The Juvenile Delinquent and the Mythic Hero

In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Ernst Cassirer argues that the distinguishing characteristic of man is his symbolizing activity. While the animal responds to signs and finds satisfaction in the manipulation and incorporation of physical objects, man also needs, and has the capacity to find, substitute gratifications in symbolic communication—through the sciences, philosophy, religion, and above all, the arts. Now, errant or delinquent behavior is also a form of symbolic communication. As Freud suggested, there is a connection between symbol and symptom; only a very fine line divides genius and pathology. Writers, such as Thomas Mann, have viewed the artist as a borderline case and shown his inner relationship to the criminal. In his personality and behavior the criminal may often reveal, though in a distorted and sometimes brutal form, those same impulses of rebellion which move the artist and which the artist embodies in his hero. These impulses represent the productive and usable elements of deviant conduct. Just as in therapy we address ourselves to the intact ego of the patient, so in regard to juvenile delinquency and adult crime, we must seek out these elements, and assist in their redirection.

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As a dramatic illustration of this point, I want to recall an incident which occurred in New York about six years ago. It involves a gang leader, Jack Koslow, and his victim Willard Menter.

On the night of August 19, 1954, Koslow and three other Brooklyn boys met and talked vaguely of what to do. Walking aimlessly, they came across Willard Menter, a Negro, sleeping on a park bench. Koslow held a lit match to Menter’s feet and then, pulling him up, told him to come along. The group walked to a pier near the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. There, Mittman, Koslow’s buddy, hit Menter and when the Negro ducked Koslow’s follow-up punch, he fell into the water where he was left to drown.