On June 10, a 14-year-old student stabbed a school assistant at Collège Françoise-Dolto in Nogent in eastern France. The student was from a stable family background, he was not under psychological care, had no criminal record, did not use drugs and had not committed any serious violence, apart from two fights with other students.
An anti-bullying representative, a good student and someone involved in school life, he was described as "funny" by his classmates. He explained that he wanted to kill "a supervisor, any supervisor" after being reprimanded by one for flirting with a classmate in the schoolyard.
The first findings from the investigation revealed a total lack of regret or compassion, an inability to grasp the value of human life, a fascination with violence and death in movies and TV series, as well as the regular playing of violent video games.
Shift into another world
The description of this teenager and the shocking brutality of his actions immediately brought to mind Jamie Miller, the complex and magnetic 14-year-old at the center of the British TV series Adolescence, which became a global success. The series cast a harsh light on toxic masculinity, violence amplified by digital technology and the vulnerability of young boys, as well as the probable role of an empathy deficit exacerbated by screen use.
Like many, I was deeply shaken by the character. The hyperrealistic depiction of his frozen vulnerability, his ignorance of death, his emerging masculine humiliation and his lack of remorse echoed an inchoate feeling that increasingly permeates my consultations – one that I associate with a clear lack of empathy. This feeling is accompanied by my fear that more and more young people are slipping into another world, one where I can no longer reach them.
What can be said about this lack of empathy? For nearly half a century, I have seen adolescents in distress, as well as their families, and I know just how random the very notion of "normality" is at that stage of life. Is the 15-year-old girl who weighs 32 kilos and who looks at her emaciated reflection in the mirror with disgust, exclaiming, "I am monstrously obese," out of her mind?
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