Almost twenty years ago a nearby white-town high school had a problem. They had groomed and defended their best athletes because around here small towns are defined by the success of their football and basketball teams. But either they overshot or other factors entered into the problem. One specific group of boys had become impossible to handle in a classroom. The word had gotten around and no one would accept the job of teaching them.
I was asked by a former student going by my reputation on the rez as a “good” teacher (the standards vary from one situation to another) and one who had taught in Heart Butte which was considered out on the fringe and hard to control. (It wasn't.) I was interviewed by the superintendent and hired. The high school principal hated me on sight. She had formerly been a conformist English teacher and was from a right wing community. One of the forces over the next couple of months was her posse of righteous females who “knew” what was proper.
I lasted two months. The girls refused to do anything until they could be in control. So I let them just sit and visit which was what they wanted to do. Meanwhile, I put all my liberal listening skills to work on that bunch of boys. One insisted he had to be excused to go do athletic stuff, so I did. He was a little disappointed since he had expected a nice little war.
But I developed strong affection for those boys, even the ones who were profane and obsessed with sex. They had strong personalities with a streak of idealism that made them indignant about what they saw.
Ever since then I’ve tried to figure out how to write a “YA” novel about these dynamics. I discovered the same kind of simmering rage at the status quo, the loss, the misunderstanding, the patronizing, and pessimism about the future that we can plainly see twenty years later in men twenty years older. They would be in their forties now.
This morning I downloaded an essay that lists 14 ideas that were being taught these boys and that have produced these men. It was presented as explanation for intransigent Trump's voters. Here’s the list.
1. Practicality Trumps Morality. Practicality is defined by profit and keeping the status quo.
2. The Brain’s Attention System. Sensationalism and emotion grab us. Barnum and Bailey knew this.
3. “America’s Obsession with Entertainment and Celebrities” In this instance it was Tony Hawk and his skateboarding.
4. “Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn”. Esp. those accustomed to the carnage and mayhem taught by vid games and the news.
5. The Fear-Factor: Conservatives Are More Sensitive to Threat. This is perfectly reasonable in a place where the weather or drunk driving kills people you know or being urged to play a sport that knocks the brains out of growing boys. This particular coach was described to me as a “red meat” coach.
6. The Power of Mortality Reminders. When someone dies in a small town — which is not unlikely in a place with so many old people that the town itself is said to be dying — the boys probably know them or their families. This list refers to “Terror Management Theory” which is a way of handling fear of death through denial and reassuring idealisms like feeling that one’s parents were homesteaders or from a proud European country, that one belongs to a better group.
7. The Dunning-Kruger Effects: Humans often Overestimate Their Political Expertise. In small towns it is often believed that the people there know all there really is to know about how things work. DK theory proposes that they don’t even know that there is much they don’t know. Here on the East Slope, people didn’t know that people in Manhattan knew that Trump was a failure and a fake. They took the flash and rhetoric as real, so feel like hicks.
8. Relative Deprivation — A Misguided Sense of Entitlement. This is the sense that someone has an unfair advantage. People on the rez think that white people are rich, because all the rich people they know are richer than they are. People in small Montana towns think that college grads are richer than they are because they went to college without really knowing what happens in college. Football?
9. Lack of Exposure to Dissimilar Others. If a person doesn’t know any Blacks, Chinese, or Turks, their mental image is going to be fuzzy. In Montana, because of gender assignment, many working class men are never around women and have very little idea of what they are like.
10. Conspiracy Theories Target the Mentally Vulnerable Small town theories based on gossip are often about conspiracies. Aside from that, it’s a temptation to know something no one else knows, even if it’s kind of marginal, like seeing a flying saucer. And teens love Sci-Fi with that feeling that anything is possible.
11. The Nation’s Collective Narcissism. The idea of being “best” and “number one” and the conviction that this is important, vital for existence, was necessary for wartime but is leaking away now. Still, around here people are barely aware of how much respect America has lost. They still fly the flag with pride.
12. The Desire to Want to Dominate Others. This is linked by the maker of this list to “Social Dominance Orientation” and “Authoritarian Personality Syndrome”, which are each thought systems focused on hierarchy and the desire to be at the top. Like "winning state", the competition which was the focus of these boys.
13. Authoritarian Personality Syndrome is listed separately. This was the strong stance of the administration of the school, particularly the principal, a woman who didn’t carry the authority cues known in the community — neither local family, appearance nor knowledge. But the coach did, though I recognized his tricks. I wondered about showers, where dominance becomes SM.
14. Racism and Bigotry. Most of it around here is focused on Native Americans though their athletic skills are honored and courted. Of course, on the rez it goes the other direction, 'cuz "white men can't jump".
So how to I translate all these theories and insights into a dynamic and exciting YA story? Maybe it’s already been written and I just don’t know. It’s one of those things that’s hiding in plain sight. It's such a short story because I quit in a few months.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/they-just-want-to-watch-the-world-burn-psychological-analysis-reveals-14-key-traits-that-explain-the-presidents-die-hard-supporters/
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/they-just-want-to-watch-the-world-burn-psychological-analysis-reveals-14-key-traits-that-explain-the-presidents-die-hard-supporters/
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