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China’s School Killings. Capitalism Made Me Do It.

By Dan Harris on Posted in Events

Since China’s recent spate of school killings, I have received a couple emails asking me “what is going on.” I respond by saying I have no clue. I do not explain any further, but if I did, I would say that for me to have any idea as to causation, I would have to know a helluva (that’s a word among the 21 and under set) lot more than I do about each of the killings and real information on that sort of thing does not usually come out until years later when someone writes a book on it. I would also have said that I very much doubt that the reasons for the various killings are related and that in all of those cases, no doubt, there were multiple reasons. In other words, it is complicated.
But why deal in nuance when you can use tragedy to advance your own thesis? At least that seems to be the thinking of Mary Nicks Moody who, in a recent post, entitled, “Recent Violence in China – A Reflection of Income Inequalities,” confidently proclaims that the killings are due to China’s rising income inequalities:

The shocking incident inspired four copycat killing sprees by unemployed or under-employed adult males, most of whom reportedly suffered from mental illness. The killings highlight the need for a better social safety net and social welfare services for the mentally ill, and put into sharp focus the uneven nature of China’s economic development and its concomitant social pressures.

The New York Times (who else?) did the same thing with the Times Square bomber, penning an article trying to convince us that it was financial difficulties, not jihadi fanaticism that caused Faisal Shahzad to seek to bomb as many as he could into oblivion.
The underlying theme of all these “my finances made me do it” stories seems to be that if we only had more redistribution of wealth, these sorts of things would be avoided. The problem with this argument is that it has absolutely no basis in reality as there is no evidence of which I am aware in either the United States or in China showing a correlation between murders (particularly multiple murders) and income inequality. The other flaw in these arguments is that they completely fail to explain why billions of people (in the United State and in China and elsewhere) who are struggling to make ends meet do not just go off and engage in a multiple murder.
I grew up in a very working class neighborhood in a very working class city in Michigan and the thing I really hate about the if you aren’t rich you are at risk of becoming a multiple murderer theme is that it is so incredibly condescending. Guess what Ms. Moody, I know just a ton of people who are constantly struggling economically and I have no worries about them going off and whacking a bunch of people. In fact, call me naive, but I see them as no more likely to do such a thing than someone with an Ivy League master’s degree.
I virtually never attack other writings on China, but this one registered so high on the BS meter that it angered me so much that I could not resist. We deserve better than this.
What do you think?

  • Jessica Tomlinson

    Thank you so much for doing a post like this and for not pulling any punches. I am totally with you in getting angry at how she makes it seem that all of the poor and the middle class are just one paycheck away from going postal on people. Her post was totally condescending and without any factual basis and she deserves to be attacked for seeking to callouslly use horrible tragedies as her own springboard for launching into polemics to advance her own agenda. Mucho kudos!

  • http://www.qualityinspection.org Renaud

    “The shocking incident inspired four copycat killing sprees”: that’s all it is, people copying the examples of others.
    A lot of research studies have found the same phenomenon in other countries. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide — that page is about suicide, including a pilot committing suicide and killing other people with him at the same time. My guess is that the school killings in China are not very different.

  • Brian in Shanghai

    Dan,
    You wrote:
    I grew up in a very working class neighborhood in a very working class city in Michigan and the thing I really hate about the if you aren’t rich you are at risk of becoming a multiple murderer theme is that it is so incredibly condescending.
    My comment:
    100% percent agreement from very working class Minnesota boy.

  • Robert Dohner

    “I virtually never attack other writings on China, but this one registered so high on the BS meter that it angered me so much that I could not resist. We deserve better than this.”
    Did you actually read the piece? (as opposed to the title and the lead-in, both usually supplied by the editor)
    If you had, what you would have found is:
    “The killings highlight the need for a better social safety net and social welfare services for the mentally ill, and put into sharp focus the uneven nature of China’s economic development and its concomitant social pressures.”
    “Closing the income gap in China will not eliminate violence, but it may lead to greater social stability and decrease instances of tragedies caused by those who feel they have been left behind.”
    Both statements are completely reasonable. Nowhere does the piece say, or imply, that inequality was the cause of the killings.
    I have very little patience with or respect for those who react first and read second. The author of the original piece deserved better than this.

  • Working Man’s Hero

    @Robert Dohner,
    I do not see how you can make the claims you do. You try to get us to believe that the author never sought to make a direct connection between China’s income inequalities and the recent school killings even tho that is precisely what her entire article is about.
    I have no time for people like you because you don’t even have the guts or decency to be honest.
    Even what you quote proves this blog’s point.

  • Daniel Deacon

    Two thumbs up Dan – your recent feistier attitude to dealing with some of the drab that gets written on China is going down a treat. Keep it up!

  • http://chinadivide.com Kai

    Dan…
    I know you may not see it, but I’m seeing quite the similarity with something you blasted me for a few days ago.
    But, I want you to know that I still love you.
    Stan has an interesting response on China Hearsay. I’m trying to imagine you two as Lefties and Righties doing battle in the ring though. I think you should have the weight advantage. Stan looks pretty frail.

  • Brad

    When visiting China in 2000, I had a conversation with a taxi driver in Beijing about the Columbine School Massacre in 1999. At that time, children killing other children at school was an utterly foreign concept to the driver. Sad that it is now becoming commonplace.

  • Frank Rizzo

    @Dan: Agree 100%. I am also tired of hearing about how China has no “social safety net”. Being married to a Chinese, I’ve seen first-hand how family members go out of their way to help other family members in need in China. Family also does a very good job of distinguishing who is really in need versus who is just lazy.
    @Brad: Children killing children at school is one thing. Adults killing children at school is another altogether. Kids can be monsters to each other, so combine that with psychoactive drugs (Ritalin, etc.) and while tragic and unacceptable, it is at least understandable how a kid could go off the deep end against his classmates. What would cause an adult to go after kids, that is harder to understand. The idea that it’s because the adult is not a driving an Audi A8 is ridiculous, though.

  • http://www.blognow.com.au/borisknack Rob

    Dan, Thanks very much for continuing to write such stimulating content. Unfortunately that BS is very typical. Me too, I’d be looking deeper for the causal nexus of that: though particularly why if there is such a hunger to explain the China phenomenon, why this is so readily couched in negative terms. Forget the “security theater”, the security risks in a population of this size (even amongst a populace so relatively, umm, peace-loving) must already exceed the West’s. I doubt very much however that the rate of violent incidents is increasing. But the increased reportage, likely to contain lots of underlying schadenfreude and envy, is fixating so often on anger. Which, of course, doesn’t cause the act, but it does help in constructing a discursive framework — Fear & Loathing In The Middle Kingdom — that is highly unproductive, disrespectful…and more than a little racist. Only my opinion. I’ll get back in my box.

  • outcast

    @frank:
    They go after children because they are cowards. Typically in the US when an adult snaps, he’ll go on his rampage at the workplace, not at a school.

  • qingdao

    2 thoughts: I teach at a university and I had a young woman go stark raving mad in class. I dismissed class, talked her down and then went to my dean. She said she would take care of it. I said: “no; take care of it NOW.” She said something like: Im busy, I will take care of it. I said: If this young woman jumps off a building, you will regret waiting. The dean turned green; said she would deal with it NOW. End of story: they sent her home. They have absolutely no facilities to deal with psychological stresses; find it shameful; and simply send the “offending”person home. (second thought) In most places the rich more or less deserve their wealth; here, the perception is different and temperatures are rising.

  • Charlie

    To be sure, the reason that the killers were cowards would most likely be the primary reason that the killers targeted children. However, other factors might have played into account as well. For one, China strictly enforces gun bans; whereas the US doesn’t. The selection of a weapon, while more than likely is not a dispositive factor, will most likely play a role in the victims targeted.
    As for the article and the author, I side with Dan’s position: it reeks of BS. To be sure, a lot of what the author wrote is true–there is a severe income inequality in China–but she also wrote the article prejudiced by contemporary Western perspective as well as a lack of information. Please don’t misunderstand, I am not preaching PRC propaganda. However, given the circumstances, and the PRC’s central concerns and polices–which some would argue span all the way to imperial China–the government’s decision was a necessary evil that produced a disheartening but inevitable side effect.
    While capitalism certainly steered Chinese society and these particular individuals towards this despondent string of events, its dissipation or resolution would not prevent or end future occurrences, which the author seemed to insinuate and conclude.

  • CLS

    There have been many studies whose findings show a strong correlation between income inequality and violence. Findings of these studies are not hard to find — a quick Google or Wikipedia search will return pages of results. To disagree with the findings or methodologies is one thing — but to say there is “absolutely no basis in reality… no evidence” that this phenomenon exists? That’s quite another…
    This is an issue that many talented people have dedicated years of their lives to studying, and it’s frustrating to see their efforts brushed off as nonexistent because you don’t like the hypothesis.
    (And actually, I think ‘my finances made me do it’ and ‘if you aren’t rich you are at risk of becoming a multiple murderer’ is a severe misrepresentation of the inequality argument, but that’s another post for another day.)

  • ceh

    The article is poorly written. Tangentially, I see no difficulty in saying that people with nothing to lose have a higher likelihood of doing desperate things. In a society where social mobility is relatively limited, desperate things tend to be more extreme. In the U.S., there are relatively more opportunities for the lowest rungs of the social ladder.
    Something might also be said about the criminal justice systems. If you sell enough dope in China or rob a bank, you’re dead or at least locked up for life in really shitty conditions. So why not go for broke and kill as many people as you can before offing yourself? If you rob a bank in the U.S., you go to Criminal U for a few years with relatively luxurious room and board. When you check out, you can use what you’ve learned to start a new criminal enterprise.

  • Anonymous

    “The problem with this argument is that it has absolutely no basis in reality as there is no evidence of which I am aware in either the United States or in China showing a correlation between murders (particularly multiple murders) and income inequality.”
    How is Detroit’s violent crime rate today compared to boom times when you grew up?
    How many poor and arguably oppressed people killed others in the aftermath of the Chinese revolution – a revolution that of course sought to even out income inequality?
    The vast majority of mid to lower income earners are not homicidal. But financial pressure, which can be caused by financial ineqaulity, does create stress. And people who are already a bit unhinged might go beserk if they do not get proper treatment. I think it’s reasonable that this combination could be the cause of these people going nuts.

  • http://buxiebuxing.livejournal.com Phil Hand

    God, so true. The Chinese media has been doing the same thing – lots of tortured pieces about how the killings are because of “unfairness in society”. The whole trope makes me angry because the bland accusations against “society” obviate the possibility of any effective action to sort out what went wrong in these particular cases.

  • anon this time

    I don’t think there is any parallel between a working class upbringing in postwar America (guessing at your general age/generation here, forgive me) and growing up poor/without in China, even in today’s China. Vastly different locales, economies, and a host of other considerations… that for me, would negate any attempt at such a comparison.
    You have simplified the thrust behind her argument and added a distinctly American template where one simply doesn’t fit, IMO.

  • Handan

    I find it troubling that no explicit distinction is made here in this discussion between equality and fairness, or in other words, between a static status of inequalities and the dynamics behind them. It it relatively fine to have huge inequality if, as Qingdao said, the rich are regarded to more or less deserve their wealth. So it is really more about how the inequalities have come about, AND how things are going to go in the future. Is there hope for correcting inequalities? Prevalent perception of the coming about and the outlook of inequalties is much more important than the status. In this sense, I agree with “anon this time” on seeing no parallel between a working class upbringing in postwar America and growing up poor/without in China, even in today’s China.

  • Chalmers Wood

    Asking hereabouts about these killings, the consistent answer I get is: “children are easy to kill”. Very glibly, in a culture of about 250 generations that is more stability and history-based (ancestor worship & ritual-oriented etc) than America’s usually today-focused Heaven/Hell based 15 generations, the Chinese appear to view a life as a single brief unit as opposed to a soul in an heroic win/lose eternity. Therefore, for those that fate has brought to the desperate point the of taking lives of other humans as revenge, the difference between children and adults is less significant. That as a white-hot cross-cultural subject can go in a thousand rhetorical directions in these early days. But the idea that “the only constant in the universe is change” came from China. Or maybe India. So we can probably agree that it’s going to take a few more thousand years before all we humans are excellent parents, produce kids that will be 100% healthy, happy, successful, useful to each other, good for our planet, long lived, and the Fat Lady Finally Sings. And as you read these very words, good reader, yes you, feverish work is ever going forward on her proposed DNA, and the lyrics she will sing. But, then what? ;-)