others in school and may never be able to keep up with the top tier, but they may do quite well for themselves anyway through very hard work.
This is when personal responsibility comes into play. We are not all created equal and that is just the way it is. Some will have to work harder than others on every avenue to keep up. Getting hand outs and a perpetual feeling of being owed is NEVER going to work in the long term. The bottom line is you have to work harder if you aren't keeping up with peers on a national level. Those are just the facts. If you want equality for all, you have to allow a more natural progression because creating a never-ending crutch will never allow a true progression, it will always be a handicap. Feeling any group needs a handicap all the time would be pretty prejudicial and quite honestly egotistical. You will find these big egos a lot with elitist groups in politics. Aww, the poor will never really be able to keep up so we need to help them along throughout their entire lives. That help becomes a lifestyle and I think the elitists actually like that feeling of superiority. Any group being helped through generations will of course use the crutch and never be able to actually walk on their own, therefore will never have self pride which is another thing the elitists love. They love having a group dependent on them so they feel superior and enjoy helping them along.
These fights are common in all young groups, but in better schools kids are too busy for a ton of kids to fight. They have things going on to keep up with their peers. Sports, academic clubs and more. They just don't have the time for some huge fight and most would roll their eyes at such a thing. Their parents know how hard it will be for them later in life and know they need to work to keep up, so they create a busy schedule for them. There are very few crutches being handed out to most of these driven in shape hard working kids and if they have a crutch, it is to help them in the short term and they know the crutch is going to be taken away.
Oh I don't know if I can buy into this really. Society has changed from being more physical to sitting around WAY more. That made a huge difference in obesity. In my neighborhood I see very few fat people and kids are mostly all in very good shape. Go to different parts of town and you see fat people as the norm everywhere. Lucked out? Maybe more of a cultural/driven thing and not just metabolism. There is no doubt some people can eat more than others and stay thin, but the people who can't eat much just don't because they know they will get fat. EDUCATION! They might have to work harder to be in the norm or to be competitive. Just like someone wanting a law degree. There are some that will breeze through the process with ease and not really have to put in much effort because they are super smart, but others will have to work around the clock and might have to retake the bar several times. One must be driven and have a want to succeed and that comes from parenting and surroundings. Some kids will have to work much harder than others in school and may never be able to keep up with the top tier, but they may do quite well for themselves anyway through very hard work.
This is when personal responsibility comes into play. We are not all created equal and that is just the way it is. Some will have to work harder than others on every avenue to keep up. Getting hand outs and a perpetual feeling of being owed is NEVER going to work in the long term. The bottom line is you have to work harder if you aren't keeping up with peers on a national level. Those are just the facts. If you want equality for all, you have to allow a more natural progression because creating a never-ending crutch will never allow a true progression, it will always be a handicap. Feeling any group needs a handicap all the time would be pretty prejudicial and quite honestly egotistical. You will find these big egos a lot with elitist groups in politics. Aww, the poor will never really be able to keep up so we need to help them along throughout their entire lives. That help becomes a lifestyle and I think the elitists actually like that feeling of superiority. Any group being helped through generations will of course use the crutch and never be able to actually walk on their own, therefore will never have self pride which is another thing the elitists love. They love having a group dependent on them so they feel superior and enjoy helping them along.
These fights are common in all young groups, but in better schools kids are too busy for a ton of kids to fight. They have things going on to keep up with their peers. Sports, academic clubs and more. They just don't have the time for some huge fight and most would roll their eyes at such a thing. Their parents know how hard it will be for them later in life and know they need to work to keep up, so they create a busy schedule for them. There are very few crutches being handed out to most of these driven in shape hard working kids and if they have a crutch, it is to help them in the short term and they know the crutch is going to be taken away.
You cut off my very next paragraph, which was about peer effects. People in your neighborhood are, to a great extent, thinner because the social network they are ensconced within contains a lot of thin people who take care of their bodies. People unconsciously conform to group norms. If you took some of those people and plopped them in rural Alabama, they would start gaining weight. The inverse is also true - take someone from an obese social network and surround them by those who are mostly fit, and they would probably start to lose some weight (or at least stop gaining weight.
Talk to any neuroscientist today and they will agree that "free will" as we have commonly understood it, is an illusion. We do not have agency over our own actions - we do not have self control. Our thoughts and actions are determined by two things - the underlying physical structure of our brain (which is shaped by biology and experience) and the sensory input we take in. Our consciousness - our self-awareness - often doesn't realize we have made decisions until after the fact, and seems to largely exist to rationalize our instinctive behaviors.
As you noted, society as a whole has changed - which is an important input. Adults work less physically strenuous jobs. Children are no longer allowed to play outside. Food manufacturers have scientifically tailored their products for maximum "bliss" (tastiness) - and generally speaking, the more flavorful food is, the more we overeat. People eat out at restaurants with gigantic portions. All of these are changes to the inputs of diet and exercise, which is why Americans (who certainly didn't have time to evolve new traits over the period) have seen a different output in terms of our behavior.
Once again, I simply do not get the whole appeal to "personal responsibility" thing. Name me a single case where "personal responsibility" has solved any national or social ill. It's mostly an excuse for people to whinge with moral self-righteousness, or to ignore problems entirely as unsolvable.
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