No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
You were lucky compared to me. My whole middle school existence was a string of bullying events (not just "being an asshole"), high school was less so (because I started specifically hanging out in groups). Also by that point I'd gotten just a whole lot less tolerant and I would immediate report to the school supervisors any incident in a very loud, public demanding tone.
What exactly is your definition of a bully? You say you yourself was an asshole, but not a bully. I have to wonder what the perceptions of the victims of your asshole incidents.
#2: I find it interesting that, upon witnessing a bullying situation, your first response is to confront the bully, not to make sure the victim is okay. Why did you choose to confront the bully, rather than check on the victim?
It was the end of the tournament. If I were to stop and help the poor kid out I was afraid the kid would have ran off since he was sitting and watching when I got to him.
Should I have made sure the kid was OK? Or risk the person running away from the scene? When i turned around the phone was gone and I found no trace of the guy so I'm sure he was OK. He wasn't stumbling around or on the ground after the hit so i can only assume.
Edit: I'm not saying that you are wrong or anything. It was just a moment that i couldn't stand there and analyze for 10 minutes then do something about it.
Oh, I was genuinely curious. I wasn't trying to tell you that you were wrong.
And in fact I think I need to step back a minute and acknowledge you. I'm glad you stood up and did something about the situation rather than back down and ignore it.
I do have a gut feeling that it's better to help the victim first, and then deal with the bully later, but I don't have any substantive empirical evidence that one approach is better than the other.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
There are, in fact, isolated incidents of dickery among children. It's not all something that can be shoehorned into a pattern of abuse.
The story given sounds like a case of some kid fucking over some other kid as a means to show off to others. Maybe it fits into something bigger, but I haven't seen a reason to make that assumption.
Bullying need not be repeated to be bullying. Abuse need not be a pattern. It is possible to have a single incident of abuse.
That said, abuse is pathological, and bullying is just a category of abuse and is therefore no different. While it may be statistically normal - ie, that it may be true that abuse is common among children of a given age - it is not psychologically or morally normal. It is not a healthy form of interaction. Even a single instance of bullying is a behavior that stems from unhealthy causes and has destructive ripple effects, which means that it is never truly "isolated."
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
The obvious solution would have been to employ a tazer on the women, if only because after the "incident" at the 1973 world dodgeball finals in Munich (Delaware, not Germany, as most dodgeball fans know it was the first year it was held in the USA, and unfortunately quite a few fans showed up in Munich Germany which lead to the infamous "Keine Dodgeball Aufstände") referees were no longer allowed to carry cattle prods.
Then while the poor women lies screaming on the ground telling you about her heart condition you look the poor bastard who started this mess in the face and tell him that some actions have consequences, and for her stupid is hurting. Then point out that it would be best for him to go check on his friend he pelted with the dodgeball and make sure he is ok.
Then taze the women a few more times, add in some random kicks to the short ribs or kidneys while screaming "is the game over now bitch, is it, is it". This will later help your defense in court when you claim the whole thing was a game you two made up as foreplay because she liked it rough and obviously the tazer has rattled her mind.
If that doesn't work see if you can find a prostitute that looks enough like her that will back up your defense, and claim the whole thing was a case of mistaken identity.
Once you are in prison, see if you can locate the kids home address, and send him a letter promising to give his address to all the pedophiles in cell block D if he does not shape up. Imply you have means of knowing if he shapes up or not. The good news is the parents are unlikely to get involved, if they were actually parenting it never would have gone that far.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Given that it was a volunteer event, weren't the kid's parents around? If they were, the correct response since you didn't seem to be given any instructions on the matter would have been to inform them. And if you can't keep a kid from running away after he smacks another kid with a dodgeball, you shouldn't be volunteering for events with children involvement.
Plus, was the kid with the phone a friend of the other kid? Perhaps he was just throwing it, not meaning to clock the shit out of the other one. Kids don't know their own strength, etc etc.
Also, whoever suggested calling the police, stop that.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
There are, in fact, isolated incidents of dickery among children. It's not all something that can be shoehorned into a pattern of abuse.
The story given sounds like a case of some kid fucking over some other kid as a means to show off to others. Maybe it fits into something bigger, but I haven't seen a reason to make that assumption.
Bullying need not be repeated to be bullying. Abuse need not be a pattern. It is possible to have a single incident of abuse.
That said, abuse is pathological, and bullying is just a category of abuse and is therefore no different. While it may be statistically normal - ie, that it may be true that abuse is common among children of a given age - it is not psychologically or morally normal. It is not a healthy form of interaction. Even a single instance of bullying is a behavior that stems from unhealthy causes and has destructive ripple effects, which means that it is never truly "isolated."
Bullying need not be repeated, but I think there must be at the very least some sort of intent of repetition or some means of fitting into a larger pattern for an indecent to be bullying, otherwise "bullying" just becomes another word for abuse, which it's not. Random acts of abuse are not bullying.
And I think I may disagree with you that something is not psychologically or morally "normal". Normal in the sense of acceptable/accepted, I agree, normal in the sense of common, I disagree. Yes, it's not healthy (and I haven't indicated that it is).
Regarding your last sentence, you're conflating bullying (which cannot be isolated) and abuse (which can). Bullying is a pattern of abuse, and by definition are never isolated, whether there are ripple effects or not. If you want to go back and use "abuse" rather than "bullying"--which is what I was referring to in regards to isolated incidents--you're taking "isolated" somewhere it doesn't belong. An event is isolated if it doesn't figure into a larger pattern of similar incidents, whether there are ripple effects or not.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
What exactly is your definition of a bully? You say you yourself was an asshole, but not a bully. I have to wonder what the perceptions of the victims of your asshole incidents.
Perceptions are irrelevant to the question of whether something is bullying or not. It is perfectly possible for someone, including a victim, to be mistaken about an act of random, isolated abuse.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
What exactly is your definition of a bully? You say you yourself was an asshole, but not a bully. I have to wonder what the perceptions of the victims of your asshole incidents.
Perceptions are irrelevant to the question of whether something is bullying or not. It is perfectly possible for someone, including a victim, to be mistaken about an act of random, isolated abuse.
It's still bullying if it's random, I think. I don't think there's much to separate those who consistently target a single person from those who target whomever happens to be around. I'd also consider a single person who is regularly targeted by a number of people rather than a single bully or small group of bullies to be "bullied", even if there's no coordination between his assailants beyond an unspoken understanding that this person can or should be targeted.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
There are, in fact, isolated incidents of dickery among children. It's not all something that can be shoehorned into a pattern of abuse.
The story given sounds like a case of some kid fucking over some other kid as a means to show off to others. Maybe it fits into something bigger, but I haven't seen a reason to make that assumption.
Bullying need not be repeated to be bullying. Abuse need not be a pattern. It is possible to have a single incident of abuse.
That said, abuse is pathological, and bullying is just a category of abuse and is therefore no different. While it may be statistically normal - ie, that it may be true that abuse is common among children of a given age - it is not psychologically or morally normal. It is not a healthy form of interaction. Even a single instance of bullying is a behavior that stems from unhealthy causes and has destructive ripple effects, which means that it is never truly "isolated."
Bullying need not be repeated, but I think there must be at the very least some sort of intent of repetition or some means of fitting into a larger pattern for an indecent to be bullying, otherwise "bullying" just becomes another word for abuse, which it's not. Random acts of abuse are not bullying.
And I think I may disagree with you that something is not psychologically or morally "normal". Normal in the sense of acceptable/accepted, I agree, normal in the sense of common, I disagree. Yes, it's not healthy (and I haven't indicated that it is).
Regarding your last sentence, you're conflating bullying (which cannot be isolated) and abuse (which can). Bullying is a pattern of abuse, and by definition are never isolated, whether there are ripple effects or not. If you want to go back and use "abuse" rather than "bullying"--which is what I was referring to in regards to isolated incidents--you're taking "isolated" somewhere it doesn't belong. An event is isolated if it doesn't figure into a larger pattern of similar incidents, whether there are ripple effects or not.
#1: Bullying is a subcategory of abuse. I call it abuse because that's what it is. (Well, that's not entirely honest. I call it abuse because I feel that the damaging effects of bullying are often disregarded by adults who consider it a normal part of growing up and that calling it abuse really punctuates that it is in fact abnormal and psychologically damaging.)
#2: I'm still not seeing why bullying must be repeated to be bullying. That seems like an unnecessary splitting of hairs. I have seen some texts that define bullying as "repeated" and some that do not, but it still seems like an unnecessary (and ultimately harmful) distinction.
#3: Even if we were to decide, for the sake of argument, that bullying is repetitive by definition, that doesn't really change what happened in this instance.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
No, it's not. I was a little asshole in middle school and people were little assholes to me. While bullying did exist to an extent, I never personally encountered it, and I never bullied anyone, despite all that.
What exactly is your definition of a bully? You say you yourself was an asshole, but not a bully. I have to wonder what the perceptions of the victims of your asshole incidents.
Perceptions are irrelevant to the question of whether something is bullying or not. It is perfectly possible for someone, including a victim, to be mistaken about an act of random, isolated abuse.
It's still bullying if it's random, I think. I don't think there's much to separate those who consistently target a single person from those who target whomever happens to be around. I'd also consider a single person who is regularly targeted by a number of people rather than a single bully or small group of bullies to be "bullied", even if there's no coordination between his assailants beyond an unspoken understanding that this person can or should be targeted.
If there's a common factor between incidents, I don't see how it can be called random and isolated. If I'm going after one person repeatedly or if I'm pushing around whomever is a target of opportunity, either way I'm involved and I'm doing something repeatedly and as such I'm a bully.
I agree with you.
But if I'm an otherwise non-abusive individual who has the occasion to be a dick (for whatever reason), I'm not a bully. I'm being abusive, and this may eventually figure into a pattern of abusiveness if I make a habit of it, but I'm not being a bully from that incident alone. I could understand calling it otherwise, but only in the context of hyperbole.
And now that I think about it, if I periodically engage in tit-for-tat pranking and abuse with a peer, it's not bullying either, I think. There are likely a good deal of scenarios that can involve abuse without necessarily being bullying.
There were no less than ten people who bullied me in school - all the way through high school. They were always slapping my ass and throwing shit at me. A few of them were so aggressive that they'd push me around or grab my shirt if I even looked them in the eyes. I didn't have any friends at the time so it was just me. I should have stood up for myself, but at the same time, that would have just got me hurt. No telling how hurt, because some of these guys were pretty scary dudes. It got to the point where they actually knew my schedule, and they'd follow me in a big group from class to class, and the whole time I'm biting my lip, dreading whatever new thing they've cooked up. They jimmied my locker and stole a bunch of shit. They robbed me of lunch money. When they found out that I complained to the staff they jimmied my locker again and put weed in it, and then called the staff on me. That was not a fun night.
Tried talking to teachers. Tried talking to administration. Tried talking to parents. Tried talking to counselors. Nobody did shit.
I am fully of the opinion that kids who participate in this kind of thing ought to be beaten and publicly humiliated. A harsh taste of their own medicine.
Bullying need not be repeated, but I think there must be at the very least some sort of intent of repetition or some means of fitting into a larger pattern for an indecent to be bullying, otherwise "bullying" just becomes another word for abuse, which it's not. Random acts of abuse are not bullying.
And I think I may disagree with you that something is not psychologically or morally "normal". Normal in the sense of acceptable/accepted, I agree, normal in the sense of common, I disagree. Yes, it's not healthy (and I haven't indicated that it is).
Regarding your last sentence, you're conflating bullying (which cannot be isolated) and abuse (which can). Bullying is a pattern of abuse, and by definition are never isolated, whether there are ripple effects or not. If you want to go back and use "abuse" rather than "bullying"--which is what I was referring to in regards to isolated incidents--you're taking "isolated" somewhere it doesn't belong. An event is isolated if it doesn't figure into a larger pattern of similar incidents, whether there are ripple effects or not.
#1: Bullying is a subcategory of abuse. I call it abuse because that's what it is. (Well, that's not entirely honest. I call it abuse because I feel that the damaging effects of bullying are often disregarded by adults who consider it a normal part of growing up and that calling it abuse really punctuates that it is in fact abnormal and psychologically damaging.)
#2: I'm still not seeing why bullying must be repeated to be bullying. That seems like an unnecessary splitting of hairs. I have seen some texts that define bullying as "repeated" and some that do not, but it still seems like an unnecessary (and ultimately harmful) distinction.
#3: Even if we were to decide, for the sake of argument, that bullying is repetitive by definition, that doesn't really change what happened in this instance.
Bullying being a subcategory of abuse does not make it the same thing as abuse. Perhaps I read you wrong, but the top line here seems like conflating the two as being one and the same:
Bullying need not be repeated to be bullying. Abuse need not be a pattern. It is possible to have a single incident of abuse.
That said, abuse is pathological, and bullying is just a category of abuse and is therefore no different. While it may be statistically normal - ie, that it may be true that abuse is common among children of a given age - it is not psychologically or morally normal. It is not a healthy form of interaction. Even a single instance of bullying is a behavior that stems from unhealthy causes and has destructive ripple effects, which means that it is never truly "isolated."
If there's no repetition, no pattern, of what use is the word bullying? It's just another word for abuse, and we might as well just be talking about abuse. This does the disservice of conflating the pathological mean guy with the kid who occasionally is a dick to his peers, and I don't think this is useful.
I agree that it doesn't change this situation, but it does mean that we shouldn't be jumping on the bullying bandwagon. Maybe it's appropriate--maybe there are other incidents that would make "this is bullying" a justified conclusion--but we don't know that.
I am fully of the opinion that kids who participate in this kind of thing ought to be beaten and publicly humiliated. A harsh taste of their own medicine.
I am not sure what the punishment should consist of, but I do think that the current system is really bad. I think extremely harsh and extremely quick is ideal, but I don't know about the optimal specifics for that paradigm.
Expulsion does not seem productive to me. That's literally just moving the problem around, and while it may serve to protect people, it doesn't fix the bully.
Expulsion doesn't punish the child. It punishes the parents. In the child's point of view, "Hey! Vacation time!"
Unless the parents are making their home lives sufficiently miserable, which my dad did after I got suspended for that weed.
After the beatings (of which there were many), he literally ordered a dumptruck of dirt (for a project that he had been putting off for a while, but now he had a laborer!), gave me spade and a wheelbarrow, and told me to move this pile (which was roughly 2 meters high by 4 long by 2 deep) from point A to point B. I had one afternoon. Otherwise, more beatings.
I had blisters on my blisters. That is the kind of thing that parents of expelled children need to do.
Expulsion doesn't punish the child. It punishes the parents. In the child's point of view, "Hey! Vacation time!"
Unless the parents are making their home lives sufficiently miserable.
Harsh punishment that isn't clearly associated with the crime is not productive. A miserable home life, if anything, is just going to lead to more abuse coming from the offending child.
Expulsion doesn't punish the child. It punishes the parents. In the child's point of view, "Hey! Vacation time!"
Unless the parents are making their home lives sufficiently miserable.
Harsh punishment that isn't clearly associated with the crime is not productive. A miserable home life, if anything, is just going to lead to more abuse coming from the offending child.
Well yeah. I mean, there has to be a clear line of cause and effect. I didn't mean miserable all the time. I just meant miserable for the duration of the punishment.
My kid gets suspended, they're damn sure not gonna sit in the air conditioning and play video games. (unless, and this is possibly my one exception, some asshole kid picks a fight and they get kicked for defending themselves, in which case we're going to Chucky Cheeses)
I believe we live in a society which discourages standing up for what's right because as soon as you do, you're the bad guy. I realise this isn't true everywhere and I wish you guys who live in those places would tell everyone else to get with the goddamned program.
I'd like to be able to call out someone being a jerk and not get reprimanded by the surrounding public for it.
If there's no repetition, no pattern, of what use is the word bullying? It's just another word for abuse, and we might as well just be talking about abuse. This does the disservice of conflating the pathological mean guy with the kid who occasionally is a dick to his peers, and I don't think this is useful.
By "pathological mean guy" do you mean an abusive adult, or a really violent child?
I agree that we shouldn't compare mean children to abusive adults. However, the only categorical difference I see between a "bully" and "a kid who is occasionally a dick to his peers" is that bullying typically isn't committed against peers, it's typically committed against people lower on the social ladder. (That said, adults often use the word "peer" to mean "anybody in the same classroom" regardless of differences in age, popularity, intelligence, physical size, etc. That use of the word "peer" makes sense in an educational context, but it doesn't accurately describe the relationships between children.)
Frankly, everything I see in your posts seems to have this connotation that "bullying is really really wrong... but being a little asshole to other kids is just kinda sorta wrong." Sure, a misdeed done with greater frequency is worse than a misdeed done on an occasional basis, but what's the purpose in making that distinction? Are you trying to argue that it's somehow permissible for a kid to be mean to other kids, as long as he doesn't do it all that often?
BTW, you ask "of what use is the word bullying?" Bullying is physical or emotional abuse that occurs between children. It's useful in that it distinguishes from adult-on-child abuse or child-on-child sexual abuse (which I think are obviously categorically different).
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Why do these discussions always turn into definition debates? Who cares what it's called? It doesn't matter in the end. Point is: Kid A had malicious intentions and upset Kid B using them.
Bam.
(Feral, I'm more or less on your side with this here)
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kaleeditySometimes science is more art than scienceRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
No one ever really specifically singled me out to really bully me throughout my school years, but I was a frequent target of dozens upon dozens of individuals taking non-repetitive actions to antagonize me, as I was quiet and generally passive. Was I bullied? Kind of, yeah.
Fortunately I had friends and my own defenses built up by growing up with a 6yr older brother with his friends, so I never came across anything that I couldn't handle. I almost preferred being bullied, as people generally ended up being frightened of me around columbine's time and afterward for completely unnecessary reasons. Also whenever I'm thinking about something I apparently look pretty angry, so that didn't help much.
I'm just glad that kids being assholes naturally goes away without any intervention. It gives us the excuse that its totally OK to allow behavior that's abusive, hurtful or wrong with the knowledge that everything will be OK in the long run as long as we're as lazy about it as possible. Indeed, maybe we should praise the abuser and just give him or her whatever they want so they'll have happy memories to look back on when they spontaneously and inevitably grow into fully functioning, well adjusted and empathic members of society and feel bad about what cockbags they were.
A lot of kids are assholes. Left alone, they tend to remain that way
A lot of kids are assholes. Left alone, they tend to remain that way
I know I was in my own way. I was the quiet kid who rarely got picked on yet was so convinced by TV that since I was a quiet nerdy kid that the cool kids were all bullies who made fun of me. Grade 6 I declared the cool kid as 'my enemy' so convinced that he was cool so whenever he was being nice was to lure me into a trap. This guy is one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
I apologised over facebook recently for being a dick, he's still nice.
Why do these discussions always turn into definition debates?
Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. Is this really just a semantic discussion, or does it reveal some of our core attitudes towards bullying?
There's a pretty prevalent attitude that a certain amount of meanness between kids is to be expected. And maybe that's true, maybe a little bit of teasing or name-calling here and there is the emotional equivalent of a skinned knee; a minor rite of passage that every kid has to go through to gain resilience.
But I don't think it's controvertible that elements in our society take that laissez-faire attitude to an unhealthy degree. Is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because otherwise the word bullying is redundant, or is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because repetitive behavior is categorically different from non-repetitive behavior in some salient way?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. Is this really just a semantic discussion, or does it reveal some of our core attitudes towards bullying?
There's a pretty prevalent attitude that a certain amount of meanness between kids is to be expected. And maybe that's true, maybe a little bit of teasing or name-calling here and there is the emotional equivalent of a skinned knee; a minor rite of passage that every kid has to go through to gain resilience.
But I don't think it's controvertible that elements in our society take that laissez-faire attitude to an unhealthy degree. Is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because otherwise the word bullying is redundant, or is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because repetitive behavior is categorically different from non-repetitive behavior in some salient way?
Well, this thread doesn't seem to be going anywhere else so I'll bite. I realise you may not be arguing these points but I'm putting my opinion on the plate for evaluation and consideration for anyone who reads.
I'd argue that bullying is stilly bullying regardless of if it's once or constant. Many other forms of abuse work this way so I don't see why this should be any different. Murder is still murder whether it occurs once or several times, teasing is still teasing, a punch in the arm is still a punch in the arm.
Continuing, take the following two perspectives into consideration:
Willis is your average kid, he likes dodge ball, cartoons, collecting pogs and the like. One day, out of the blue, Willis meets Johnathan in the play ground. Johnathan starts ridiculuing Willis about his appearance, calling him names (of all sorts) and beats him up for good measure. Willis tells on Johnathan and Johnathan is punished. Johnathan never bullies Willis again.
Johnathan is a quiet boy, he's nice, respectful and generous, one might say a 'dream child'. One day, Johnathan finds out his father has taken off and he's torn. Johnathan meets Willis on the play ground and takes his anger out on Willis by calling him names, ridiculuing him about his appearance and beating him up. Johnathan is punished and learns from it, never bullying again.
I would argue, for the sake of fairness to Willis, that Johnathan still bullied him. He's not a regular bully but he would be a bully for the theoretical day proposed above.
If there's no repetition, no pattern, of what use is the word bullying? It's just another word for abuse, and we might as well just be talking about abuse. This does the disservice of conflating the pathological mean guy with the kid who occasionally is a dick to his peers, and I don't think this is useful.
By "pathological mean guy" do you mean an abusive adult, or a really violent child?
I agree that we shouldn't compare mean children to abusive adults. However, the only categorical difference I see between a "bully" and "a kid who is occasionally a dick to his peers" is that bullying typically isn't committed against peers, it's typically committed against people lower on the social ladder. (That said, adults often use the word "peer" to mean "anybody in the same classroom" regardless of differences in age, popularity, intelligence, physical size, etc. That use of the word "peer" makes sense in an educational context, but it doesn't accurately describe the relationships between children.)
Frankly, everything I see in your posts seems to have this connotation that "bullying is really really wrong... but being a little asshole to other kids is just kinda sorta wrong." Sure, a misdeed done with greater frequency is worse than a misdeed done on an occasional basis, but what's the purpose in making that distinction? Are you trying to argue that it's somehow permissible for a kid to be mean to other kids, as long as he doesn't do it all that often?
By "pathological mean guy" I mean a bully, someone who regularly abuses those around him or a select group via words or physical violence. I agree that "bullying" follows power and social differences, but I think that's kind of difficult to measure, and as such it's more useful to simply think of it as a pattern of abuse when trying to detect it.
When I say "peer" I mean someone of the same social strata. You are correct about bullying not typically being committed against peers, and this plays into the distinction I was making: bullying is different from random acts of abuse because of that power difference. The root causes are different, and the nature of a repeated act--abusing people who are already victims--can itself mean a different outcome than something random between peers.
I don't think either is permissible, but I do think that one is far more serious than the other. I don't have data and I may very well be wrong, but I assume that bullying, like most incidents of abuse against people who are already victims, goes underreported and is ignored more frequently. Random acts against people (who may or may not be victims already) are, I think, more likely to be reported and punished.
BTW, you ask "of what use is the word bullying?" Bullying is physical or emotional abuse that occurs between children. It's useful in that it distinguishes from adult-on-child abuse or child-on-child sexual abuse (which I think are obviously categorically different).
I disagree with that definition. Adults can bully other adults, and adults can bully children. Children can bully adults, for that matter, but I imagine that's a pretty rare occurrence. Children of elites systematically abusing people among an adult underclass would be an example of the latter off the top of my head.
Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. Is this really just a semantic discussion, or does it reveal some of our core attitudes towards bullying?
There's a pretty prevalent attitude that a certain amount of meanness between kids is to be expected. And maybe that's true, maybe a little bit of teasing or name-calling here and there is the emotional equivalent of a skinned knee; a minor rite of passage that every kid has to go through to gain resilience.
But I don't think it's controvertible that elements in our society take that laissez-faire attitude to an unhealthy degree. Is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because otherwise the word bullying is redundant, or is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because repetitive behavior is categorically different from non-repetitive behavior in some salient way?
Well, this thread doesn't seem to be going anywhere else so I'll bite. I realise you may not be arguing these points but I'm putting my opinion on the plate for evaluation and consideration for anyone who reads.
I'd argue that bullying is stilly bullying regardless of if it's once or constant. Many other forms of abuse work this way so I don't see why this should be any different. Murder is still murder whether it occurs once or several times, teasing is still teasing, a punch in the arm is still a punch in the arm.
Continuing, take the following two perspectives into consideration:
Willis is your average kid, he likes dodge ball, cartoons, collecting pogs and the like. One day, out of the blue, Willis meets Johnathan in the play ground. Johnathan starts ridiculuing Willis about his appearance, calling him names (of all sorts) and beats him up for good measure. Willis tells on Johnathan and Johnathan is punished. Johnathan never bullies Willis again.
Johnathan is a quiet boy, he's nice, respectful and generous, one might say a 'dream child'. One day, Johnathan finds out his father has taken off and he's torn. Johnathan meets Willis on the play ground and takes his anger out on Willis by calling him names, ridiculuing him about his appearance and beating him up. Johnathan is punished and learns from it, never bullying again.
I would argue, for the sake of fairness to Willis, that Johnathan still bullied him. He's not a regular bully but he would be a bully for the theoretical day proposed above.
Do you draw a difference between bullying and abuse? If so, what is it?
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
I remember bullying a few kids in middle school. Twin brothers. They were actually really nice guys, and looking back I feel like a little shit for the way I treated the at times. I think the only reason I went after them was because they were bullied by others and I was bullied for being their friend. If neither had been the case, we might've stayed friends instead of treating each other like shit for no good reason.
BTW, you ask "of what use is the word bullying?" Bullying is physical or emotional abuse that occurs between children. It's useful in that it distinguishes from adult-on-child abuse or child-on-child sexual abuse (which I think are obviously categorically different).
I disagree with that definition. Adults can bully other adults, and adults can bully children. Children can bully adults, for that matter, but I imagine that's a pretty rare occurrence. Children of elites systematically abusing people among an adult underclass would be an example of the latter off the top of my head.
I think I agree with you assuming you mean bullying as a concentrated and repeated attempt to establish dominance over someone you believe to be weak for whatever motivation you might have. By that definition I'd also suggest that children bullying adults, particularly their parents, is far more common than you might imagine.
However, children, like most people who are largely devoid of empathy, are very bad judges of weakness and strength. This sometimes gets them into trouble.
It is also true that some incidents that resemble bullying are something more like societal pressure to conform or thin skinned children being unable to handle difficult social situations. Unfortunately, this is one of the reason why the education system can be so toothless on the issue. For those of us who work in it, trying to discern the difference between these kinds of activities and abuse is a critical skill, and some administrators and teachers really fail hard at it. Since the two situations really must be handled completely differently, things can go colossally badly when one is misdiagnosed as the other.
I understand, reading this paragraph, that some of you may feel like societal pressure to conform is itself abuse. I sympathize with that position, but it's also sort of reality. Kids do need to, for example, brush their teeth, or they will face social consequences for it. I don't allow kids to ridicule each other in a mean-spirited way but when I have a thirteen year old who refuses to wear deodorant, he and I both have to understand that complete inoculation from teasing simply isn't realistic even though it can look pretty similar to abusive bullying.
However, children, like most people who are largely devoid of empathy, are very bad judges of weakness and strength. This sometimes gets them into trouble.
I don't think I agree. I think they're pretty good at gauging weakness and strength and that's (a small) part of the problem. If they had more empathy, they'd probably be better at not acting on the associated impulses, but...
However, children, like most people who are largely devoid of empathy, are very bad judges of weakness and strength. This sometimes gets them into trouble.
I don't think I agree. I think they're pretty good at gauging weakness and strength and that's (a small) part of the problem. If they had more empathy, they'd probably be better at not acting on the associated impulses, but...
Hmmm, it's possible you're right. What I have observed as a teacher and student, in an unscientific way, is kids who are inclined towards bullying just casting as wide a net as possible to find potential victims. They test whether they can push everybody past certain limits and only continue with the ones they find success with. No real judgment involved. Where they get themselves into trouble is pushing kids with some patience but a distinct breaking point who are actually a lot more dangerous than them. For example, push around the big awkward kid because it seems like he'll take it, and you keep on going until you find out that he's really big and not as awkward as you thought.
I'm just glad that kids being assholes naturally goes away without any intervention. It gives us the excuse that its totally OK to allow behavior that's abusive, hurtful or wrong with the knowledge that everything will be OK in the long run as long as we're as lazy about it as possible. Indeed, maybe we should praise the abuser and just give him or her whatever they want so they'll have happy memories to look back on when they spontaneously and inevitably grow into fully functioning, well adjusted and empathic members of society and feel bad about what cockbags they were.
A lot of kids are assholes. Left alone, they tend to remain that way
The unfortunate truth is that while those who did the bullying may grow up to be fully functioning people who feel bad about what they did, those who they bullied are usually of the opinion (long into adulthood) that their tormentors can die in a fire.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I'm just glad that kids being assholes naturally goes away without any intervention. It gives us the excuse that its totally OK to allow behavior that's abusive, hurtful or wrong with the knowledge that everything will be OK in the long run as long as we're as lazy about it as possible. Indeed, maybe we should praise the abuser and just give him or her whatever they want so they'll have happy memories to look back on when they spontaneously and inevitably grow into fully functioning, well adjusted and empathic members of society and feel bad about what cockbags they were.
A lot of kids are assholes. Left alone, they tend to remain that way
The unfortunate truth is that while those who did the bullying may grow up to be fully functioning people who feel bad about what they did, those who they bullied are usually of the opinion (long into adulthood) that their tormentors can die in a fire.
This is all too true, on both accounts. Though I've tried to do my best to let my past be my past, I still get angry when I think about the shit I had to put up with as a kid. Peer abuse sucks.
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What exactly is your definition of a bully? You say you yourself was an asshole, but not a bully. I have to wonder what the perceptions of the victims of your asshole incidents.
Oh, I was genuinely curious. I wasn't trying to tell you that you were wrong.
And in fact I think I need to step back a minute and acknowledge you. I'm glad you stood up and did something about the situation rather than back down and ignore it.
I do have a gut feeling that it's better to help the victim first, and then deal with the bully later, but I don't have any substantive empirical evidence that one approach is better than the other.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Bullying need not be repeated to be bullying. Abuse need not be a pattern. It is possible to have a single incident of abuse.
That said, abuse is pathological, and bullying is just a category of abuse and is therefore no different. While it may be statistically normal - ie, that it may be true that abuse is common among children of a given age - it is not psychologically or morally normal. It is not a healthy form of interaction. Even a single instance of bullying is a behavior that stems from unhealthy causes and has destructive ripple effects, which means that it is never truly "isolated."
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Then while the poor women lies screaming on the ground telling you about her heart condition you look the poor bastard who started this mess in the face and tell him that some actions have consequences, and for her stupid is hurting. Then point out that it would be best for him to go check on his friend he pelted with the dodgeball and make sure he is ok.
Then taze the women a few more times, add in some random kicks to the short ribs or kidneys while screaming "is the game over now bitch, is it, is it". This will later help your defense in court when you claim the whole thing was a game you two made up as foreplay because she liked it rough and obviously the tazer has rattled her mind.
If that doesn't work see if you can find a prostitute that looks enough like her that will back up your defense, and claim the whole thing was a case of mistaken identity.
Once you are in prison, see if you can locate the kids home address, and send him a letter promising to give his address to all the pedophiles in cell block D if he does not shape up. Imply you have means of knowing if he shapes up or not. The good news is the parents are unlikely to get involved, if they were actually parenting it never would have gone that far.
Plus, was the kid with the phone a friend of the other kid? Perhaps he was just throwing it, not meaning to clock the shit out of the other one. Kids don't know their own strength, etc etc.
Also, whoever suggested calling the police, stop that.
Bullying need not be repeated, but I think there must be at the very least some sort of intent of repetition or some means of fitting into a larger pattern for an indecent to be bullying, otherwise "bullying" just becomes another word for abuse, which it's not. Random acts of abuse are not bullying.
And I think I may disagree with you that something is not psychologically or morally "normal". Normal in the sense of acceptable/accepted, I agree, normal in the sense of common, I disagree. Yes, it's not healthy (and I haven't indicated that it is).
Regarding your last sentence, you're conflating bullying (which cannot be isolated) and abuse (which can). Bullying is a pattern of abuse, and by definition are never isolated, whether there are ripple effects or not. If you want to go back and use "abuse" rather than "bullying"--which is what I was referring to in regards to isolated incidents--you're taking "isolated" somewhere it doesn't belong. An event is isolated if it doesn't figure into a larger pattern of similar incidents, whether there are ripple effects or not.
Perceptions are irrelevant to the question of whether something is bullying or not. It is perfectly possible for someone, including a victim, to be mistaken about an act of random, isolated abuse.
It's still bullying if it's random, I think. I don't think there's much to separate those who consistently target a single person from those who target whomever happens to be around. I'd also consider a single person who is regularly targeted by a number of people rather than a single bully or small group of bullies to be "bullied", even if there's no coordination between his assailants beyond an unspoken understanding that this person can or should be targeted.
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#1: Bullying is a subcategory of abuse. I call it abuse because that's what it is. (Well, that's not entirely honest. I call it abuse because I feel that the damaging effects of bullying are often disregarded by adults who consider it a normal part of growing up and that calling it abuse really punctuates that it is in fact abnormal and psychologically damaging.)
#2: I'm still not seeing why bullying must be repeated to be bullying. That seems like an unnecessary splitting of hairs. I have seen some texts that define bullying as "repeated" and some that do not, but it still seems like an unnecessary (and ultimately harmful) distinction.
#3: Even if we were to decide, for the sake of argument, that bullying is repetitive by definition, that doesn't really change what happened in this instance.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If there's a common factor between incidents, I don't see how it can be called random and isolated. If I'm going after one person repeatedly or if I'm pushing around whomever is a target of opportunity, either way I'm involved and I'm doing something repeatedly and as such I'm a bully.
I agree with you.
But if I'm an otherwise non-abusive individual who has the occasion to be a dick (for whatever reason), I'm not a bully. I'm being abusive, and this may eventually figure into a pattern of abusiveness if I make a habit of it, but I'm not being a bully from that incident alone. I could understand calling it otherwise, but only in the context of hyperbole.
And now that I think about it, if I periodically engage in tit-for-tat pranking and abuse with a peer, it's not bullying either, I think. There are likely a good deal of scenarios that can involve abuse without necessarily being bullying.
Tried talking to teachers. Tried talking to administration. Tried talking to parents. Tried talking to counselors. Nobody did shit.
I am fully of the opinion that kids who participate in this kind of thing ought to be beaten and publicly humiliated. A harsh taste of their own medicine.
Bullying being a subcategory of abuse does not make it the same thing as abuse. Perhaps I read you wrong, but the top line here seems like conflating the two as being one and the same:
If there's no repetition, no pattern, of what use is the word bullying? It's just another word for abuse, and we might as well just be talking about abuse. This does the disservice of conflating the pathological mean guy with the kid who occasionally is a dick to his peers, and I don't think this is useful.
I agree that it doesn't change this situation, but it does mean that we shouldn't be jumping on the bullying bandwagon. Maybe it's appropriate--maybe there are other incidents that would make "this is bullying" a justified conclusion--but we don't know that.
I am not sure what the punishment should consist of, but I do think that the current system is really bad. I think extremely harsh and extremely quick is ideal, but I don't know about the optimal specifics for that paradigm.
Expulsion does not seem productive to me. That's literally just moving the problem around, and while it may serve to protect people, it doesn't fix the bully.
Expulsion doesn't punish the child. It punishes the parents. In the child's point of view, "Hey! Vacation time!"
Unless the parents are making their home lives sufficiently miserable, which my dad did after I got suspended for that weed.
After the beatings (of which there were many), he literally ordered a dumptruck of dirt (for a project that he had been putting off for a while, but now he had a laborer!), gave me spade and a wheelbarrow, and told me to move this pile (which was roughly 2 meters high by 4 long by 2 deep) from point A to point B. I had one afternoon. Otherwise, more beatings.
I had blisters on my blisters. That is the kind of thing that parents of expelled children need to do.
Harsh punishment that isn't clearly associated with the crime is not productive. A miserable home life, if anything, is just going to lead to more abuse coming from the offending child.
Well yeah. I mean, there has to be a clear line of cause and effect. I didn't mean miserable all the time. I just meant miserable for the duration of the punishment.
My kid gets suspended, they're damn sure not gonna sit in the air conditioning and play video games. (unless, and this is possibly my one exception, some asshole kid picks a fight and they get kicked for defending themselves, in which case we're going to Chucky Cheeses)
I'd like to be able to call out someone being a jerk and not get reprimanded by the surrounding public for it.
By "pathological mean guy" do you mean an abusive adult, or a really violent child?
I agree that we shouldn't compare mean children to abusive adults. However, the only categorical difference I see between a "bully" and "a kid who is occasionally a dick to his peers" is that bullying typically isn't committed against peers, it's typically committed against people lower on the social ladder. (That said, adults often use the word "peer" to mean "anybody in the same classroom" regardless of differences in age, popularity, intelligence, physical size, etc. That use of the word "peer" makes sense in an educational context, but it doesn't accurately describe the relationships between children.)
Frankly, everything I see in your posts seems to have this connotation that "bullying is really really wrong... but being a little asshole to other kids is just kinda sorta wrong." Sure, a misdeed done with greater frequency is worse than a misdeed done on an occasional basis, but what's the purpose in making that distinction? Are you trying to argue that it's somehow permissible for a kid to be mean to other kids, as long as he doesn't do it all that often?
BTW, you ask "of what use is the word bullying?" Bullying is physical or emotional abuse that occurs between children. It's useful in that it distinguishes from adult-on-child abuse or child-on-child sexual abuse (which I think are obviously categorically different).
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Bam.
(Feral, I'm more or less on your side with this here)
Fortunately I had friends and my own defenses built up by growing up with a 6yr older brother with his friends, so I never came across anything that I couldn't handle. I almost preferred being bullied, as people generally ended up being frightened of me around columbine's time and afterward for completely unnecessary reasons. Also whenever I'm thinking about something I apparently look pretty angry, so that didn't help much.
A lot of kids are assholes. Left alone, they tend to remain that way
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I know I was in my own way. I was the quiet kid who rarely got picked on yet was so convinced by TV that since I was a quiet nerdy kid that the cool kids were all bullies who made fun of me. Grade 6 I declared the cool kid as 'my enemy' so convinced that he was cool so whenever he was being nice was to lure me into a trap. This guy is one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
I apologised over facebook recently for being a dick, he's still nice.
Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. Is this really just a semantic discussion, or does it reveal some of our core attitudes towards bullying?
There's a pretty prevalent attitude that a certain amount of meanness between kids is to be expected. And maybe that's true, maybe a little bit of teasing or name-calling here and there is the emotional equivalent of a skinned knee; a minor rite of passage that every kid has to go through to gain resilience.
But I don't think it's controvertible that elements in our society take that laissez-faire attitude to an unhealthy degree. Is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because otherwise the word bullying is redundant, or is bullying only bullying when it's repetitive because repetitive behavior is categorically different from non-repetitive behavior in some salient way?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well, this thread doesn't seem to be going anywhere else so I'll bite. I realise you may not be arguing these points but I'm putting my opinion on the plate for evaluation and consideration for anyone who reads.
I'd argue that bullying is stilly bullying regardless of if it's once or constant. Many other forms of abuse work this way so I don't see why this should be any different. Murder is still murder whether it occurs once or several times, teasing is still teasing, a punch in the arm is still a punch in the arm.
Continuing, take the following two perspectives into consideration:
Willis is your average kid, he likes dodge ball, cartoons, collecting pogs and the like. One day, out of the blue, Willis meets Johnathan in the play ground. Johnathan starts ridiculuing Willis about his appearance, calling him names (of all sorts) and beats him up for good measure. Willis tells on Johnathan and Johnathan is punished. Johnathan never bullies Willis again.
Johnathan is a quiet boy, he's nice, respectful and generous, one might say a 'dream child'. One day, Johnathan finds out his father has taken off and he's torn. Johnathan meets Willis on the play ground and takes his anger out on Willis by calling him names, ridiculuing him about his appearance and beating him up. Johnathan is punished and learns from it, never bullying again.
I would argue, for the sake of fairness to Willis, that Johnathan still bullied him. He's not a regular bully but he would be a bully for the theoretical day proposed above.
By "pathological mean guy" I mean a bully, someone who regularly abuses those around him or a select group via words or physical violence. I agree that "bullying" follows power and social differences, but I think that's kind of difficult to measure, and as such it's more useful to simply think of it as a pattern of abuse when trying to detect it.
When I say "peer" I mean someone of the same social strata. You are correct about bullying not typically being committed against peers, and this plays into the distinction I was making: bullying is different from random acts of abuse because of that power difference. The root causes are different, and the nature of a repeated act--abusing people who are already victims--can itself mean a different outcome than something random between peers.
I don't think either is permissible, but I do think that one is far more serious than the other. I don't have data and I may very well be wrong, but I assume that bullying, like most incidents of abuse against people who are already victims, goes underreported and is ignored more frequently. Random acts against people (who may or may not be victims already) are, I think, more likely to be reported and punished.
I disagree with that definition. Adults can bully other adults, and adults can bully children. Children can bully adults, for that matter, but I imagine that's a pretty rare occurrence. Children of elites systematically abusing people among an adult underclass would be an example of the latter off the top of my head.
Do you draw a difference between bullying and abuse? If so, what is it?
I don't think I agree. I think they're pretty good at gauging weakness and strength and that's (a small) part of the problem. If they had more empathy, they'd probably be better at not acting on the associated impulses, but...
Hmmm, it's possible you're right. What I have observed as a teacher and student, in an unscientific way, is kids who are inclined towards bullying just casting as wide a net as possible to find potential victims. They test whether they can push everybody past certain limits and only continue with the ones they find success with. No real judgment involved. Where they get themselves into trouble is pushing kids with some patience but a distinct breaking point who are actually a lot more dangerous than them. For example, push around the big awkward kid because it seems like he'll take it, and you keep on going until you find out that he's really big and not as awkward as you thought.
The unfortunate truth is that while those who did the bullying may grow up to be fully functioning people who feel bad about what they did, those who they bullied are usually of the opinion (long into adulthood) that their tormentors can die in a fire.