The Tipping Point

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of suicides in the Micronesian island group. 

In the early 1960s, suicide on the islands of Micronesia was almost unknown. But for reasons no one quite understands, it then began to rise, steeply and dramatically, by leaps and bounds every year, until by the end of the 1980s there were more suicides per capita in Micronesia than anywhere else in the world. For males between fifteen and twenty four, the suicide rate in the United States is about 22 per 100,000. In the islands of Micronesia the rate is about 160 per 100,000—more than seven times higher.

 For some reason not understood, suicide among young boys has become trivialized. One teenager committed suicide because his parents had refused to buy him a graduation gown. Another because his older brother had rebuked him for making too much noise. And dozens and dozens of similarly illogical reasons.

Thus as suicide grows more frequent in these communities the idea itself acquires a certain familiarity if not fascination to young men, and the lethality of the act seems to be trivialized. Especially among some younger boys, the suicide acts appear to have acquired an experimental almost recreational element.

The reason for this may not be understood, but it fits the pattern that Gladwell describes as a tipping point, in which something rare becomes commonplace.  

Looked at in this light, the rash of school shootings is even more frightening, if that is possible.