COMMENTARY ON YOUTH VIOLENCE : Time Is Running Out to Alter Way We See and Accept Mayhem : An American society that glorifies violence is fulfilling a prophecy of raising a generation of moral imbeciles.

A generation accustomed to successive wars, political corruption in our highest government offices, and beheadings and razor slashings for entertainment on our screens can nevertheless be shocked by the eruption of teen-age murder and mayhem. This is especially true when these are committed by youth who don’t fit the stereotype of kids from broken homes and poverty.

This is what has perplexed and outraged Orange County residents in recent weeks. Violent youth who come from conservative, intact homes with well-educated, relatively affluent parents--and who are themselves in many cases honor students bound for prestigious universities--have stunned the public in general, and juvenile authorities in particular. But there are parallels across America.

Blame comes easily. Some fault the influence of the media. Filmmakers loudly insist that there is no evidence for relating violence seen and mayhem enacted. We are reminded that Snow White and Bambi contained frightening scenes, including Bambi seeing his mother killed “right before his eyes.” But neither film can compare with the gruesome disembowelings and chain-saw massacres that turn our screens crimson. As early as the 1930s, the Hayes office was Hollywood’s own effort to police itself because evidence was clear enough, even then, that movies were having a negative impact on youth. The Kefauver Committee on Delinquency in the 1950s; the Eisenhower Report on “Mass Media and Violence” in the 1960s; the Surgeon General’s Report in the 1970s and again in the 1980s all pointed to the same conclusion.

Meanwhile, the sports world has ceased to provide role models for our youth. Some of its leading figures are arraigned on drug and money-laundering charges, and others are so sexually promiscuous as to contract venereal disease and deadly HIV. Rock stars, sweaty and half dressed, are a world apart from the clean-cut music figures of the preceding generation, and nervous parents cite the screeching lyrics of “Cop Killer,” and “Suicide Solution,” and celebrations of sex and violence as part of the antihero mentality.

Sociologists Bernice Neugarten and Richard Havighurst have noted another influence. Children raised in wartime are several times more prone to delinquency than those raised in times of peace. The very atmosphere of violence as an acceptable way of solving problems seems infectious. Every time the nation goes to war, it “buys into” a pattern of youth violence when the children of that period reach the teen years. It is one of the hidden costs of war.

Our schools have also come in for their share of blame, for failing to teach the values that are credited with having shaped the character of an earlier America. Lewis Mumford, a generation ago, warned of the coming breakdown when he said that “a third of our student population may be considered moral imbeciles, potential if not active delinquents.” In response, the California Education Code now contains the requirement: “Each teacher shall endeavor to impress upon the minds of pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, and the rights, duty and dignity of American citizenship.”

Well and good, but resources to carry out such a mandate are virtually nonexistent. There are no books, few study guides, and no special training for teachers who must try to “work it in,” while teaching math, spelling and the rest of the required curriculum. Confronted with students who bring guns, razors and drugs to school, and literally thumb their noses at class assignments, not to mention homework, it is small wonder that teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers.

But behind it all, there remains the question of the family’s capacity to nurture and educate children in the ways of decent and responsible behavior. Broken homes, single parentage and poverty have their obvious risks. But what of the recent rash of violence among youth who have been raised in what once passed for a Norman Rockwell appearance of domestic stability?

Social workers report increasing numbers of homes where both parents work, bring home hundred-thousand-dollar combined incomes, provide their kids with color TV sets for their bedrooms, and cars to drive to high school. But they also note that there is little conversation in many such homes, breakfasts are catch-as-catch-can, and dinners are in front of the TV set without personal interaction among family members. Most delinquents have no contact with churches, Scout groups or other value-fostering agencies. Perceiving a blend of permissiveness and indifference from their parents, the kids turn to peer groups and gangs for rules and structure.

Gangs demand--and receive--loyalty and compliance with rules. Membership in one upper-class youth “club” required $5,000 in stolen goods to qualify for membership. Gang rules often include staking out blocks or whole districts of “turf” and targeting outsiders for violent confrontation. Clothing, hairstyle, weapons, the use of drugs and sex all become part of the lifestyle. Members take pride in advertising their preeminence. Hence graffiti and drive-by shootings at rival gangs or almost anybody who opposes them. Gay-bashing and racial conflict are inevitable as all who are “not like us” are viewed as enemies to be crushed.

Given this set of conditions, broiling in the caldron of unemployment, easy access to drugs and guns, the deterioration of public morality as seen in the S&L; and Wall Street scandals, and violation of the laws by political leaders clear up to the White House, it should be no surprise that law-breaking and violent disruptions come now with increasing frequency, even from the superficially well-placed homes of our society.

Historically, the collaboration of home, school and church made American society a model for the Western World. It can still be recovered if the media, the sports world, the politicians, the schools and churches and, above all, the parents are willing to make changes in the way they structure their affairs. But time is running out.