Can a moral case be made in defense of school bullying?

[gracepoole]

Ever heard the pro-abortion argument which goes like this…

God aborts more pregnancies than anyone.

Ever heard the God-haters claim that the Noachian Flood was genocide?

So you’re saying we shouldn’t identify objective evils because some people make really bad arguments involving them?

 

[gracepoole]

Salibi:

Does that make bullying acceptable?

Look @gracepool
Can you believe there’s someone asking whether bullying is acceptable?

That’s not what’s being asked here. What’s being asked is whether a Catholic defense can be mounted for bullying.

 

[redbetta]

OP, would it be possible for you to change the title of this thread? It is causing some confusion about the purpose of this discussion.

 

[gracepoole]

Your image can’t be loaded.

 

[Allegra]

That teaches the bully what? To pick on someone littler or more unable to defend themselves next time?

 

[gracepoole]

My mistake: I thought you wanted to engage in genuine dialogue. Sorry about that.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Lion_IRC:

Salibi:

Does that make bullying acceptable?

Look @gracepool
Can you believe there’s someone asking whether bullying is acceptable?

That’s not what’s being asked here. What’s being asked is whether a Catholic defense can be mounted for bullying.

OP, would it be possible for you to change the title of this thread? It is causing some confusion about the purpose of this discussion.

Sure, I’ll do that, I’ll omit the word “Catholic”. I phrased it this way because, if the Catholic Church is the prime teacher and final authority on all issues of morality — and this is certainly a moral question — then the “Catholic case” would be the only case ultimately worth considering.

Once again… let me state what I was doing here. Imagine that I am summoning together all of the bullies in the world. I bring up a PowerPoint of sorts on the screen. I say “Okay, bullies, I’ve been trying to get inside your heads, and if you were going to give me a list of ‘good reasons for bullying’, this would be that list. Am I right? And if I am, please go down the list one by one, and explain why these are good reasons. Did I forget any? Okay, give me those too, and persuade me why these are good reasons. People are generally agreed that bullying is bad. Do you agree that these reasons are bad? Are you willing to admit that you acted in an evil manner when you did your bullying? Or can you defend yourselves? Persuade me. Persuade everyone else here. The floor is now yours.”

 

[Lion_IRC]

Flagged - deleted

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I was a bully until about age 13 or so. Kids are bullies for different reasons. In my case I learned it from an older brother and just passed it on to others at school. Thankfully I grew out of it, but we shouldn’t shame or aggressively target bullies to the extent that we’re doing more harm than good. It’s sinful and parents/educators should inform consciences, but kids are not entirely self-aware and often they really have no idea of the impact they are having.

Thank you.

Yours is exactly the kind of response I was looking for — “yes, I was a bully, and it was wrong, I shouldn’t have done it”. I was also looking for responses of “bullying isn’t a bad thing, and reasons XYZ are good reasons, and here’s why”. So far I haven’t seen any real defense of bullying — and that is as it should be, because bullying is never defensible.

 

[gracepoole]

Better than changing the wording of the Op would be if folks stopped interrogating HomeschoolDad’s motives. #charitible

Aren’t you actually interrogating others’ motives by posting this?

 

[BT3241]

To know what its like to be a victim - should I have taken the beating? He got what he deserved and he learned because he never did it again.
He was waiting for me after school with a crowd of about 50 teenagers who wanted to see the fight.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Flagged - deleted

 

[gracepoole]

Correct. Instead you’re posting insulting pics meant to demean me.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Lion_IRC:

Better than changing the wording of the Op would be if folks stopped interrogating HomeschoolDad’s motives. #charitible

Aren’t you actually interrogating others’ motives by posting this?

I have had my motives questioned, on this matter or that, for over a half-century now, and I couldn’t care less. There are much worse things you can do to a person, than question their motives, and I’ve had some of those things happen as well. I’m still alive and well. Flourishing, in fact.

And I question my own motives all the time. That’s part of living the examined life. Helps with self-knowledge. Helps with trying to get to heaven. It’s all good.

 

[Allegra]

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have fought back and stood up for yourself. I’m saying it probably didn’t “teach him a lesson” as much as send him looking for an easier target.

 

[yankeesouth]

Adults can intervene to put a stop to it.

Eh maybe…this brings up something else that has changed. I certainly don’t advocate the liberal ideology of ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ but where I grew up it was known that other parents could and would step in if another parent’s child was in trouble or causing trouble. Not physically, unless it was breaking up a fight, but sternly. Nowadays you may get sued or end up in a fight yourself if you put your hands on to break up a fight or dare tell another parent their kid is causing trouble.

 

[Pattylt]

First, I want to point out that girls DO resort to physical fighting on occasion. Not as often as the boys but I remember some memorable girl fight. My biggest fear was getting into one of those! I was taller than most girls and athletic so I was always afraid some girl would get physical. Thank heavens it never happened as I have no clue how to fight!

Girls usually get verbal…very cruelly verbal. I’ve had things said to me that lasted much longer than a black eye would have. We women can be vicious!

I had minor bullying happen to me that were short lived…thankfully. I can’t think of a single excuse for bullying and it doesn’t need a catholic answer…it’s an issue for everyone.

Finally, different schools have different ways of educating children. The schools in my city still allow playground activities and do not require every child to be invited to a party. If it’s a party within the school, of course everyone is involved. But private parties are just that…private. My granddaughter would be unable to handle a party with 30 kids as she’s ADD. We limit it to five and actually, other kids usually only are inviting about ten other kids at the most. So no one child is left out, many are…and the kids all seem to understand that they aren’t invited to every party. They seem to learn to handle it.

I’m very thankful that our school system doesn’t micromanage every kid…the parents might, but not the school.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Finally, different schools have different ways of educating children. The schools in my city still allow playground activities and do not require every child to be invited to a party. If it’s a party within the school, of course everyone is involved. But private parties are just that…private. My granddaughter would be unable to handle a party with 30 kids as she’s ADD. We limit it to five and actually, other kids usually only are inviting about ten other kids at the most. So no one child is left out, many are…and the kids all seem to understand that they aren’t invited to every party. They seem to learn to handle it.

Where I grew up, everybody knew everybody else (pretty much), and if one child had not been invited to a party, everyone would know it. So maybe I’m looking at it through Mayberry/Norman Rockwell goggles. One “selected invite” type of party I could get behind would be boys-only or girls-only parties. Ideally, the genders are supposed to be educated separately anyway. Pope Pius XI explained this very well in his encyclical Divini illius magistri (1929). This is not just a Catholic thing — many schools, of all philosophies, were single-sex prior to the mid-20th century.

 

[Pattylt]

I’ve honestly never seen a situation where 29 out of 30 kids were invited! I do believe that if something like that occurred, the teacher would be calling the parent. But inviting 10 out of 30, would be reasonable. I don’t know of a mom that would want THAT many kids at her house to begin with! Yikes!

 

[Pattylt]

This is not just a Catholic thing — many schools, of all philosophies, were single-sex prior to the mid-20th century.

Yeah, we saw how well that worked out for women! Very few female only schools did a good job and educated women equally as well as men!