Bullying: Stop the complaining.

[Loonyyy]

Social Darwinism is an oxymoron.
"Asshole: I abused the shit out of him/her and then killed them because I felt s/he was inferior."
"Society: Oh, OK! Carry on. Thank you for ridding us of an inferior person."
Dead guy's brother: My name is Inigo montoya, you killed my brother. prepare to die.
Asshole: *freak out mode* DONT TASE ME BRO! I'M SOR-
dead guy's bro: *bang*
Society: Oh you killed him! You're a bad person!
bro: ...He shouldn't have been so inferior so as to need to abuse and kill people to feel good. also, he should have adapted to have a gun and be faster on the draw than me.
Society: UMMMM...........*confused*

Just felt like extending the scenario a bit. Was too tempting not to.

Also, on that topic, to me it feels like a lot of Social Darwinists don't really see themselves ever being in the position of the one being "darwin'd out". If suddenly, everyone but them got superpowers and they became irrelevant with no way to compete, I bet you most of them would cry foul.

I really think that social darwinism is dumb. I mean...People deserve to get weeded out since they don't have social skills or have emotional issues? When half the time these things are CAUSED by the bullying? Not cool bro. We're not a society of barely surviving cavemen anymore. We shouldn't act like we still are.

Also, to add to that illustration: Social Darwinism is not advocated by biologists. You know, the ones who actually study things like Natural Selection? The biggest proponents of it are generally the more ignorant of the upper class. You know, the ones who own more of the shit, but contribute to less of the shit the world needs. These people aren't actually better, they just think they are.

You see, these idiots who believe this stuff are coming close to the gross misunderstanding of genetics that existed in the Soviet Union: Inherited charecteristics can be passed on. Learnt ones CANNOT. If you learn social skills, you don't make the next generation better for doing so, because your learning does not get encoded in your DNA for your children. We're a net of our experiences and inherited traits. Social skills are primarily things that are learnt: Look at how etiquette and culture have changed over time-to have "good" social skills, you need to understand those rules. It's not simply about being born with the "+3 to all social interactions".

And, on a related note: If you think bullying is a good teacher of social skills, then I suggest that getting stabbed is a good teacher of emergency first aid skills. Oh, what's that? You can't do much learning when you're trying not to bleed out? Kind of similar to how kids can't learn to socialise when they're being ostracised, hey? It's the old Catch-22: For you to be able to learn social skills, you have to interact with others. If you don't have them, you're more likely to be bullied. But if you're bullied, it's harder to interact with others, and thus, you're more likely to have poor social skills and be bullied.

More importantly, go to your schools. Who get bullied more often? The studious ones? The ones who put effort into their work? Oh, yeah, the future engineers and scientists. So, the idea of social darwinism, RE Bullying, is that a bunch of people are unworthy of survival due to the respecting of the right of some to mistreat others, even when some of those who are deemed less useful by that stupid definition are more useful.

I'll just put it out there: I'm worth 50 of any of my tormentors. Easily. If you really think that's what survival of the fittest means, I suggest you go back to your school, stop beating on the littler guys, and pay attention in your Biology class. And watch Idiocracy, because really, if you want a bunch of ignorant boors everywhere, you're going the right way.

 

[Loonyyy]

Violence, Violence, and more Violence.

I should know. As a former bully victim, every time I snapped and responded with physical violence (effective or not), I was never tormented again by that individual. I know I shouldn't be advocating this, but all the talking and the pleading and the telling teachers/adults/counsellors in the world didn't do crap. A good solid right hook did wonders.

As a former victim, I can tell you that it didn't work when the guy was a psycho who didn't care if I hurt him.

It didn't work on the guy who came back with two mates.

It didn't work on the girl who brought her crew of fuck-buddies along (Who were 3 years older than me), at which point, my attempt to fight back resulted in being pinned by 4 people much bigger than me (I hadn't had my growth spurt).

It works for some people. One little turd started trying to harrass me verbally. I was having a terrible day, and I pummeled him. He never spoke with anything but respect to me afterwards.

I almost broke a guys orbital bone once. He still wanted to fight me one on one.

Violence is an inconsistent solution at best, and if it's your only suggestion, then those who can't physically fight off any combination of attackers are left with only the option of using weapons. We really don't need to see kids killing bullies with guns simply because people refuse to consider solutions beyond the victim dealing with it themselves.

As a previous bully victim, I'll freely admit: I wanted my tormentors dead. I never considered suicide much back then, because the moment I did, I got angry, and told myself "Fuck it. It's not my problem here, these people enjoy hurting me, and I'm damn well not giving them the satisfaction of winning. It shouldn't be me who dies, it should be them."

Well, that was just my expierence personally, and you are right. It is inconsistant. However, I think people need to realize that either the teachers/parents/authority figures do something about bullying, or the victims will do something about it, and not everyone is as nice as I am with a simple punch. I'd never wanted to kill anyone, but I wanted to show them that I had enough.

Exactly. If people leave it to the kids to fend for themselves, they'll do what society has tought them: Come back better armed. It's the natural escalation to the issue. And when people propose that kids need to fend for themselves, that's the result they invite.

If measures aren't taken to stop the root cause (People bullying others), then things get out of hand, and you get victims offing themselves, victimising others, or hurting people. Nobody wants that.

 

[Judas_Iscariot]

if you're bullied, it's harder to interact with others, and thus, you're more likely to have poor social skills and be bullied.

This is the only cogent point in your entire block of text. Your remark about biologists does not have any weight because 1. You give no source or warrant for such a bold claim about the opinions of so many, and 2. The fact that they are biologists has nothing to do with Social Darwinism. Notice the "Social" part of Social Darwinism. We aren't talking abou biology here, we are talking about personality. I understand there have been some who say they are Social Darwinists but are really just Eugenicists. That is not my position, so bringing biology into this helps nothing.

Now, the quoted point is a very good one, it may indeed be very hard to learn social skills while being bullied. However: I'd be interested to see how many children are bullied solely for lacking social skills, upon reflection it seems to me that the lack of social skills is the result of being bullied, and that the root cause of the initial bullying is likely something else, something that can be changed or improved upon.

Regardless, I will say that you have indicated a troubling point, and one that merits a bit more discussion. I think it could also be possible for outcasts to practice social skills with one another, form their own clique as they usually do, and use this network of friends to improve their social abilities.

 

[kannibus]

Hmm.

I agree that bullying is unacceptable, but then comes the nitpicky of what counts as bullying.

Also I agree that blaming the victim is silly.

As such I blame the school. Telling the teacher is about as useless a dull toothpick in a knife fight. Actually I've always kind of likened teachers to the UN. A great idea in theory but just useless in real life.

So no, I have no idea how to stop bullying. Every case is different and maybe smashing someone in the face doesn't always work. I will relate you two stories in my personal experience that worked. Again, this was just me and I'm not saying it'll work for everyone.

I got bullied as a kid since I was scrawny and nerdy. I did the usual things like tell the teacher, avoid them and so on. None of it worked however and one day I simply picked up a 2x4 and started beating the shit out of my tormentor. Not only did it stop my bullying problem but I felt a lot better and got a month off school!

Second, my brother had the same sort of problem except he was a bit bigger than me at that age. Anyway, he simply sat down in the lunchroom next to his tormentor, stuck a pen upright on the table, grabbed the back of his head and slammed down about a centimeter from the pen. He then said something about paying attention during The Dark Knight.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Autistics cannot adapt. They have a mental handicap.

Right there, they fulfill the second condition of your argument: "Die".
There's nothing left to interpret.

Secondly: I'm sorry to here that one of the responders was raped at knifepoint. I also think we need some clarification here: Rape is rape. Murder is murder. Bullying is bullying.

Brutality is brutality, and abuse is abuse no matter the form it takes.
Nice try at saving face, but I saw right through your bullshit.

In addition, there seems to be quite a bit of misunderstanding about the actual nature of Social Darwinism, so I suggest you read some Sumner.

I'd suggest that you get some perspective as a victim before trying to tell anyone bullying was good for them. It's pretentious bullshit, and it offends me greatly.

I could argue that rape victims could possibly walk away stronger from enduring their abuse, and it'd make about as much sense as the nonsense you're advocating.

You call the points "misinterpreted", but from what I can see, you just don't know what you're actually arguing in favor of.

Either you're incapable of comprehending the OTHER consequences of the bullying process, or you're ignoring them out of convenience for the sake of your argument.

Whatever the case might be, your argument is sick.

You are misinterpreting social darwinism in the same manner as the previous posters. Sumner's proposals never included the eradication or genocide of any inferior groups, and Sumner saw Social Darwinism as an anti-imperialist concept, he believed merely that competition ought to force the weak to either improve themselves or die off.

Bolded: THAT'S THE SAME THING REWORDED DIFFERENTLY.
Did you even read what you wrote???

Weak = Inferior, just so we're clear here. They're literally interchangeable.

If the pressure of the oppressor is causing them to adapt or die off, the processes are fundamentally identical. The only difference is arguably the intent, with genocide being an extreme, conclusive form of oppression, while bullying is more varied (though by no means is it exclusively non-fatal).

But the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is present in both.

Furthermore. Sumner didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and you should really stop trying to use him to prop up your argument.

The simple disproof being the double-standard Social Darwinism requires in order to function.

It's paradoxical for society to impose simple standards of behavior required to function (do not kill, do not steal, do not abuse, etc), and then quietly tolerate or encourage those behaviors for any reason; including some sick process for "self-improvement".

By advocating bullying as a process, you are advocating abuse, up to and including rape and murder.

So please, spare me your bullshit about Sumner and how Social Darwinism ONLY targets weak behavior. It's a relationship founded on abuse, and ignoring that fact is to court idiocy.

Even his prose is flawed: "Imperialism" (the kind people fear, and should fear) runs on double standards; one standard for the conquerors, and one for the conquered.

We don't fear imposition of standards that apply to everyone, we fear imposition of standards that others are free to break, re-interpret and abuse because they have power over us.
In this context, Imperialism itself is a macroscale form of bullying.

 

[Pharsalus]

I don't even want to give you another post but really man, really? If your a big alpha type you get to push around everyone else with no consequence... so you just don't like the progress of civilization huh?

 

[Judas_Iscariot]

The deliberate misunderstanding of my points is beginning to grow tiresome. I fail to see how we would have lost Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Or Kepler. Whatever their flaws may have been, they had both the willpower and intellect to defend themselves.

This has nothing to do with killing people with flaws. It has everything to do with competition/social pressure forcing people to improve themselves.

I'd appreciate it if the strawmen stopped being built. I understand that we disagree, that does not warrant your pretending I am arguing in favor of Eugenics/Genocide.

 

[NemotheElvenPanda]

The deliberate misunderstanding of my points is beginning to grow tiresome. I fail to see how we would have lost Einstein, Hawking, Newton, Or Kepler. Whatever their flaws may have been, they had both the willpower and intellect to defend themselves.

You know this how? Did you know these guys in the most vulnerable times in their lives? A good number of victims of bullying tend to be the intelligent or iconoclastic, kids that don't operate the same ways like other kids. Think on that for a second.

This has nothing to do with killing people with flaws. It has everything to do with competition/social pressure forcing people to improve themselves.

I'd appreciate it if the strawmen stopped being built. I understand that we disagree, that does not warrant your pretending I am arguing in favor of Eugenics/Genocide.

Yet if these kids, vulnerable, impressionable, kids, don't "improve" themselves for their *differences* rather than these so called flaws, they either off themselves, or commit a different kind of suicide where they're essentially socially dead and can't develop themselves. I don't know if you've been reading the thread, but bullying, real bullying, eats you from the inside out. This isn't some harrowing experience where a kid revels honed steel after years of bullying, it's abuse pure and simple and it is not supposed to happen in the first place.

 

[Polarity27]

Phoebe Prince couldn't "Deal with it" but she didn't tell anyone and took her own life.
Why should anyone being hard done have to just "deal with it" and the people who are described as "Just dealing with it" are often the ones who commit suicide.

Telling a teacher is standing up for yourself, just not in a way your familiar with, in fact actually telling someone about it is a bravery in its self because its a very sensitive issue. So much bullying goes on because most students are under the impression that nobody cares, that it doesn't matter, or that they should "just deal with it" especially males which is why Irish males between 18-24 Have the highest suicide rate in the country

If the media does anything with its huge pumping out of bullying material i hope its at least the students become more open with telling someone about their problems and people, especially teachers, become more sensitive to the issue rather than sweeping it under the rug.

This whole concept of machismo in the face of a bulling is outdated and when the idea is shared by the elders who the young rely on it the concept perpetuates

I should probably say that when I mean "dealing with it" I don't mean just let it happen or not take action.

It seems that in media, emphasis is put on the idea that it is the SCHOOL's responsibility to fix the problem. This seems odd seeing as how parents SHOULD be the ones teaching their children about the the ways to solve bullying.

Children are being harmed by each other in their environment, it's absolutely the school's place to address it. Just as harassment in the workplace is the company's place to address. Harassment and abuse should not be considered part and parcel of being educated, the idea that they are is horrific.

Further, here's a giant flaw in your argument about parents-- a not insignificant number of bullies bully because they have problems at home. A lot of victims of bullies suffer the most because they have no support at home. The school is the only recourse left for these kids. (I know, I was one of them. I could have dealt with being bullied and I could have dealt with an abusive, alcoholic parent a lot easier if they hadn't come in combination. Add in teachers who support the bullies, an isolated tiny town where there's nowhere to go after school that's safe, and no internet yet, and it wasn't a happy thing to live through.)

Can I also mention the long-term consequences of bullying? People who have suffered abuse of any kind have worse long-term health outcomes than people who didn't, and are (as you'd imagine) less psychologically resilient. Severe bullying can fuck up someone for the rest of their life.

That, and it sends a terrible message to kids who bully-- that if you intimidate, threaten, harass, or demean other people, you'll get positive results from it. What do you think happens to some of these people when they get older? Some of them grow out of it, but others never do. They use the same behavior with their co-workers and subordinates and with their children, because hey, it works, right?

A school has the opportunity to stop this kind of reinforcement pattern, sometimes generations old, in its tracks and teach the children under its care a different life lesson. Why in the world shouldn't they try to do so?

 

[Nyaliva]

I was bullied when I was in like grade 2, people were calling me fat and stuff and I hated it. My mother always told me the whole "sticks and stones" thing and while it didn't give me a whole lot of comfort then, I realised later in my primary school years, when a bully tried to make fun of me, nothing affected me anymore and the "sticks and stones" thing must've just sunk in. Back to grade 2 though, the next year there was one kid that bullied me really bad, teased me a lot, pushed me around, never hit me or anything but it still wasn't pleasant. I went to my parents and teachers and they sorted it out. The kid was suspended, his parents grounded him and he left me alone. By grade 5 we were good friends. After that, I never even so much as witnessed a case of bullying that didn't go past name-calling.

So to the OP, I think that kids should be taught to deal with it, but there are cases, obviously more severe than mine, where "dealing with it" just won't cut it. If there was a kid who beat you up everyday after school, and during the days he would tease you, saying how he was going to get you at the end of the day. Being a ten year old kid, would that not terrify you? You could stand up to him at first but he'd slowly beat it out of you, not to mention, it wouldn't make him stop.

Bullying won't always happen, I was very lucky in that after grade 3, neither I nor anyone I knew was bullied at either school I went to, and by the time I finished at each one, I knew just about everyone there. Bullies will likely always exist, but that doesn't mean kids have to stand for it. Every child should be taught that bullying is unacceptable, that it's always temporary and if you can endure it you'll be stronger for it, but if you feel it's bad enough that intervention is necessary, then it should always be available. Technology is at the stage that everyone has cameras all the time, heck most fight videos show a bully and a kid fighting back, so why aren't there any cases where there's a kid bullying someone who can't or won't fight back?

 

[zelda2fanboy]

One day at work, my boss told me all about what it was like to go to school in Kenya... by comparison, the US simply doesn't have bullying. In Kenya, harassment and beatings are sanctioned by the school administration, as long as no one gets hospitalized (which sometimes happens anyways). It's all because "that's the way it's always been."

 

[ZorroFonzarelli]

I fully agree with the initial post.

Bullying is unacceptable. That's why someone being confronted by a bully needs to do something about it.

You encounter bullying everywhere in some form or another; as an adult, you have to stand up for yourself. You can not learn this if others coddle you.

That does not mean you're on your own - if you're being bullied, take action. This can mean telling people you're being bullied, and learning to confront the issue like an adult.

That's what childhood is - learning to be an adult.

If you're an adult and you're told about bullying, it's your responsibility to help resolve the issue.

Bullying has been around since the dawn of time, and every single generation has dealt with it rationally. Now that we have the Coddlers in charge of the media, all of the sudden things are different?

No. Grow up. Help each other. Do the right thing. Be responsible. Problem solved.

 

[SirNerd]

I had very insane solutions for my bullying woes. One guy picked on me, calling me gay slurs a lot. As a male who is firmly secure in my heterosexuality, I didn't mind him much, but he also picked on my friends who were gay and it hurt them a lot. I ruined his bullying when he called me out for hanging out with someone who was gay, and I just walked up to him and gave him a nice slobbery kiss, and followed it up with "That's what he's been teaching me." Never heard from him again. This was 9th grade

A group of 6 "thugs" were haranging my sister, I told them I would beat them senseless if they didn't leave her alone. One day, me and my twin sis were riding our bikes home, and one of them in the gang tossed a balloon filed with Bleach Water at my sister, ruined her clothes and could've blinded her. I hopped off my bike, pulled the steel chain with my padlock on the end from my bag, and proceeded to chase the group 6 dudes down the street with my chain and padlock spinning over my head, making as much noise as possible. They left me and my sister alone after that, thinking I was nutz. That was 8th grade.

In 5th grade, there was a kid who towered over me and picked on me for two years. One morning, I told my parents that I was gonna beat the crap out of him today, and to expect a call from me being suspended. That day, during lunch recess, he started picking on me, and I punched him so hard that broke his nose. He fell to the ground crying. He left me alone after that. I was suspended for a day.

 

[theultimateend]

The problem is we're teaching kids to "just ignore it" and "try to see things from their perspective" and all that gay shit.

<.<

...

>.>

Well then.

Spoiler: Warning Longish and mostly Vapid

@OP Eh, I nearly died from bullying (one case being actual attempted murder, turns out being female can make that activity not that big of a deal if you are a pre-teen) and I loathe it, it ruined my life for many years but I do credit it in no small part for my new outlook on life.

There were lots of places where it could have spiraled out of control and become a very dark thing, but these days I wager I'm one of the most level headed and nice folks I know. I've seen the outcome from those other paths first hand and its all just too silly and childish for me to give it credit.

The problem with most bullying laws and changes is that the social atmosphere that these problems arise in do not change when the laws change. Most of your options for stopping bullying will alienate you and make life harder, at least for a little while.

The best option would be to educate people on how to be better parents. Unfortunately being a bad parent likely means you are also the parent to a lot of children. It's the nature of ignorance to lead to having children before a person is honestly read (if they'd ever be). Once the kids are born you can only hope their friends or mentors will be good enough to offset the terrible quality of their parents.

Now I'm not saying EVERYONE with big families is stupid, just that if a couple is very stupid they are likely to have more than one child.

As for the bad parental influence that's more anecdotal, we had kids in my neighborhood with incredibly abusive parents. When one group moved in we made their life a living hell because they tried to be a bully to everyone, after about a year (honestly took a while) they finally broke down and tried the friend approach and we welcomed them. After that it was a matter of just being cool enough in our lives outside of those few hours at their home that they remained great people.

To this day I've got the older of the two on my Facebook and we laugh up childhood. It's funny because when we first met we had almost daily instances of getting physically violent with one another, he never hit me because I have the unusual tendency to smile when folks threaten me with violence. It's not really intentional, I get uncomfortable and space out and I make a really unnerving face. He told me in our senior year that he thought I'd murder him if he hit me so he never did.

I'm like 98% sure I never would have.

Without going too far we learned in high school that we both hated our lives and that it we were both genuinely miserable. It was then that we found the irony that we were both faking our outside world to mask the inside one. One of the many incidents that helped shape my world view.

But yeah, never got physically violent with anyone. Had one person nearly break my spine by hurling me off a cliff and a very serious incident with a step sibling (they had a terrible father, we ended up becoming friends once he actually took time to know me).

 

[odanhammer]

I'll give an example of why Bullying is being put in the spot light.
When i was a kid , i had a good friend in kinder garden , we played all the time.
In first grade , he became my bully , every day after school , him and his older brother would grab ahold of me , beat the crap out of me , break my stuff , and leave.
At first my parents complained to the school , which did nothing saying it wasn't happening on school grounds.. which it was.
Then when i started comming home with more then a bloody nose , and was having shirts torn , teeth broken , etc , my parents called the police , which resulted once again in nothing , as the school has to do brought into things as this is being done on school grounds.
The bullies parents refused to do anything , and in the end my sister who was much older then the bully and his brother , would walk me home.. of course anyone with an older sister knows they don't always do so , hence my sister became a bully at home , as she was getting blamed for not looking out for me on the walk home.. i literally lived less then a block from school i could see the school from my front door.

After i'd say 2 months of this , i finally did snap , and attacked the bully. At first it was when his brother wasn't around , then again at recess when he destroyed a toy of mine , i really lost it . In the end that bully has scars on his face which will last forever , and in the end i spent the next 6 of my 7 years in that public school without a friend , without anyone to talk to , and when anything happened i was blamed.. to the point i was labeled not just my the older kids , but from the school as well as a loner who does things like break windows and draw vulgar images on the side of the school.

When i was 20 , i almost killed myself i never had friends because of something that happened when i was that young. I've dealt with the emotional and physical problems of being bullied for close to 25 years now.
I have a bad leg because when i was 6 years old , a group of kids would pin me down , rip my pants , and jam pens and pencils into my leg , which causes back problems, which is hard in my choice profession of cooking , in which i stand for 8 hours a day.

To sum up things
Bullying needs to stop , it needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be dealt with harshly.
As much as it was wrong for the numerous kids who have gone on shooting sprees in school to do so... i understand why. and worse i know how much you have to be pushed to want to do such a thing.
Is that a world you really want to life in?

 

[Substitute Troll]

Bullying, most of the time, has a reason. The validity of the reason may be questionable, but there's almost always a reason. If little Timmy gets bullied because of his clown costume, it's because that particular group of people doesn't resonate well with clown costumes. Bullying, atleast I think, has a function. It teaches us about social interaction.

While I agree this is true in a broad sense, some people are bullied for ethnicity or sexuality - there's not really much they can do about that. Hell, when I was bullied it stemmed from two things - the fact that I wore glasses and the fact that I used to live in Germany. There really wasn't much I could do about that for a while.

I got rid of the glasses when I turned sixteen and was old enough to get contact lenses and, by then, everyone had forgotten I lived in Germany so the bullying dwindled and eventually died. At the same time, a friend of mine was rumoured to be gay and was bullied relentlessly until he left school. The reason he was presumed to be gay? Because he dropped his towel in the changing-rooms after a swimming lesson and accidentally revealed that he had a large penis, so everyone said he was getting aroused in the changing rooms and was perving on everyone.

I mean, what the fuck can you do about that? The guy was bullied because he had a large penis. It's mental.

You seem to have missed my second and third paragraphs. In the second paragraph I talk about what you're describing, the kind of bullying that just isn't acceptable, like bullying someone for their sexuality or ethnicity.