OUT OF THE CAGE

I think Jim Morrison said that kids got into the Doors because they needed something sacred. Rock music, in another era, did quite well in providing this, for teenagers at least, with impenetrable lyrics, quasi-religious iconography and spectacle all adding to the illusion.

In a certain type of person, including and perhaps especially young men (I was there), there is the hunger for a certain kind of spiritual stimulation. I mean this in the broadest sense, that is, experience that is out of the ordinary, charged with significance, potentially life-defining. These events occur in parts of you that mundane experience can't reach. They may be tranquil, but not necessarily.

So it makes me wonder when I hear that the papers have been asking "WHY?" in relation to the suspected bombers rounded up in the UK. Why would some Moslem teenagers have so much hate that they could plan death and destruction?

I always remember the "choose life" litany at the start of Trainspotting. There are so many things this society does not, cannot, offer to a young man in the first flush of his exuberance. Yes, you can have CDs, DVDs and any amount of plastic, but where has adventure gone? You can have casual sex, but what about the dreamed-of soul mate? You can have a successful career, but what about purpose? You can play sport, but what about heroism? You can go along to the church or mosque, but what about revelation? You can serve the community, but what about martyrdom?

And among the things that modern society must proscribe is the lip-smackin', finger-lickin', heart-racin' prospect of real violence.