Podcast Summary: Malcolm Gladwell on the Sociology of School Shooters

The New Yorker Radio Hour – May 29, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Malcolm Gladwell (staff writer for The New Yorker), Dorothy Wickenden (The New Yorker’s executive editor)

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the disturbing phenomenon of school shootings in America, examining their underlying causes through a sociological lens. Malcolm Gladwell discusses insights from his 2015 New Yorker piece, "Thresholds of Violence," exploring how school shootings have evolved from rare expressions of severe pathology into a form of social contagion. The conversation, guided by Dorothy Wickenden, focuses on the mechanisms by which such violence spreads, why some adolescents become involved, and the limits of policy responses like gun control.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Case of John Ledoux: A Shooting That Didn't Happen

• [01:06] Gladwell recounts the case of John Ledoux, an honor-roll student on the autism spectrum who was apprehended before committing a planned school attack in a small Minnesota town.

  • Despite Ledoux’s alarming preparations, he wasn’t mentally ill, abused, or bullied.
  • Quote: "His parents are incredibly alarmed because he's in police custody and they don't realize that. And the reason they're alarmed is it's past 9 o'clock and he's never out past 9 o'clock. You know, he's that kind of dutiful a child." (Malcolm Gladwell, [01:48])

• Ledoux was fascinated not with violence, but with the technical challenge of pulling off what others (specifically, the Columbine shooters) had failed to do.

2. The Normalization of Dangerous Experimentation

• [02:18] Gladwell and Wickenden discuss how adolescent play with explosives and chemistry sets, while dangerous, has been historically “normal," especially among boys.
  • Some boys who experimented with explosives in youth went on to become accomplished scientists.
  • Quote: "Kids had been playing with chemistry sets and making bombs for as long as there have been chemistry sets. I can name to you editors of the New Yorker... who made bombs as kids. This is a normal thing for adolescents to do, to experiment with explosives." (Malcolm Gladwell, [02:41])

3. Sociological Theories – Granovetter's "Thresholds" and Social Contagion

• [04:25] Gladwell introduces sociologist Mark Granovetter’s riot theory to explain school shootings as a form of social contagion.

  • Individuals have different "thresholds" for participating in radical acts: some need no prompting (threshold = 0), while others only join in after seeing others do so.
  • Quote: "If you have a riot of 100 people, you could hypothetically have a group of 100 people, each of whom had a different threshold ranging from 0 to 99... That’s a really very different way of understanding a riot. So what I... thought, oh, this is really interesting, because we see the same thing with school shootings." (Malcolm Gladwell, [05:54])

• Over time, the shooters’ profiles have shifted from individuals with severe pathology to increasingly "average" participants as the phenomenon persists.

4. The Changing Profile of School Shooters

• [06:15] The earliest incidents involved individuals with profound psychological disturbance or trauma; now, less disturbed but more suggestible people are emulating earlier acts.
  • Quote: "The longer this phenomenon persists, the more likely it is for someone who is relatively normal to participate." (Malcolm Gladwell, [07:15])

5. The Gun Control Debate

• [07:34] Gladwell addresses the political focus on gun control, expressing skepticism that it alone can solve the problem of school shootings.

  • Quote: "Those who say that you can solve this problem with gun control are engaging in a fantasy... School shootings are not a necessary or inevitable consequence of having lots of guns. What we're looking at here is a powerful, contagious adolescent cultural pathology that has used the availability of guns to extend its reach." (Malcolm Gladwell, [07:41])

• Nonetheless, he strongly supports gun control for addressing broader gun violence but warns against oversimplifying its role in school shootings.

  • Quote: "Gun control can solve the much bigger problem of the kind of untouchable premeditated shootings done in the heat of passion or drunkenness or drug use that claim the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year. That's the reason to ban guns. School shootings are a wholly separate and more complex phenomenon." (Malcolm Gladwell, [08:44])

6. Responding to Adolescent Fascination with Guns and Explosives

• [09:32] Gladwell suggests that instead of suppressing boys' fascination with explosives and firearms, society should find ways to channel these impulses safely and constructively.

  • Quote: "The people who built, played with their chemistry sets and blew things up as children, many of them went on to be great chemists... So this impulse can be channeled in very positive directions. Let's do that. As opposed to denying that it exists." (Malcolm Gladwell, [09:59])

• He also hypothesizes that the end of compulsory military service may have left some adolescent urges around weaponry unchanneled.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "He got obsessed with the technical question of what it would take to blow up a school successfully. And he was particularly obsessed with Columbine. And he, as he points out, Columbine is a failure... So in his purely kind of narrow, obsessive way, he's just trying to solve the technical problem that has bedeviled his predecessors." (Malcolm Gladwell, [03:13])
• "Our response should be the opposite. It should be like, this is a phase that many adolescent boys go through. They're genuinely and legitimately fascinated with these... Let's do that. As opposed to denying that it exists." (Malcolm Gladwell, [09:59])

Timeline of Key Segments

• [00:10] Introduction to the topic and Gladwell’s article
• [01:06] The story of John Ledoux and the near-miss school attack
• [02:18] Discussion on the normalization of making explosives among boys
• [03:57] Introduction of sociologist Mark Granovetter’s riot theory
• [04:25] Explanation of thresholds and social contagion applied to school shootings
• [06:15] Evolution in the profile of school shooters
• [07:34] Gladwell’s nuanced view on gun control’s effectiveness
• [09:32] Exploring ways to safely channel adolescent interest in explosives

Conclusion

In this thought-provoking episode, Gladwell and Wickenden challenge common narratives around school shootings, reframing them from isolated acts of evil or policy failures to expressions of social contagion enabled by cultural and psychological thresholds. Gladwell emphasizes that solutions must address the complex social dynamics of imitation and adolescent psychology, not just gun access. The episode closes with a call to creatively and safely address young people's dangerous fascinations rather than ignore or criminalize them.

Further Reading:
Gladwell’s article Thresholds of Violence can be found at newyorker.com.