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Bullying and ‘Social Justice’
I was never bullied. Somehow, I survived thirteen years of public schooling without suffering that particular indignity — despite being, in some ways, a prime target. Over the years, I’ve developed a theory about why I managed to avoid the usual adolescent social drama, and I think it has some relevance to the current political situation.
My first realization: Bullying almost always occurs within cliques. Inter-clique bullying is rare, but intra-clique bullying is universal. At my school, the greatest victims and victimizers alike were the “popular” kids — the cheerleaders and athletes — who treated each other like animals while the rest of us looked on in disgust. Other cliques had similar (though less dramatic) dynamics. But I, curmudgeon that I am, made my radical indifference to the high-school social scene known to all, and it worked. I didn’t care about belonging, and that made me all but immune to the harms which proceed from the desire to fit in.
The most valuable item in the bully’s toolkit is the ability to offer and withdraw membership. Bullies invite a would-be victim into a group, then expel her in a fit of taunting and rage. She comes groveling back, and the process repeats itself — expulsion, followed by groveling, followed by expulsion, followed by groveling, and on and on. So it is with abusive partners and cults, and so it is with the priggish hyenas who frequent Twitter, Facebook, universities, newspapers, and corporate HR departments. Bullying of this kind* requires a willing victim. Stopping it is as simple as saying, “Pound sand!” But, of course, you can’t expect an invertebrate to grow a spine, and we’ve raised several generations of them.
C.S. Lewis, wise as always, saw this dynamic at work in the world (though even he couldn’t have foreseen the way it would overtake all of politics . . . and perhaps the way it undergirded the political revolutions of his own lifetime):
[Y]ou will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment . . . you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel. . . . Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.
It’s not surprising that an ideology which conceives of human society as nothing more than a set of zero-sum power relations should transform the whole world into a middle-school cafeteria, but that’s where we are. Thanks, Foucault. And thanks, social media, for making it all so easy. And thanks, modernity, for eroding and invalidating all the healthy ways that men can belong.
* As opposed to the male-dominated “Give me your lunch money!” style of bullying, which seems to be a Hollywood staple, but which I never actually witnessed in my childhood.
Published in Culture
I always understood that the holes in the blade were there to raise blisters.
I don’t believe that I ever saw it employed. It was famous nonetheless.
Some times the most effective threats are the ones that are only implied.
I played freshman football in college when freshmen couldn’t play on the varsity. Our coaches were three scholarship players who were injured and couldn’t play anymore. One day, when we were running wind sprints at the end of practice on a Monday, one of them asked “How many of went out, stayed up late, drank, and chased girls?” One other guy and I raised our hands. The coaches said, “You two hit the locker room. You need the rest. The rest of you guys are going to run some more.”
As others have said, not my experience at all.
Plus, I think the “intra-clique” behavior you describe needs another word than “bullying”. In my experience, bullying is almost by definition against someone who’s not in “the group”.
I also think you have to differentiate the behavior between Males and Females. As Seinfeld so memorably put it, Guys give wedgies – girls tease you until you develop an eating disorder.
Well duh, you were a football hero. (I never tire of bringing that up)
Quote of the Day!
Lol.
That’s hilarious.
Meat-sucker.
A great way to punish liars.
It was a men’s school, and we were freshmen.
The Dean at my high school had three paddles hanging on his office wall. I never heard of his using them, but everyone knew they were there.
An adult can’t be bullied.
Sure they can. Happens all the time.
Adults can be assaulted. They can be harassed. They can be threatened. They can only be bullied if they still think of themselves as children.
Different words for same thing.
you seem to be of the opinion that people grow up. They don’t. They just get older.
Denotation and connotation.
No. You just didn’t notice. This is human nature and is not subject to any cultural influence.