Chicken Soup with the bully enablers...

Terrorists can learn a lot about people by watching how the bulk of a community's population enables a relatively small proportion of bullies.

Artificial social structures like corporations and military units are shaped like pyramids. These structures are tools, created by people to fulfill a purpose and dissolved when they are no longer needed. Natural social structures are shaped like a diamond, a pyramid on top of an inverted pyramid. These structures are the products of nature, and like forgotten minefields they tend to endure long after their original purpose ceases to exist. Columbine High School proudly displayed just such a structure.

Here's how it works:

Draw a large, four-pointed (playing card style) diamond on a piece of paper. Draw two straight lines across the top and bottom 1/10th of the diamond to form two small triangles. The Pack Alphas occupy the top triangle and the Scapegoats occupy the bottom triangle. Scapegoats provide a convenient outlet for the routine and arbitrary cruelty of any Pack Alpha who feels the need to reinforce its authority and social status. An Alpha without a Scapegoat is like a Nazi without a Jew. There's no one to feel superior to and no one to use as an example for others to fear. The rest of the student body is scattered throughout the rest of the diamond with the bulk of the population tending to occupy the middle levels of status.

Other than the Alphas and Scapegoats, the other 80% of the student body fits very neatly into one or more of the following four groups of Enablers:

Group One - Toadying Sycophants: These individuals genuinely envy and admire the Pack Alphas and regularly complement and fawn over them in the hope of currying favor. Many of these individuals are best described as alpha wannabes and prey upon Scapegoats as much as or more than the pack alphas. This group also includes adults who look upon association with or overt displays of support for the local sports teams as a means of increasing their own status within the community. It's not unusual for fathers to push their male children into violent, competitive sports and for mothers to literally pimp their daughters to the football team in the hope that they'll become more popular. Kip Kinkel's father did this. He and his wife are dead now.

Group Two - Enabling Females: Enabling females generally fall into one of three categories:

1) Female Sociopaths enjoy watching people being harmed and often flirt with men in order to give their pack alpha a flimsy excuse to attack. Female Sociopaths often display the behavior of Alpha Females. One need look no further than South Hadley High School for a good example of their character.

2) Social Climbers hope to trade the use of their bodies in exchange for elevated social status, inclusion in a high status group, and of course, money. Obviously, they're willing to risk serious injury and are stupid enough to ignore the lessons of O.J. Simpson. The next time you read about a violent psychopath like Ryan Tucker, ask yourself why any female would go near him if he could not offer high social status and money.

3) Airheads are attracted to pack alphas because they're ignorant and hopelessly idealistic morons. This group consists of females who believe they can help their alpha male turn his life around and become a better person. A woman once left a comment on one of my blogs describing Ryan Tucker as "kind, amazing, gentle, and strong." Yeah, right. My local newspaper printed a story a few years ago where the girlfriend of an extremely violent criminal defended his character by stating, "He's a really nice guy as long as you don't provoke him." It's good to have an airhead in your corner.

From the Pack Alphas' point of view, the primary duty of Enabling Females is to reinforce the illusion that the Pack Alphas are irresistible to females. This illusion is absolutely critical to an individual Pack Alpha's ability to maintain its social status and the respect of its peers and immediate subordinates. Attempting to break off a relationship with a Pack Alpha is usually hazardous to one's health as successfully doing so undermines the pack alpha's illusion of irresistibility. Once again...remember what happened to O.J. Simpson's wife for daring to break up with him.

The Enabling Female's secondary duty involves satisfying the Pack Alpha's basic sexual needs by playing the role of a Penis Garage. A Penis Garage provides a place for the Pack Alpha to park his Humvee at night. Not every Enabling Female is required or even allowed to fulfill this duty. Being chosen to fulfill one's duty as a Penis Garage is after all, an honor. Most Enabling Females must satisfy their petty fantasies by fawning over the Pack Alphas in the vain hope of becoming one of the chosen ones and by constantly reminding those lucky enough to be chosen as a nighttime parking spot how lucky they are. In some circumstances, a Penis Garage is routinely reminded of her good fortune by other Enabling Females regardless of how abusive, controlling, or violent her Pack Alpha becomes. In other circumstances, Penis garages are preyed upon by other females who want to take her place.

Group Three - Cowards: Members of this group are terrified to appear critical of the Pack Alpha's behavior. In order to avoid appearing critical, the worst of these scumbags will shamelessly blame the Pack Alpha's criminal behavior on the victim. This is quite common in cases involving a popular athlete committing date rape but is most often seen when low status males are assaulted by high status males. In this regard, Columbine High School was far from unique. Cowards, particularly adults in authority are as common as flies in an outhouse.

Group Four - Calluses: These individuals are either completely oblivious to what's going on around them, are powerless to affect the situation, are convinced of the myth that cruelty is some sort of character building exercise, or are simply indifferent to the suffering of anyone chosen to be a Scapegoat by the Pack Alphas. The worst of this group displays the behavior of the reformed alcoholic by reminding anyone who complains about bullying that being victimized made them tougher or better.

Scapegoats provide a convenient outlet for the routine and arbitrary cruelty of any Pack Alpha who feels the need to reinforce its authority and social status. Scapegoats also provide a visual example for the other four groups to fear. Toadying Sycophants, Enabling Females, Cowards, and Calluses all live in fear of being demoted to the role of Scapegoat. The arbitrary punishment meted out to Scapegoats reminds everyone to conform and to accept the Pack Alpha's authority without question.

At Columbine, most of the Pack Alphas appeared to be athletes. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were obviously Scapegoats. And the rest of the student body fulfilled their roles as Enablers by supporting whatever the Pack Alphas felt like doing to the Scapegoats. This created the illusion that the Columbine Killers targeted people indiscriminately. They did not. Given the absence of dead and wounded goths and other obvious oddballs, it seems reasonable to assume that Harris and Klebold intentionally avoided harming those whom they perceived as fellow Scapegoats.

Terrorists can learn almost nothing by studying what the killers did. They can learn much about the population they traditionally target by observing the behavior of bully enablers.