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

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HomeschoolDad said:
From what I have observed of bullying, it falls into the following categories (I don’t intend this to be exhaustive):

*** doing it to get laughs or to enhance themselves, so they imagine it, in the eyes of their peers**
  • because it is something “fun to do” to the underdog
  • because it becomes a way to punish or torment those who are “different”
    *** as a means of solidarity and self-affirmation for the group (as with “mean girls”)**
  • because the bullied person is a “target” whom it is just too tempting not to torment
  • and, as noted above, to try and get a reaction out of them, a reaction that is “fun” to observe
I think a lot of it takes place as a means of merriment or entertainment. Just off the top of my head, I would call it a case of kids who don’t have enough to do, who don’t have enough worthwhile things happening in their lives. If I were in charge, I could fix that real quick!
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My theory is that in a lot of cases, it’s a variation of the two starred reasons.

The bully is not popular himself, so he wants to put the heat on someone else, as the person at the bottom of the pecking order.

“See, guys, [even though I’m not one of the cool guys myself,] I’m not like signit!”

I’ve said before that I attended a small college near me and was extremely bullied, because I wasn’t in sports and maybe for other reasons.

But, the guys who really were athletes (varsity football or basketball players, for example) didn’t do that. The guys who did it were just wannabees.
 
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Allegra said:
In my experience, most bullying comes from a place of jealousy or wanting to “keep em in their place.” I have a student currently that is a relentless bully and he literally believes he was put on this earth to make sure that other people “don’t think they’re all that.” It’s not even directed at a specific student. If any kid answers a question correctly in class, he has to mutter something like “that was easy” or “duh”, and that’s with a teacher watching. When a teacher isn’t within earshot, he’s absolutely cruel to anyone he perceives might be admired or praised for anything, which means he isn’t really allowed out of a teacher’s earshot. He’s been banned from the bus. His parents don’t see anything wrong with his behavior and think everyone else is just “too sensitive”, but that isn’t surprising because they are the ones who taught him the behavior in the first place as they treat all their kids the same way. The kid has been having weekly meetings with the counselor and is at the point where he realizes this behavior is against the rules, but he still doesn’t get that it’s wrong. In his mind, those other kids are in the wrong for thinking they’re so great when they’re not.
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This is an excellent answer, and precisely the kind of “defense” I was looking for. I am not advocating this, but this is a very good description of one bully’s “apologia pro vita sua”.
VonDerTann said:
Very unfortunate. Unfortunately I have seen the kid you describe, plus 20-30 years, many times over: They basically fight with EVERYONE.

–They invariably work by themselves - whether as contractors; solo practitioner lawyers; consultants, etc., because they cannot keep partners. They just don’t do well in groups, because no one can stand them.

–They are hell to work for or engage in any business relationship with: They fire secretaries; find fault with the plumber; leave lousy reviews on business websites; constantly demand their money back from restaurants and hotels, etc.

–The are invariably are divorced. No one can live with them, and if they find someone who will tolerate them, they invariably divorce their spouse no matter how tolerant the spouse is. If they have kids, the kids move far away and become distant.

In short, they cause untold human misery: Sometimes on a small scale, sometimes on a large one. In short, they wind up making life worse for essentially everyone around them.
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Yes, this pretty much sums it up. Toxic people who eventually more or less “quarantine” themselves from the larger society, and the larger society is better off that way. Sadly, they don’t always “quarantine” themselves this way — sometimes, by hook or by crook, they rise to positions of authority and influence in large organizations, and manage to surround themselves with sycophants who know how to get along with them.
 
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With women there’s the element of treachery and backstabbing.

Byzantine social rules that mean girls inflict on who they consider their social inferiors.

Again, I’m generalizing. Of course not all women are like this.

Some mean girls never grow up and become mean women.
 
Is anyone else reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry explains a wedgie to Elaine, and she replies that’s disgusting and says girls just tease each other until they get an eating disorder?
 
signit said:
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HomeschoolDad:
From what I have observed of bullying, it falls into the following categories (I don’t intend this to be exhaustive):
*** doing it to get laughs or to enhance themselves, so they imagine it, in the eyes of their peers**
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My theory is that in a lot of cases, it’s a variation of the two starred reasons.

The bully is not popular himself, so he wants to put the heat on someone else, as the person at the bottom of the pecking order.

“See, guys, [even though I’m not one of the cool guys myself,] I’m not like signit!”
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I think you are absolutely right. I knew of one bully who was, in retrospect, an absolute dork (with possibly some kind of learning disability), but he had people skills worthy of Charlie Manson — who, whatever else you might wish to say about him, he did have consummate people skills — coupled with an ability to garner mass amounts of sympathy for himself, and he combined this with becoming a petty drug dealer. Somehow he ended up getting married and getting a reasonably good job. He died a few years back, if I had to guess, an accidental overdose.
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Yeah, this is why I prefer to associate with men. I find that I generally am more able to take what they say and do at face value. Trying to constantly analyze what someone is really saying when they say something or their intentions behind their actions is just stressful.
 
I know it’s politically incorrect to say this, but isn’t the term frenemy termed by women for women?
 
I hope that he can be taught a different world view. I don’t think this kid is mentally ill. I think he has literally been mistaught by some damaged parents. He’s very bright and has many talents, so there’s no reason for him to be insecure. I suggested to the counselor that he might benefit from working with one of our special needs students under supervision. I mean a kid who is visibly disabled to the point that if this kid has one iota of empathy left in him he would feel like complete scum for putting him down. The idea would be to teach him to build others up.
 
No idea: I never gave myself the chance to make a frenemy. But, I never heard the term used by guys.
 
My best friends were always men. I’m now married and my husband is my best friend. I limit friendships with men and I do miss the camaraderie, but not enough to put my marriage at risk. I’ve always worked well with men, also. For all the reasons you state. I am honest and don’t play games or manipulate.
 
Why should maintaining platonic friendships with men put your marriage at risk?
 
redbetta said:
Why should maintaining platonic friendships with men put your marriage at risk?
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Emotions do not turn off when you get married. When you are single, you don’t have to worry that your platonic friendship with a person of the opposite sex might develop into something more. You don’t have a primary romantic relationship with its own time demands. When you are married, you can still have friendships with the opposite sex, but you are going to have a limit on those friendships that you didn’t have before you married (excepting with your male friends who were already married themselves).

My saying is that a good friend is always the friend of your marriage. If you find yourself anywhere in the region between your friend and your friend’s spouse, for whatever reason, remove yourself, even though it is at the expense of your personal friendship with the person. That is what real friends do.
 
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I’m not saying that opposite sex friendships can’t harm one’s marriage. But the idea that they inevitably will is silly, especially if you’ve known a guy so long that, if there were any feelings between you, you would have paired up with him a long time ago.
 
redbetta said:
No idea: I never gave myself the chance to make a frenemy. But, I never heard the term used by guys.
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That’s because middle school is different for boys than for girls. Some females, however, never grow out of the pretenses of middle school, which I think comes out of a peculiar combination of social maturity and emotional immaturity that groups of boys don’t go through because (a) they don’t get into social complexity until they are much older and (b) the nature of their rivalries allow them to be open about them and even to develop friendships over them.

You can have a friendly rivalry over who is the best at basketball. You can be open about not liking everybody when you’re not in a group where “good” people are expected to accept everyone. You can’t have a friendly rivalry over who is higher in a social order built on unwritten rules that forbid open competition. You can’t have enemies when you have to pretend you can get along with anybody. This is the kind of thing men don’t run into until they have jobs that involve what guys would call “politics.” That’s the only realm where I think a guy would typically have a “frenemy,” excepting, ironically, is in the clerical ranks, where the social pretenses that prevail among women from an early age are more likely to be forced onto men. (There are undoubtedly others, but since an atmosphere that leads to “frenemies” involves covert aggression and covert competition, someone on the outside wouldn’t necessarily know what they are.)
 
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I think there is something like that in the professional sphere, too. The two professors at my school that teach calculations are pretty much morally opposed to each other’s methods and generally cannot stand each other. But, they act friendly in the name of “professionalism.”

From my time at grad school, I have learned that professionalism is the art of pretending you don’t despise the people you work with.
 
You know, thinking about inviting the whole class vs just your friends…
My granddaughter’s school is 50/50 white to Hispanic. Some of the Hispanics barely speak English. The non English speakers tend to group together (naturally) but the English speakers…some group in mixes and some are purely white or purely Hispanic. They also really all get along, but you can see these groupings on the playground.

I don’t know if you have any large minority groups in your area but I can assure you, some of these parents would be uncomfortable having their child attend the others party…and it isn’t a racism issue as much as just cultural. There are also disparities of money. None are rich kids but some are very poor and others low to mid middle class. I think the poorer parents would really struggle to buy a present for a child they don’t know, of a different ethnicity and whom their child doesn’t play with. The school has always been a mixed school in an older neighborhood so it maybe that the trend to invite everyone just never developed.

I’m 67 and we never had entire class invitations in the two different cities I went to…and they were all white. So, I just wonder if culturally mixed schools just never even considered this? Originally, it would have been due to prejudice but nowhere near that strong now. Just some thoughts…
 
redbetta said:
From my time at grad school, I have learned that professionalism is the art of pretending you don’t despise the people you work with.
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It’s getting a little less that way, but there was a time when girls were expected to have been born “professional.” That only works when someone has the emotional maturity to handle the underlying and understood fact of life that not everybody is going to like you. It is pretty tough to handle that when you naively believe that everyone really is supposed to like everybody else, which makes the exceptions into those who have “something wrong” with them.

Getting back to bullying, children need to learn right off the bat that they don’t have the authority to judge who deserves to be made miserable and who deserves to be left in peace. There isn’t any advantage to letting that wrong-headed idea cement itself with practice; doing so is bad for both the perpetrators and the victims.

Answering the original post, though, I think it is reasonable for people to be taught that bullying is both an offense and a personal weakness. You can’t go through life too fragile to deal with people who have personal faults. They do need to have their faults corrected, but in the meantime you also need to develop strategies for dealing with them.

In other words, bullying is a bad habit but a self-concept that doesn’t include a belief in one’s essential resilience is also damaging to a person’s chance to mature normally. Bullying, like extreme weather, is a damaging fact of life, but both damage the unprepared more than the prepared. People ought to be taught to see it coming and learn how to deal with it. It will happen even to rather mature people when they fall into a moment of weakness. We all need to be prepared to cope with it ourselves.
 
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