Absence of Moral Authority

In recent months, Middle School 158 in Bayside, Queens has been the site of two outrageous instances of student misconduct—the sexual molestation of a female student by a boy who had been verbally harassing her for a couple of months before the physical violation, and the vicious pummeling of a 13-year-old girl by a 14-year-old in the school cafeteria.

Compounding the gravity of the latter incident was the cheering that went up after the girl who inflicted the beating raised her arms above her head like a prizefighter who had knocked out an opponent. Leonard Davidman, the head of the District Council 37 local that represents psychologists, ascribed their reaction to “mob behavior.” An equally apt explanation for it was what the late author James T. Farrell called “spiritual poverty.”