Hans Steinmuller and Wu Fei.

¶ … Hans Steinmuller and Wu Fei. "School killings in China Society or wilderness?" Anthropology Today, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Feb 2011): 10 -- 13.

The article is about an apparent sociological phenomenon in China involving seemingly separate incidents in which adult men went on rampages and murdered innocent children. Several different men who were completely unrelated and unknown to one another and who lived hundreds of miles away from one another perpetrated similar crimes of violence against children. The first incident occurred in March 2010 and it was followed by five similar incidents in the next few months. All of the crimes consisted of random attacks against groups of children in which the perpetrators stabbed them indiscriminately, killing many of them.

Naturally, I was horrified by the underlying facts of the cases and by the brutality inflicted on innocent children. but, much like the authors of the article, I also found it fascinating that a phenomenon such as the random killing of groups of children could occur in a series of multiple attacks, apparently inspired by some form of "copycat" mentality in connection with their coverage in the news media. Even if the individual perpetrators took the idea for their crimes from the ones that preceded them, that still does not explain why these men experienced such anti-social rage or why all of them chose to unleash their frustrations on innocent children.

It would seem to suggest that there is something about Chinese society that provokes intense rage in some middle aged men. More importantly, the pattern would also suggest that there is some specific reason that all of these men chose to unleash their rage on innocent children. As the authors point out, it might have been somewhat more understandable if they had lashed out at people or institutions that they considered responsible for their frustrations, such as against business acquaintances, work colleagues, or government agencies responsible for thwarting their plans and for causing them economic harm. The mystery in this case is why their anger was directed at strangers in general and specifically at children.

Some of the author's explanations about Chinese society were a little difficult to understand but I was able to understand the two major themes apparent in the analysis. First, there would appear to be something about Chinese society and culture that might be responsible for generating intense levels of personal frustration and even rage in many individuals, especially men. All of the perpetrators were middle aged men and even though they came from different socioeconomic and professional backgrounds, each of them had recently experienced intense personal frustration whether in connection with maintaining employment or a relationship with a woman, or in connection with building a house on a piece of property. The authors explained how Chinese society places intense pressure on men to assume the position of power and responsibility in the family and that there is also significant social pressure with respect to earning capacity and success in that regard. That might explain only the rage felt by middle aged men whose lives were not necessarily working out the way they had hoped.