The law, known as the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, is considered the toughest legislation against bullying in the nation.Well this neatly summarizes the national psychopathology, doesn't it. WE ARE GOING TO FORCE YOU TO STOP BULLYING! We'll respond to violence and intimidation with coercion. We'll bring in the cops and the courts. We'll be proactive. We will seek out the bullies and destroy them.
-The Times
Now psychopathically, ahem, um, no, psychopathologically speaking, what we call bullying is actually a learning curve into adulthood; it is the early human operating system reprogramming itself to ape the actions of its elders, clumsily and imperfectly. Bullying is considered a uniquely childlike behavior, and when it is encountered among adults, it's seen as a case of arrested development, a grade-school mentality somehow stuck in place. But this is completely backwards; the adult world is built on bullying; the whole vast edifice of status and hierarchy is bullying; the law is bullying; authority is bullying; the enforcement of style and trend is bullying; the mechanisms of advertising and consumption are bullying . . . and these poor school kids, bullies and bullied alike, are just imitating that bizarre and competitive adult world into which they are subsumed every time they walk into a school. Education is rigid, hierarchical, and competitive; it is in fact ever more competitive; and here we are, telling these kids on the one hand that they must not be mean to each other, but on the other hand they are the vanguard in the very battle for the future, the crack troops against the Chinese math menace, or whatever. They are competing with each other for better test scores. They must not be left behind. They must achieve the promise of the future America where every janitor and pipe fitter has a graduate business degree and seventeen years experience in an executive management capacity with an emphasis on human resources and spend process growth development improvement practices. So on the one hand they are supposed to be civil and decent and compassionate, but on the other hand they are supposed to triumph. And meanwhile those who manage to reject the obscene, competing priorities of education, well, just put them on drugs. That'll fix them. It is not the law that needs to change to stop kids from bullying each other, but the perverted culture in which they are born and raised.
46 comments:
Nope. Too hard. Beat those kids harder! As we all know, bullies have just had it too easy!
MORE AND BETTER VIOLENCE
Just what's needed, a "War on Bullies". Fight youthful violence with the overwhelming structural violence of the state! I await courts ruling wedgies "terrorist acts". PSA's implying bullies support Al Qaeda.
As we occupy one nation and bomb 6 others while pushing Social Darwinism in every facet of our culture.
Folly reigns.
Whaddaya, pro-bullying?
The State is not a defense against thugs, but rather an employment opportunity for them. It's not a bulwark against power but a beacon.
Not that I am exactly for bullying... but all humans are wired for dominance and submission. It is natural, if not desirable. In most cultures except rich Western ones, children to play with children in kid-packs. When they do this, they create their own dominance hierarchies. That is, the bigger/older kids "bully" the younger, and the normally the younger submit. Indeed, older siblings are expected by adults to bully younger sibs, but also to take care of and watch over them. Dominance is thus naturally paired with responsibility.
We may choose to attempt to suppress such behavior, but it's like attempting to "fight drugs" or inequality or sex or any number of other behaviors we are programmed to engage in. That is, we'll never win the fight because human nature cannot be changed. We really ought to know how natural (and thus intransigent) a behavior is before we go to war against it.
Fucking amateurs, man.
the state is a mob. it's the means and justification for any old person, (thugish by nature or no,) to behave like a thug. compels them to act as such.
not kids though. kids are powerless lol.
I watched a person "teach" a young dog how to behave by using violence. Now an adult dog, the poor hound merely hates every human it sees.
Lesson learned.
I think we need to use some smart bombs on these bullies.
Indefinite detention.
"That is, we'll never win the fight because human nature cannot be changed."
Change is the only constant.
What does this mean for the song 'Wooly Bully'?
what are you Leonard, a fucking Park Ranger? you're like fucking Crispin over there, trying to Out Nature our own True Nature. wtff? I dunno, can you get yourself into a straight jacket, or do you need help? ? ?
this whole fucking thing. . .
Sort of. Practically speaking, plenty of people who were bullied as kids will tell you it sucked on a whole different level from what our perverse, bullying culture throws at them as adults. And the question of whether radically changing our culture would actually alleviate bullying seems like a pretty open one.
Oh Farwent! There's a difference between adapting to the way things are and feeling less bullied, even if it is put in different terms. Ever had a job where the person titled manager would talk down to you, correct everything you did and generally harass you over every little, inconsequential detail? Have you ever dealt with a cop? Sure, it's not called bullying, but that's what it is.
Brilliant post. I couldn't help thinking of Full Metal Jacket, which is the distilled essence of the relationship between government-backed bullying and greater violence.
But...I have to argue with it, that's what I do. The government is not one unitary actor, and if some people want to use the power of the state to (clumsily) promote civility and compassion while others want to use it to kill foreigners and imprison the underclass, that's not a contradiction, it's just a reflection of the multiplicity of purposes that are inputs to the state machinery.
Can the state do good? Anarchists answer firmly in the negative; progressives think they can steer the state towards their favorite policy goals. To me, both seem naive in somewhat different ways.
This just in from mtraven: individual people within institutions are not uniform in their motivations.
Look George, that just what he does!
Sure, adults can bully other adults. Yes, people can be dicks. And yet again I say: There's a marked difference here, particularly in terms of agency, and also in frequency and intensity. Was a TSA agent once a huge, overbearing asshole to me, so much so that, years later, I'd still like to see someone hit him in the stomach with a two-by-four? Yup. But was it as bad as Matt W. punching me in the arm, hard, a dozen times a day in seventh grade and calling me that awful name? Uh, no, not even close.
Listen: This is not to say the abusive manager isn't a reality. This is just to say that your average adult has a much wider array of options for dealing with him or her than your average kid; if our society is built to serve the needs of piece-of-shit powermongers, then the most powerless are at the bottom, and comparing the mechanisms of advertising to what a lot of kids go through kind of trivializes the latter. This is also to say, again, that lots of the once-bullied go through adult life without ever experiencing the same feelings of torment they did as kids, and it could be that, man, we let the System get to us and did what we had to do to adapt -- but really, it's just that it's not quite impossible to get through a day or a week or even months on end without getting pushed around by a dick, even if we, like, dress or act funny. And it's to say, once more, that we could trash everything and rebuild from the ground up, but it's not at all perfectly clear that this would usher in a grand new golden age devoid of bullying. Not that it might not help, and not that there aren't other great reasons to do so.
Criminy, is it so hard to conceive that childhood bullying would diminish were adult society not a shining edifice on a hill of bullying? Cruelty, aggression and abuse are the blocks of the pyramid, with the state's bully-eye uber alles, kids are programmed with its values in school & at home & wherever fine whatevers are sold and shit becomes normative. Fuck "devoid of bullying", the jerks you will always have with you, but yes, it's still the Foundation's money.
I watched, and cringed, as the needle-dicked bird-raper mounted a raven.
Maybe: 'There's a marked difference here, particularly in terms of agency, and also in frequency and intensity.' That's a matter of degree, not kind. I'd also say that teachers are probably bigger bullies than so-called bullies. "Sit down, shut up! You're wrong!!!" I feel as bullied now in my job as I ever did as a kid, although I will grant you that I don't shed tears as often and no one punches me in the arm.
Let's consult Teddy Roosevelt..
Complete miss. Tagging The State as the source of all evil in the world is easy and fun but it's no substitute for thinking.
Anne, don't think you're the only one that feels that way! He's one of the original Blawger Beefcakes.
Farwent's got a point. What plays out in most institutional schools is a concentration of the power dynamics at play in the rest of life. Bullying may become more psychological than physical in the working world, and we can argue over whether that's worse, but as an adult you have the option to walk away. Yes, it might mean "walking away" into unemployment, debt slavery and a pauper's funeral, but remember that as a child you actually can't walk away.
That said, this sparked an interesting thought:
Was a TSA agent once a huge, overbearing asshole to me, so much so that, years later, I'd still like to see someone hit him in the stomach with a two-by-four?
If I'm entering the subway, an airplane or a football stadium and someone's giving the gate guard his ration of shit, nine dollars gets you ten the irate civilian isn't white. Purely anecdotal evidence, but I'll still bet on it. The type of people most likely to stand and quietly take a bureaucrat's abuse, no matter how unnecessary, are wealthy, successful at their job, educated and predominantly white, sometimes Asian. BY SOME COINCIDENCE, these are also the type of people who do best in school.
Hey Inkberrow, how's that for "racial realism"?
Paul Alexander wrote:
I'd also say that teachers are probably bigger bullies than so-called bullies. "Sit down, shut up! You're wrong!!!"
Though I agree with IOZ's post, I think this goes a little far. Maybe I was lucky in the school I went to, but there were very few teachers like this. Most teachers were trying to be fair, transparent, and (by their lights, even if I didn't always agree) helpful to me.
There is definitely coercion in the student/teacher relationship, but I wouldn't say that it intentionally arbitrary cruel in most instances. (Obviously I can only speak for my own experience.)
None of this takes away from IOZ's point that there should be less coercion in our society, but I do see a fundamental qualitative difference here.
So no one here has felt the rush of bullying, of dominance to the point of helpless submission, spontaneously and randomly begun without regard for what the grown-ups did and do? Ever been right in an argument, won a race or a fight, scored the winning bucket, shit, MADE him/her come? State violence is indeed a magnification, extrapolation, continuation, the logical extreme od recess and gym class and the walk home. Mistrust all in whom the urge to punish is strong, and the Kingdom of God is inside you. Really though. And thanks as always, IOZ, glad to see you back. --Henry in Flag
Most bullying in school is not physical, Professor. Getting jammed into your locker mostly happens on the teeveeeeee.
James: you were lucky in the school you went to.
Yes, but it's even less physical in the workplace. The intermittent slap on the back of the head outside shop class is unheard of in the office.
(Obviously exceptions abound in both directions; the sales team loves their congratulatory headlocks, while the cheerleaders can drive a girl to suicide without ever touching her. Or even speaking directly to her)
James N., I do believe that most teachers have good intentions. I think most assholes have good intentions. But being on the other end of those intentions is the shits, good or bad. And a teacher's role in the schools I was at was always disciplinarian first, brain washer second.
Yes, it might mean "walking away" into unemployment, debt slavery and a pauper's funeral, but remember that as a child you actually can't walk away.
That is true. No matters what humiliation they endure on Monday, the poor little bullied fuckers have to show up on Tuesday. So on that score alone, it's much worse as kid unless you wind up in the "justice" system.
Still, the same type of asshole who would torment the smaller, weaker, less popular, or anyone else they can abuse without consequence never really grows past it. We actually reward these pricks for "being assertive" nearly 100% of the time.
Prof., the worst bullying I experienced, in the sense that you use it, was 99% threat. What I think most kids, and adults, fear more than violence is ostracization (spellcheck says that isn't a real word), being made fun of, and being forced to do something they don't really want to.
As far as walking away is concerned, to me it's old "would you rather drink piss or eat shit" deal. Yeah, I could walk away from my job. I've done it before. It made me realize that it isn't much of an option in my situation, at least as far as living a life that doesn't involve constant and never ending feelings of despair and stress. But I guess I do have a choice.
,oh that didn't come out quite right .. i need to stop with those odd brevity pills ... / that i think that i'm in love with mr fundamental was a separate thought .. . . that.. i... bring an odd balance to this boat another ..
Yes, but it's even less physical in the workplace. The intermittent slap on the back of the head outside shop class is unheard of in the office.
This may be true for what you might call heteronormative, cisgender white dudes working in white-collar, office-based jobs. So in other words, for a very small group of people. Reccanaize yer privelege, yo.
"The intermittent slap on the back of the head outside shop class is unheard of in the office."
From an Althouse post today on the goings on in the Wisconsin Supreme Court:
"Justice Gableman said right after he said the chief justice's first name, Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief. Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time."
James N.
Perhaps you are not old enough to have attended that kind of Catholic school, or lucky enough to avoid the modern variety, but I can attest at least for myself that my parochial school teachers were to a habit, a switch and a collar petty despots one and all. It did not get better once I managed to get myself expelled and dumped into the public school system, where there were no uniforms to hide the disparities in wealth and class, and no incentive to equalize everyone in the name of monastic humility.
Remember the afterschool special, The Wave? I went to one of the early test schools upon which that shit fuck experiment was based. And while the chilluns were nasty, all within expected ranges of behavior, it was the public school teachers who excelled at enforcing not only the blue/green/orange coded system, but the catalog of punishments which accompanied the violation thereof. With unconstrained glee. As if they'd been waiting for an excuse to vent the powermadness which had got them into the gig, in the first.
My own children currently have it only marginally better, perhaps because teachers are, as a lot, cognizant of the fact that at least half of their wards are armed with portable cellphonevideocameralifelinestomommy, and most of them know how to use 'em.
I tutored for one of those no-child-left-behind after-school programs for a while. I lasted a month or two. It's a sad business, cramming numbers into some kid's head when she clearly wants to be reading a novel or going home. On the way to class on one of my last days, a teacher said to one rambunctious boy: "When you run in the hallways you show disrespect for yourself." Poor kid looked as confused as I was. How is running disrespectful of yourself? Confusion was the goal though: keep them on their back foot, make sure they feel that everything they do is wrong. If they hate themselves, they'll be pliable subjects-citizens-students, no?
Kids who run and play and give vent to desire, George, do not develop Executive Function, which if I'm reading it properly, is just another way of screening out the self-motivating head steppers from the herd, while preparing the majority of kiddies for taylorized workplace self destruction.
One of the funnier stories my dad tells of his school daze is when a teacher told him he was a loser and would never amount to anything. And that's how he tells it, as a kind of joke. It helps to realize that school is a waste of time and that the opinions of the petty functionaries running the asylum don't matter.
Not all teachers are sociopaths, some people do it because its a job. What other job can you get with a liberal arts degree? How are you supposed to pay off student loans without a job?
To quote from "When Brute Force Fails" (in turn quoting Thomas Schelling) the most effective threats are those that need not be carried out. The actual execution of bullying is a sign of the lack of a fully effective command structure. And those who want a piece of dominance are supposed to submit themselves to the larger engine of dominance rather than freelancing, as unattached youth are wont to do.
And there's nothing at all silly about using violence against violence (or executing murderers, imprisoning kidnappers and fining thiefs). To the successful monopolist it is an obviously effective strategy.
Leonard, I think you're wrong.
'as a child you actually can't walk away' (Prof Coldheart)
And why is that? Because the state won't let you.
'Getting jammed into your locker mostly happens on the teeveeeeee.' (IOZ)
They tried, once, but I struggled hard enough to break the door off its hinges. That scared them, they didn't want to pay for it.
Things get better after school mainly because grownups often have shit that needs to get done, and doing that leaves less time for bullying and office politics and other shit like that.
@727Anon
Unless you are un an organization where productivity is not related to revenue - gubmint or large govcorp partnership, that is. Then is all bullying all the time.
From my immigrant POV bullying is strikingly useful at keeping the herd on the straight and narrow, creating an insulating layer between stragglers and the herd.
Capt'n Obvious
All that having been said: kiddies, just bring a gun to a bully fight.
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