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

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PetraG said:
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.
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Interesting, because the professional world has always felt like a woman’s world to me.
 
redbetta said:
Interesting, because the professional world has always felt like a woman’s world to me.
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I don’t see it as “men’s” or “women’s” because this is the kind of thing that went with European courts, which were very much dominated by male influence. I see it as having to do with whether conflict is covertly- or overtly-handled and whether there is maturity about not everybody getting a top spot.
 
It is a women’s world in that women tend to exhibit the sort of social behavior necessary to survive in the professional sphere from a younger age and tend to be better adapted for it. That is not to say men cannot do it, but the behavior is more stereotypically female.
 
Here is a thought: you know those Japanese anime in which pretty much all conflicts in the show are resolved by card games or other sorts of games? What if our society were to adopt something like that since it is socially unacceptable for women to physically fight each other and for men to fight women? A bloodless duel/test of skill can give both sexes a way to openly settle disputes and potentially earn respect for their adversary in the process by one another’s demonstration of skill.

Also, why is this thread closing in 4 hours?
 
signit said:
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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That was my observation in high school.

The kids at the very top of the popularity food chain tended not to be active bullies (although they might join in the mockery and derision if somebody screwed up badly and publicly). They were just too busy running everything and living the life.

The kids on the “edge” of the popular crowd, the ones who’s status could drop at any moment were the vicious ones. They had just enough power to make their torments stick.

The other group who had a lot of bullies were the kids on the edge between “ordinary” and “blatantly unpopular”. They picked on the unpopular kids. Because they could get away with it. And it was comforting to know somebody was lower than them.
 
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Bullies don’t care about special needs kids anymore than they’d care about anyone else.

I’m 50 and one sad memory I have is about my sometimes playmate who had Down Syndrome. She was born about a month after me. Her mother was my mom’s friend. My friend had to attend what they called “special school” back then. She didn’t go regular school until she was in junior high school,

One day the mom allowed her to visit some girls her age in their neighborhood. She knew the moms and felt comfortable enough to let her go. These mean girls taught my playmate a song that she didn’t understand. With the lyrics, “I am a re…t”.
My playmate went home and sang the song.

So, some bullies lack so much empathy that they could pretend to be a friend to a sweet disabled child. And teach her a song like that.

😡
 
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PetraG said:
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redbetta:
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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redbetta said:
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.
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People’s feelings change, and for some people, a married person of the opposite sex becomes more attractive precisely because they are unattainable.

I am not suggesting that platonic friendships between married people of opposite sexes are not possible, but there can be problems, sometimes one-sided, sometimes both ways. I have known of at least a couple of women who thrived on these, because they gave the women an outlet for emotional bonding (and possibly physically intimate bonding, in one of the two cases) outside of the eyes of their husbands. Not good. How many marriages have been destroyed because of a “good friend”?

“My saying is that a good friend is always the friend of your marriage” — brilliantly put!
PetraG said:
You can have a friendly rivalry over who is the best at basketball.
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Respecting one’s opponent, and respecting them when they defeat you, is the essence of good sportsmanship.
redbetta said:
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.”
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How in the world can “calculations” have a moral dimension?

I have always thought of mathematics (assuming it is mathematics you are talking about) as being devoid of moral or spiritual associations, someplace where believers of various religions, and nonbelievers, can come together on equal footing without rancor. This might be a good major for someone who doesn’t want to have to deal with moral or ethical issues. Am I right?
 
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Pattylt said:
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.
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My son’s school was multicultural and utterly color-blind, and that is as it should be. (Of course, private schools can be selective, whereas public schools can’t screen out potential troublemakers, and troublemakers come in all colors.)

When I started in grade school (we couldn’t have afforded kindergarten, and at the time you had to pay tuition for it), the schools had recently desegregated, and my mother sat me down and explained to me that I was going to be in school with “colored” children (that’s what we called them back then, and that’s what they called themselves), and that I was never to shun the colored children, never to make any distinction, and never to join in with any students who might be prejudiced against them. When we had my birthday party, everyone was invited. One of the neighbor ladies, who held onto more traditional ideas about the races, asked my mother why “colored” were invited. My mother replied that we invited everyone, and that race wasn’t a consideration. The neighbor lady didn’t like this.
redbetta said:
Also, why is this thread closing in 4 hours?
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Your guess is as good as mine. I think it’s a great discussion.
StudentMI said:
People who mistreat special needs people send me into a rage.
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People who mistreat special needs people need to be denied absolution until such time as they repent and resolve not to do it anymore (and to repair the harm done).
 
It is not the calculations themselves, it is teaching methods. One thinks the other puts too much of a burden on the students and is not considerate enough of them.
 
It’s hard to respond to your straw man post.

I would take this approach
  • teens bullying is a global developmental issue, much like teens being more selfish or self centered than mature adults.
  • bullying should be treated as a learning opportunity, it should be responded to in an appropriate manner.
It shouldn’t be ignored nor should one try hit it with a sledge hammer. A zero tolerance approach with severe consequences will likely just move it to more subtle bullying that flies under the radar and thus isn’t addressed in a learning manner that teaches empathy.
 
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redbetta said:
It is a women’s world in that women tend to exhibit the sort of social behavior necessary to survive in the professional sphere from a younger age and tend to be better adapted for it. That is not to say men cannot do it, but the behavior is more stereotypically female.
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While I recognize that there is a difference between how typical females and typical males relate socially as they’re growing up and throughout life, I think any human can do what women do in “professional” settings when he or she is expected to do it.

Back to schools: Children ought to learn to respect and listen to each other in a Christian way, such as in the way described in the Rule of St. Benedict.

As often as any special business has to be transacted in the monastery, let the abbot convoke the whole community and himself state what is the matter in hand. And having listened to the counsel of the brethren, let him settle the matter in his own mind and do what seems to him most expedient. And we have thus said that all are to be called to council because it is often to a junior that the Lord reveals what is best. But let the brethren so give counsel with all subjection and humility that they presume not with any forwardness to defend what shall have seemed good to them; but rather let the decision depend upon the abbot’s discretion, so that he shall decide what is best, that they all may yield ready obedience: but just as it behoves the disciples to be obedient to the master, so also it becomes him to arrange all things prudently and justly. In all things therefore let all follow the rule’s dictates and let it not be departed from by anyone. Let no one in the monastery follow the desires of his own heart, neither let anyone presume insolently to contend with his abbot either within or without the monastery. But if anyone shall have so presumed, let him be subject to the rule’s discipline. Let the abbot himself however do all in the fear of God and according to the rule; knowing that he will, beyond all doubt, have to render account of all his own judgments to God the most just Judge. And if any less important business has to be transacted on behalf of the monastery, let counsel be taken, but with the seniors only, as it is written: “Do everything with counsel and having so done thou wilt not repent.”
(Rule of St Benedict, Chapter III: Concerning the calling of the brethren to council.)

This is not something to be expected from a secular situation, where as Our Lord put it: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
 
Just so, a Catholic education needs to instill a different view of what the “pecking order” is and how heirarchy is to properly operate among Christians. The description of St. Benedict of a council of the brothers, from the senior to the junior, shows how things are to look differently among us. If our children don’t have a clear idea of the contrast between the goals of Christian authority and fallen-nature “pecking order” systems by the time their educations are done, we have to some extent failed them.

There is no place for bullying in a Christian system, but it also cannot be put down in an authoritarian way that imposes order but does not actually teach the children to value true mutual respect. The former is the route to covert aggression and “court manners” intrigues, a situation that seems more civilized on the surface but (as those who know about the wounds that girls can pick up in middle school, if left to their own devices) one that can be far more emotionally-damaging in reality, with far more devastating instances of bullying.
1ke said:
Now a bully can access and torment on school grounds but can reach into every place else: on social media, with pictures, videos, memes, words, posts, comments on posts, texts— and it is amplified and shared repeatedly, it can be anonymous, it can go on 24/7/365, and the victim cannot get away from it, and friends often cannot stop it or intervene and are much more likely to become victims themselves if they do.
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I have to wonder if anyone under high school age should even be given access to post on social media, let alone the kind of access that puts them in its cross hairs at all times and without the awareness of parents and teachers. There is no reason anybody in middle school or younger ought to have that kind of internet privacy. After all, we are all taught now how every kind of abuser preying on young people needs to have privacy to do it. That’s true for the young ones and much as for the adult perpetrators.

(Our children didn’t have private internet access or their own cell phones until the end of their 8th grade year.)
 
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Yeah don’t get me wrong I’m not necessarily in favor if regulating everything like birthday parties. That’s a social event. However to the parents, there is a difference between inviting 10/30 to a birthday party, and 27/30. I was a referee for a while too… when it’s their child it’s amazing how the rules are expected to change… I think if it’s a catholic school there should be some behavioral standards for the parents too.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
But isn’t throwing the first punch — as opposed to defending oneself when physically assaulted — contrary to the Gospel teaching of “turn the other cheek”?
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Not as far as I can tell. You’ve been threatened with physical harm, your assailants are able to do it, and they’re acting like they’re about to start; at that point sound moral theology says it’s legitimate (and perhaps obligatory) to use force to protect yourself. Certainly civil law in the US says so: you do not have to wait for them to hit you first. If circumstances are such that a reasonable person would fear grave bodily harm, even lethal force is licit.

I don’t see that it’s reasonable to take “turn the other cheek” as indicating that we have allow the wicked to carry out a plan to beat on us as they see fit without consequence.
 
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You bring up a good point. In my religious class…which was much smaller…we did invite everyone to parties. It was almost unheard of to exclude anyone from that!
 
Sarcelle said:
I know it’s politically incorrect to say this, but isn’t the term frenemy termed by women for women?
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I don’t know where the term comes from but it applies to men just as much as to women. I’m a man and I’ve have more than one frenemy.
 
Actually, I’m sure that the practice started in part due to the black kids in the class being the ones not invited. Not feeling comfortable going and being the only one not invited are two different things. I don’t think our rule is unreasonable. You have the perfect right to invite whoever you want to your party, but if your intentions are good, then doing so in private shouldn’t be a problem. You have to ask yourself why its so important that the kids that aren’t invited, KNOW they aren’t invited.
 
That’s why I said, “supervised”. However, I think this particular kid might actually be able to find his empathy if he was interacting with someone he did not see as a “threat” to his superiority. As I said, I don’t think this bully is mentally ill or has a personality disorder. I think he has been brought up in a house where tearing others down is the norm and he needs to be retaught.
 
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