Lately there's been a lot of discussion about childhood, adolescent and young adult bullying in schools. The bullying can take the form of psychological, emotional, physical and, more recently, cyber abuse. Last week, Tyler Clementi, a young gay man and Rutgers University freshman, committed suicide after his roommate secretly videotaped him having sex and broadcast it on the Internet.
Bullying is a complex topic. If you look at it as the exploitation of a power inequity, the implications reach far and wide. In some sense, bullying is the abuse of power. A bigger, stronger, tougher kid has more of a certain kind of power than a smaller, weaker kid.
I remember when I was a child, I was kind of small, thin and less developed physically than most of my classmates. I clearly remember compensating for this discrepancy by developing a sharp wit and verbal acuity.
Where I grew up (the Lower East Side of Manhattan), a sharp wit was definitely a weapon. I remember learning what the word "ranking" meant in third grade or so. You would "rank" on somebody or, better yet, on their mother, thus making them look stupid or inept in some way. It was a major sport at the public schools and playgrounds where I hung out.
Of course, the ultimate weapon and final recourse would be physical fighting, and if you weren't good at that, the physically stronger person could kind of get the last word in. But right up to that moment, the main battleground was verbal and psychological.
If you really carry forth the bullying mode into the adult world, you have to look at things like military, economic and social inequities in societies and nations. There are many examples of the strong abusing their power over weaker countries and of majorities abusing their power over minorities, and it is easy to see examples of bullying within communities, societies and nations.
Sometimes the bully has a well-developed logic justifying his or her actions; sometimes it is just cavalier use and abuse of power. The real question for all of us to ask is how to hold power to accountability, and how to create an environment in which strength comes with morality and a sense of care and responsibility for everybody. This is fundamentally an ethical issue. Where do people learn ethics? At home, in school, at their "church" and in their community.
Some types of bullying are a product of gross and unconscious aggression and abuse. Underlying certain aspects of bullying, however, is a more subtle intolerance for others who are different from us in some way. Somehow, genuine tolerance for others with different beliefs is a rare and elusive virtue these days. If you scratch under the surface of most belief systems, you will, I think, find the fixed view that our answer is the better answer. When tolerance is expressed, it seems to have three levels:
Obviously, the third level is as rare as a snowflake in June. Your thoughts?
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Most adults will resort to bullying if its something they feel morally validated about. In schools we even have zero tolerance laws and endless ways to document every behavior indiscretion. Educators and parents are under pressure to produce rank. Our schools are often funded by local taxes and fund raisers, which results in boundary identification. Until we take down the walls that define schools as a personal property, society will support moral bullying to delegate responsibility to children. Until there is a truly effective check and balance system, children will die and we will find another child to prosecute. My own experience has been that special ed kids experience a lot of bullying and zero tolerance is often a mechanism to target some children and not others.
Its really not that hard to stop bullying among impressionable children, whether they are the bully or the victim. Its hard to stop a culture that believes militant bullying or ranking has value in establishing social order. The alternative is respect and honoring authority.
I think that the school should keep a closer eye on the problem and become more engaged in the psychological health of their students. Any student found "bullying" another student should be immediately "suspended." And the parents should be called into the office too, so that they can become part of the solution.
The kids who liked to hurt others (back then, usually fist fighting) were not embracing any particular thought pattern. Looking back, some were probably abused themselves, but that didn't matter when I was the one being chased down, and pummeled. You might notice that I am a woman. Always have been. But my attackers were usually boys...and the teachers tried to stop the fights, but rarely succeeded before someone was injured.
The only thing a bully needs to select their target is the expectation that their prey will not be able to turn the tables on them. Once they decide to have at you, your goose is cooked.
My daughter was tormented in grammar school as well. Some things never change. Oh, her school had an "anti teasing" policy in place. It was about as useful as an order of protection against a Glock pistol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i1E9Hjc6y8
Obviously, this won't happen for everyone. But I think provoking fear is a form of validation for them. If they can't, they move on.
Years later, after high school, I ran into her at a bank, and I was very pleased to see that she had finally learned to smile. I am glad that the hard times of high school did not ruin her.
I am not that lucky. I live in Corporate America where up is down, left is right and icecream can ride a bicycle
After over 20 years of experience in this enhanced human ferris wheel I can make several observations that I feel confident about:
1. Care, concern and empathy is fake and only used as a means to an end.
2. Interest in "alternate" cultures or opposing cultures is only tolerated due to political pressure and fear of legal law enforcement.
3. All behavior in this environment is masked by the most polite, courteous, gentile and astutely poignant mannerisms.
4. Might is controlled by whoever can grasp it. Might makes the rules. And the rules change.
5. There is no such thing as bullying there is only domination and subjugation.
------ now compare that to how I was raised ------
Single parent, inner city verging on gang development. Life was challenging each day. Just to survive a day to and from school was a life changing event. We (my buddies and friends) were subject of extreme violence not because we were different but because the bullies were more like creatures than human. They didnt care about tolerance or sharing. They perpetrated dominance as long and as often as they could.
So we banded together as a "gang" to send the message if you get one of us you'll get all of us eventually and we had to execute that message or live
When I encounter information, I first have an open mind then I listen to the point of view being presented. I then question it: What is the person's motives? How does this match up to what I know is fact? If I have problems with the opinion, is it based on emotion or truth? This allows me to add truth to my belief system and weed out what's false. If I immediately close the to door to someone's beliefs that were different than mine, I would lose the possibility of gaining knowledge regarding that persons thoughts. I also constantly question my beliefs to check the validity of those beliefs.
By following this process I believe we can get close to the third level of tolerance, along with many other benefits of truth in knowledge.
Tolerance - to me - is a loaded term. It's time we move beyond tolerance into a place of acceptance where we truly appreciate diversity rather than merely tolerate it.
Sometimes I am convinced that my belief on a given issue is the most reasonable, in which case I may be inclined toward your first level of tolerance. But I typically find that I am capable of making a shift in such cases. For example, I'm convinced that my belief that the Holocaust took place as it is described in history books is valid, and that denial of the Holocaust is not. But were I confronted with someone who insisted that the Holocaust did not occur, I would probably shift from focusing on reason giving to focusing on the denier's emotional state and our relationship. In my experience it's often the case that people who have beliefs that strike me as being incredibly narrow minded or closed are closed emotionally, and may respond to being met with openness and non-idiot compassion (Trungpa readers will be familiar with his distinction between idiot compassion and non-idiot compassion).
As I watched them begin to play in a sandbox, building castles, one, normally confident and rather vocal boy looked very aggitated. He looked around for the teacher, (who was not there) & his unease grew, until he loudly & angrily commanded to the group, "RIGHT< you help me do this digging, Scott can do the formations, Sam can do the sand-piling, (he went on to give "jobs" to all the boys but 1) and, and, there's nothing left & no more shovels, so IAN! No one is playing with Ian today! Go away, no one is playing with you!"
All the boys followed command, & others followed his lead and told Ian to go away. I stepped right in and said there's "work" enough for everyone, he can play too. " Here, You do this, you do that...."
The shocking part was, this commander-boy VISIBLY sighed with relief and (surprisingly nicely) asked me what he should do. He was sweet, easy-going and happy as a clam for the rest of the outing and he followed me & Ian around all day.
I learned a LOT about childhood bullies that day.
Meaning a checkerboard of the 3?
two intelligent adults having a political argument,
A discussion about religion or a marital spat
sometime! All best, DN
level 3 is the ideal though.
do you think this has to do with the identification of beliefs as part of the self? that we (our egos maybe) are afraid perhaps at some level of the non-self -- and to allow for true relativity and the entertaining of opposing or contradictory beliefs, there is a fear that somehow without our beliefs we have no identity?
maybe it's not the beliefs that are the problem but the attachment to them? and/or the opinions we grip so tightly that we believe define us?
that insecurity is where the bullying begins.