Bullying

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I'd tell the kid that only closet homosexuals afraid of their own sexual urges call other people "fags" and that if one is not gay, or if one is gay, one should ignore what other people say because their opinion is worthless and of no concern.

And I'd tell him if he's physically bullied to fight back with everything he has (preferably Krav Maga training) and kick the assailant's ass from here to Sunday to make sure he never dares touch anyone again, regardless of any consequences that jackass idiot "zero tolerance" socialist educators might have to say about it.

I'd also encourage him to come to the defense of some other person who is being bullied as well, and damn the consequences.

Only by fighting back against bullies are bullies prevented from continuing their anti-social criminal behavior.

In fact, my recommendation is that if a class observes a classmate being physically bullied, the ENTIRE CLASS should gang up and beat the crap out of the bully.

Bullies bully because people are afraid to stand up to them and kick their asses. Do that a couple of times and bullies quickly change their behavior.

We need way more of that and far less of this simpering, cowardly pacifist socialist "good little proletarian" bullshit in our schools.

I more or less agree with the sentiment here (if not as strongly as stated), but you've also got to remember that a lot of bullies are being bullied at home or elsewhere, hence why they become bullies themselves.

That's a different problem that needs to be addressed after the bully has had the shit beaten out of him by his peers as an expression of their disfavor of his atavistic and criminal behavior. Once he quits criminally attacking others, then he can go into therapy to fix whatever motivated him to do so. But the priority here is not sympathy for some poor little darling that decides to take his frustrations and rage out on someone else, it's to show him that such behavior is unacceptable under any circumstances and that the penalty for engaging in that sort of behavior is painful operant conditioning by his peers and the community. When he shows signs of surrender and remorse for his actions, then, and only then does the focus turn towards treating whatever mental problems he might have.

There's absolutely no reason to endure bullies with the notion that they are just poor abused kids themselves. They may be, but there's absolutely NO excuse for initiating violence on another because you can't control your emotions.

Anybody else see a contradiction here? (Actually, more of a gross over-simplification of the reasons for bullying.)

This eye-for-an-eye approach to physical bullying also fails to address the far more common form of bullying - social exclusion and derision. The worst bullies in most schools don't even think of themselves as bullies and are not seen that way by their friends.

[Seth]

Naah, why leave it at beating the shit out of him, hell just come back angrier than ever

Then you beat the shit out of him again until he learns to contain and control his anger.

[Seth]

I'd tell the kid that only closet homosexuals afraid of their own sexual urges call other people "fags" and that if one is not gay, or if one is gay, one should ignore what other people say because their opinion is worthless and of no concern.

And I'd tell him if he's physically bullied to fight back with everything he has (preferably Krav Maga training) and kick the assailant's ass from here to Sunday to make sure he never dares touch anyone again, regardless of any consequences that jackass idiot "zero tolerance" socialist educators might have to say about it.

I'd also encourage him to come to the defense of some other person who is being bullied as well, and damn the consequences.

Only by fighting back against bullies are bullies prevented from continuing their anti-social criminal behavior.

In fact, my recommendation is that if a class observes a classmate being physically bullied, the ENTIRE CLASS should gang up and beat the crap out of the bully.

Bullies bully because people are afraid to stand up to them and kick their asses. Do that a couple of times and bullies quickly change their behavior.

We need way more of that and far less of this simpering, cowardly pacifist socialist "good little proletarian" bullshit in our schools.

I more or less agree with the sentiment here (if not as strongly as stated), but you've also got to remember that a lot of bullies are being bullied at home or elsewhere, hence why they become bullies themselves.

That's a different problem that needs to be addressed after the bully has had the shit beaten out of him by his peers as an expression of their disfavor of his atavistic and criminal behavior. Once he quits criminally attacking others, then he can go into therapy to fix whatever motivated him to do so. But the priority here is not sympathy for some poor little darling that decides to take his frustrations and rage out on someone else, it's to show him that such behavior is unacceptable under any circumstances and that the penalty for engaging in that sort of behavior is painful operant conditioning by his peers and the community. When he shows signs of surrender and remorse for his actions, then, and only then does the focus turn towards treating whatever mental problems he might have.

There's absolutely no reason to endure bullies with the notion that they are just poor abused kids themselves. They may be, but there's absolutely NO excuse for initiating violence on another because you can't control your emotions.

They're kids, Seth. They biologically have poor emotional control. I've got no sympathy for a bully that gets the shit kicked out of them (as in the video I posted). But as a general aproch to the wider problem, "operant conditioning" isn't going to work. Nor is it humane.

The problem is that parents aren't being parents and neither are school officials and they allow bullying to go on because it's easier than trying to correct the behavior. That's why the bully's PEERS need to beat the crap out of him. That's the ultimate in peer pressure. They punish the malefactor according to their own peer group needs and judgments.

This "kids will be kids" and blaming it on poor emotional control is just excusing bad behavior that needs to be stopped. It's okay for kids to learn that there are bigger, badder, tougher people out there than them who will kick their asses if they presume to hurt and bully other people.

The use of force is not always morally equivalent and there are times when applying physical force as a way to modify unacceptable behavior is perfectly appropriate and useful.

This "all spanking does is teach kids to be violent" is just so much liberal bilge that has no basis in reality. Depending on who dispenses the punishment it teaches kids to respect their parents and other authorities or it teaches them that there's usually somebody bigger and meaner who will thump them for abusing other smaller, weaker people.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Seth, you keep talking about bullying as if it's all physical violence. It is not.

I was relentlessly bullied at school and hardly ever physically. In my case it was just social exclusion, name-calling, mimicry and teasing. Having undiagnosed (it didn't really 'exist' at the time) Aspergers meant that I couldn't shrug off such attacks and my occasional overreaction to them fed the bullies' sadism and led to more of the same.

It wasn't a few 'big' kids beating me up all the time. It was most of the class treating me as an outsider and a weirdo. If I went to the teachers about it, they acted as if it was my own fault - that I had a behavioural problem that I needed to address in order to stop the bullying - basically, "pull yourself together and snap out of it!" When half the class are bullying like this, it is neither practical nor feasible that the other half should "kick the shit out of them"!

Things are a little better in UK schools these days. There is more awareness of non-physical bullying. There are counsellors available and Aspergers is recognised, diagnosed and help is given. But there is still a very long way to go.

I have no doubt that the lack of self-confidence, bouts of depression and other emotional troubles that have haunted me all my life stem from my schooldays.

Your simplistic solution is bullshit. You might as well suggest arming bullied kids with M16s. In fact, I'm slightly surprised you haven't!

[Animavore]

Your simplistic solution is bullshit. You might as well suggest arming bullied kids with M16s. In fact, I'm slightly surprised you haven't!

It's effective. Those kids at Columbine will never bully again.

[MiM]

Seth, you keep talking about bullying as if it's all physical violence. It is not.

I was relentlessly bullied at school and hardly ever physically. In my case it was just social exclusion, name-calling, mimicry and teasing. Having undiagnosed (it didn't really 'exist' at the time) Aspergers meant that I couldn't shrug off such attacks and my occasional overreaction to them fed the bullies' sadism and led to more of the same.

It wasn't a few 'big' kids beating me up all the time. It was most of the class treating me as an outsider and a weirdo. If I went to the teachers about it, they acted as if it was my own fault - that I had a behavioural problem that I needed to address in order to stop the bullying - basically, "pull yourself together and snap out of it!" When half the class are bullying like this, it is neither practical nor feasible that the other half should "kick the shit out of them"!

Things are a little better in UK schools these days. There is more awareness of non-physical bullying. There are counsellors available and Aspergers is recognised, diagnosed and help is given. But there is still a very long way to go.

I have no doubt that the lack of self-confidence, bouts of depression and other emotional troubles that have haunted me all my life stem from my schooldays.

Your simplistic solution is bullshit. You might as well suggest arming bullied kids with M16s. In fact, I'm slightly surprised you haven't!

Now, now XC. If we follow Tatt's original reasoning here, those kids were only behaving in a normal way. It was you, who was the oddball. You have no-one to blame. Except your mum, for not making sure that you didn't behave in a way some other kids didn't like.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Seth, you keep talking about bullying as if it's all physical violence. It is not.

I was relentlessly bullied at school and hardly ever physically. In my case it was just social exclusion, name-calling, mimicry and teasing. Having undiagnosed (it didn't really 'exist' at the time) Aspergers meant that I couldn't shrug off such attacks and my occasional overreaction to them fed the bullies' sadism and led to more of the same.

It wasn't a few 'big' kids beating me up all the time. It was most of the class treating me as an outsider and a weirdo. If I went to the teachers about it, they acted as if it was my own fault - that I had a behavioural problem that I needed to address in order to stop the bullying - basically, "pull yourself together and snap out of it!" When half the class are bullying like this, it is neither practical nor feasible that the other half should "kick the shit out of them"!

Things are a little better in UK schools these days. There is more awareness of non-physical bullying. There are counsellors available and Aspergers is recognised, diagnosed and help is given. But there is still a very long way to go.

I have no doubt that the lack of self-confidence, bouts of depression and other emotional troubles that have haunted me all my life stem from my schooldays.

Your simplistic solution is bullshit. You might as well suggest arming bullied kids with M16s. In fact, I'm slightly surprised you haven't!

Now, now XC. If we follow Tatt's original reasoning here, those kids were only behaving in a normal way. It was you, who was the oddball. You have no-one to blame. Except your mum, for not making sure that you didn't behave in a way some other kids didn't like.

I know. Tat's original post was equally naïve and had me fuming. It is 'natural' for kids to single out and attack the 'different'. It is part of our tribal nature. And it is by no means limited to children. Many adults behave identically in the workplace - many of them in management roles. And, in my opinion, it has no place in a modern society.

Depression is a natural response to the fact that an awful lot of other people are complete cunts and that they are the ones seen as 'normal'.

[tattuchu]

MiM, XC's case isn't quite the same. The key difference being that him mum never talked to him while sat on the toilet

If we're in disagreement, that's fine. But I think there's a distinction you guys are missing, or despite my repeated attempts am not articulating well. I'm not defending bullying. I think bullying sucks balls, and not in a good way. I was bullied in school myself. I didn't like it. It still pisses me off thinking about it. But in my case, it could have very well been prevented if I'd done a few things like wash my hair regularly. My mother never taught me that, that once I hit puberty and got really greasy I'd need to wash my hair more often (like every day). And in fact instead of teaching me something valuable, she discouraged it. Eventually I figured out, "Oh, fuck, normal people wash their hair every day. And I look gross." But if I tried to wash my hair or take a shower regularly, I'd get yelled at for "wasting water".
So that's what annoyed me so much about the article I linked to; it was an easily avoided case of bullying (if you wish to call it bullying). Don't want your kid to get picked on? Don't send your boy to school with his nails painted, dumbass. And then don't overreact and make a big fucking production about it on the internet just because your kid got picked on for one measly day (doing something that you should have known better than to let him do, you stupid fuck). Because that's not bullying. I know from painful personal experience what bullying is. And that ain't it.
My point is not that bullying, or picking on other kids, or teasing them, or whatever you want to call it, is okay. It's not. My point is that we live in a world which is not ideal. Other people can be jerks. Some other people will always be jerks. We can't control that. But what we can control is how we behave, how we present ourselves. We are also part of the equation. That's not to say that the bully is right and we are wrong, or that the actions of the bully are justified. It's simply an acknowledgement that we don't exist in our own private fantasy world where everything is peachy keen and everybody loves each other and nobody does anything to hurt anybody else's feelings ever. It's simply an acknowledgement that how we act influences how other people react. Don't want to get called a greaseball? Wash your fucking hair. Don't want people giving you a hard time about your offensive odor? Take a fucking shower. Don't want people making inappropriate sexual comments? Don't dress like a fucking prostitute. And don't want your kid to get picked on in school? Don't send him to school with his fingernails painted, you stupid fuck (and then have the audacity to whine about it on the internet when it inevitably happens, removing all doubt that you are indeed a dumb fuck).
I'm not blaming the victim. I'm saying take responsibility for your own actions. Take control of what you're able to take control of. Teach kids not to be such assholes (bullies), sure. But also teach kids to be proactive in order to prevent the bullying in the first place. You can't expect the whole world to change to suit you. You can't expect everyone to kiss your ass. And while assholes will sometimes be assholes no matter what you do, it certainly can't hurt to take control of the things that you can take control of. Again, you don't exist in a vacuum; you are part of the equation.

[MiM]

If you would say all that in a decent, polite language, I almost could fall for it. But the language you are using shows that you are not only defending bullies, you are one yourself (now, now, it isn't all that uncommon that people who have been bullies end up bullying themselves).

And blaming the victim, is exactly what you are doing, or his mother, in this case. That is another thing that becomes very clear from the language you are using, if it wasn't without.

BTW; XC is that true? has your mother never talked to you while sitting on the bin?

[Seth]

Seth, you keep talking about bullying as if it's all physical violence. It is not.

True, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

I was relentlessly bullied at school and hardly ever physically. In my case it was just social exclusion, name-calling, mimicry and teasing. Having undiagnosed (it didn't really 'exist' at the time) Aspergers meant that I couldn't shrug off such attacks and my occasional overreaction to them fed the bullies' sadism and led to more of the same.

Me too. I learned how to shrug it of however, once I discovered that teachers didn't give a damn.

It wasn't a few 'big' kids beating me up all the time. It was most of the class treating me as an outsider and a weirdo. If I went to the teachers about it, they acted as if it was my own fault - that I had a behavioural problem that I needed to address in order to stop the bullying - basically, "pull yourself together and snap out of it!" When half the class are bullying like this, it is neither practical nor feasible that the other half should "kick the shit out of them"!

Good point. Let me clarify that I was referring to physical abuse. Mental abuse is a different and far more difficult thing to resolve, and my experience is that "shrugging it off" is the only way to deal with it because nobody in authority cares, or if they do, in their Marxist zeal to create uniform little proletarians they tell the butt of the teasing exactly what you were told; that it's your fault and you need to change your behavior and "fit in" with others.

It makes perfect sense that this is how the collectivist influences in the educational system would deal with such issues, since the whole premise of Marxism is that being different is wrong. Just look at what Pol Pot did to "intellectuals."

It's far easier for lazy, socialist teachers to bash the victim (and believe me I suffered exactly the same sort of thing you did because I was obese and far more intelligent and articulate than my peers, which made me the "green monkey" at my school) and hammer them down to the same level as everyone else than it is to raise the awareness of everyone else.

Things are a little better in UK schools these days. There is more awareness of non-physical bullying. There are counsellors available and Aspergers is recognised, diagnosed and help is given. But there is still a very long way to go.

An infinite journey actually. Green monkeys will always be excluded and bullied because that's how evolution has arranged things. Sucks to be a green monkey, but from the societal perspective it's better for society that green monkeys either be molded into conformity or destroyed than it is to have to put up with their "individualism" when they mature.

I have no doubt that the lack of self-confidence, bouts of depression and other emotional troubles that have haunted me all my life stem from my schooldays.

Yup. Me too. Oh well, being a green monkey ain't easy, but that's the shit stick we got handed so it's up to us to make the best of it. I like to flip it around and smack bullies in the face with the shit end of the stick. Revenge is a dish best served cold you see.

Your simplistic solution is bullshit. You might as well suggest arming bullied kids with M16s. In fact, I'm slightly surprised you haven't!

Don't need to, they seem to be figuring this out themselves on a regular basis. The obvious lesson to others should be that green monkeys sometimes get pushed too far and decide to retaliate. Therefore it's a good idea not to allow your group dynamic green monkey atavism to injure others, lest they prove that they are bigger, badder and more dangerous than you thought they were.

It's kind of like assassins who walk into the chambers and offices of public officials and kill them out of frustration and anger. It may be worthwhile to demonstrate from time to time that people can be pushed beyond all endurance and that they become highly unpredictable when you revile and abuse them ceaselessly.

I always take the time to think about the motivations of student school shooters and what sort of social torture they must have endured to drive them to such extremes because I too was relentlessly bullied in school. Fortunately I never had an urge to kill my tormentors, although at the time I had access to all the necessary tools. Interestingly, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the ability of young people to access such weapons and the incidence of the use of such weapons in school attacks.

Where kids grow up with guns as a part of their ordinary life, it appears to me that they don't use them as often to attack others in school, whereas in places (like Sandy Hook, Connecticut) where it is highly unusual for kids to have firearms training at a young age, the resort to guns as a solution to bullying seems to be significantly higher. Combined with the prevalence of "first person shooter" video games that devalue human life and glorify the random and ubiquitous killing of literally any human that appears on the screen, I think this produces a psychological moral and social disconnect in certain young people that allows them to disassociate what they are doing as an act of anger, frustration and revenge and view it as a "game" that they can turn off when they have vented their anger...usually by killing themselves.

Bullying of the green monkey has always been present in every society on earth because those who are different are viewed as "abnormalities" in the evolutionary sense who need to be either conformed or eliminated. Therefore such bullying will always be with us.

That doesn't mean that a physical bully shouldn't have the shit beaten out of him by his peers, not that that is likely to happen.

It just absolutely sucks to be a green monkey. I'm not sure there's any solution other than not being a green monkey.

[pErvinalia]

I don't think Tatt's a bully. What he says makes sense in a general sense. Maybe it doesn't apply to this case, I don't know (I haven't read the full article). You really do come across some parents who act all outraged that their kid gets bullied when the parents inflict some shit outfit or whatever on the kid. I honestly think there are parents out there who are using their kids are proxy social activists. I've got no problem with parents being activists themselves (I'm a social activist, depending on the weather), but to knowingly subject your kids to ridicule is bordering on child abuse.

A couple of other related points... my boy used to love to put on a red frock and dance to music. He also loves to paint his nails when his sister does. He's gone to childcare with his nails painted before. I assume at that age (he was about 4 or so), homophobic bullying doesn't happen. Most of the kids are the sweetest little things. But if I knew he was getting bullied for it, I would discourage him from doing it. It's not a social battle worth fighting when it involves a little boy.

Re toilets... hehe... I've talked to my kids on the toilet before. But I was literally using it as a seat to get to their level. Crying and tantrums often seem to take place in the vicinity of the bathroom, and the toilet with the lid down is the perfect seat for me to avoid straining my back to talk to the little blighters! I'm too tall for that shit.

[pErvinalia]

XC... did you try wanking??

[tattuchu]

XC... did you try wanking??

The bullies, or himself