Bullying sucks and shouldn't be in schools, but in that situation, its detrimental to children when they are taught that they should never fight back, and always run to authority to solve their problems rather than standing up for themselves. As for why, see the last post.
If a problem is not soluble through non-violent means then people absolutely should run to authority. If my neighbor cuts down trees that are past our property line, then I'll sue him for damages before I'll trash his house. Solving problems through physical fights is barbaric, and it's perhaps the one method of conflict resolution where the person who comes out ahead has least to do with who was actually right.
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
Bullying sucks and shouldn't be in schools, but in that situation, its detrimental to children when they are taught that they should never fight back, and always run to authority to solve their problems rather than standing up for themselves. As for why, see the last post.
If a problem is not soluble through non-violent means then people absolutely should run to authority. If my neighbor cuts down trees that are past our property line, then I'll sue him for damages before I'll trash his house. Solving problems through physical fights is barbaric, and it's perhaps the one method of conflict resolution where the person who comes out ahead has least to do with who was actually right.
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
What then? Moral calculus! If you can't persuade Mr. Neighbor to stop cutting down your trees, and the police can't help you stop Mr. Neighbor cutting down your trees (and neither will the homeowner's association, or Mr. Neighbor's wife, or your other neighbors, etc.), maybe violence is your last resort. It is really a question of how much you are willing to hurt Mr. Neighbor. Will you give him a black eye to save a tree? Two black eyes? Break his leg? And how much will you have to hurt him before he gives up on the trees? Keep in mind that fights are unpredictable and tend to escalate, so that (even assuming you emerge unscathed) you may well inflict more damage than you had planned.
As far as I'm concerned, "what then" is let him have the damn trees, because you aren't a fucking barbarian and you recognize that the humiliation of property defacement is < the pain of being beaten insensible. If Mr. Neighbor escalates his depradations, then naturally the balance switches... But what about bullying?
I don't know -- perhaps you could, to borrow words from this thread -- stop being a wuss and suck it up. I sympathize with the people here who have been in danger of their lives, but wrt your anecdotal little bastards who wouldn't stop until you showed 'em what-for, I am rather less impressed. You definitely had the moral high ground there, but dude it was like a molehill on a floodplain.
(also re: the more recent stuff, I wanted to point out that risk-averse and violence-averse aren't quite synonymous.)
Bullying sucks and shouldn't be in schools, but in that situation, its detrimental to children when they are taught that they should never fight back, and always run to authority to solve their problems rather than standing up for themselves. As for why, see the last post.
If a problem is not soluble through non-violent means then people absolutely should run to authority. If my neighbor cuts down trees that are past our property line, then I'll sue him for damages before I'll trash his house. Solving problems through physical fights is barbaric, and it's perhaps the one method of conflict resolution where the person who comes out ahead has least to do with who was actually right.
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
What then? Moral calculus! If you can't persuade Mr. Neighbor to stop cutting down your trees, and the police can't help you stop Mr. Neighbor cutting down your trees (and neither will the homeowner's association, or Mr. Neighbor's wife, or your other neighbors, etc.), maybe violence is your last resort. It is really a question of how much you are willing to hurt Mr. Neighbor. Will you give him a black eye to save a tree? Two black eyes? Break his leg? And how much will you have to hurt him before he gives up on the trees? Keep in mind that fights are unpredictable and tend to escalate, so that (even assuming you emerge unscathed) you may well inflict more damage than you had planned.
As far as I'm concerned, "what then" is let him have the damn trees, because you aren't a fucking barbarian and you recognize that the humiliation of property defacement is < the pain of being beaten insensible. If Mr. Neighbor escalates his depradations, then naturally the balance switches... But what about bullying?
I don't know -- perhaps you could, to borrow words from this thread -- stop being a wuss and suck it up. I sympathize with the people here who have been in danger of their lives, but wrt your anecdotal little bastards who wouldn't stop until you showed 'em what-for, I am rather less impressed. You definitely had the moral high ground there, but dude it was like a molehill on a floodplain.
(also re: the more recent stuff, I wanted to point out that risk-averse and violence-averse aren't quite synonymous.)
Plus, there's the fact that he could be cutting down the tree because it's leaning over his house in such a way that it would fall on him in a storm.
Beyond that, if you enter a situation where authority won't help, you're learning how to deal with it. Ergo, if you encounter such a situation, you learn how to deal with it, and if you don't, you don't need it.
The Israeli press is infinitely more critical of violence than the American, and there's also the fact that the BBC will report a soldier sneezing in the direction of a Palestinian. Americans are much more bellicose about the conflict than Israelis. Despite this, Israel has done fairly well, with the exception of entering conflicts that it really shouldn't have, such as its disastrous occupation of Lebanon during the '90s.
So your evidence for America being more violence-averse than historically is that, since Vietnam, we've concentrated on military maneuvers that minimize friendly casualties but rain death indiscriminately upon "enemy" civilians and are of marginal military utility? It sounds to me that America is as bloodthirsty as ever, if not more so.
No, my evidence is reams of research by Pentagon and civilian commentators. You're at uni, right? Use JSTOR and go search International Security like I said on the previous page if you want to read about it, keyword: body count (possibly hypenated, I can't remember).
I'm not at university. I work for the US military, building a giant wussy system to minimize casualties in the event of a nuclear missile strike.
So your evidence for America being more violence-averse than historically is that, since Vietnam, we've concentrated on military maneuvers that minimize friendly casualties but rain death indiscriminately upon "enemy" civilians and are of marginal military utility? It sounds to me that America is as bloodthirsty as ever, if not more so.
No, my evidence is reams of research by Pentagon and civilian commentators. You're at uni, right? Use JSTOR and go search International Security like I said on the previous page if you want to read about it, keyword: body count (possibly hypenated, I can't remember).
I'm not at university. I work for the US military, building a giant wussy system to minimize casualties in the event of a nuclear missile strike.
Meaning he doesn't have access to JSTOR.
Well played.
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
He designs death prevention systems, which, in his area, necessitates a knowledge of violence causes and preventions. JSTOR is archival accounts, in which I have found statements saying the Quincy Adams pimped for the Russian czar, which is patently untrue, yet popularly believed, causing him to lose to Jackson.
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
He designs death prevention systems, which, in his area, necessitates a knowledge of violence causes and preventions. JSTOR is archival accounts, in which I have found statements saying the Quincy Adams pimped for the Russian czar, which is patently untrue, yet popularly believed, causing him to lose to Jackson.
He designs death-prevention systems until they assign him to his next project, he works for a defense contractor, not some independent idealist research institution dedicated to peace and love. He designs weapons. Beyond that what designing the sort of death-prevention system he described necessitates is knowledge of how the various weapons-systems out there work. Mechanically/physically/etc. That has absolutely nothing to do with the questions at hand. You don't find out what an entire populace thinks by asking just one white male engineer living in New England and throwing out any and all research that ever gets published in an academic journal just because you don't know how to do research. That's retarded to a point that I don't think Will was even suggesting it.
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
He designs death prevention systems, which, in his area, necessitates a knowledge of violence causes and preventions. JSTOR is archival accounts, in which I have found statements saying the Quincy Adams pimped for the Russian czar, which is patently untrue, yet popularly believed, causing him to lose to Jackson.
He designs death-prevention systems until they assign him to his next project, he works for a defense contractor, not some independent idealist research institution dedicated to peace and love. He designs weapons. Beyond that what designing the sort of death-prevention system he described necessitates is knowledge of how the various weapons-systems out there work. Mechanically/physically/etc. That has absolutely nothing to do with the questions at hand. You don't find out what an entire populace thinks by asking just one white male engineer living in New England and throwing out any and all research that ever gets published in an academic journal just because you don't know how to do research. That's retarded to a point that I don't think Will was even suggesting it.
Designing the weapons is a different specialty. You're basically calling a fireman a pyrotechnician.
The point that you ignored is that archival information is not necessarily accurate. For example, papers from that time would say that Japan's WWII government had reduced the emperor to a figurehead, while modern evidence and recently released accounts show that was just a story the US government made up as an excuse not to arrest the emperor, which would have caused chaos. Furthermore, I could probably find reports from that same year on JSTOR refuting the claim of the report you are referring to.
I don't doubt that they do happen, but schools often - and if they aren't, they should - take measures to prevent them from happening or becoming serious. It's not a fucking problem with the kid if he needs help, it's a problem with the school if they're not there to help him in an extreme situation.
Well they happened in my district I can vouch for a fact at two different high schools and two junior highs that I attended. Secondly, if it's not the kid's fault why are we blaming him for just trying to make it to a teacher unscathed and un-beaten? Zero tolerance treats them both like criminals and when enforced as written basically gives a blank check to just expell anyone the school thinks might be involved with a problem. How is that not blaming the victim when you tell him if he reports violence he'll probably get expelled too? Authorities aren't omnipotent and omniescent and on any populated high school they will just not be able to watch what goes on 24/7. Should they try to help? of course, absolutely. Should a kid being bullied be able to go to the authorities with it? Absolutely. Should those same authorities then turn on the victim because he didn't want to get his head smashed in before he could make it to the authorities? Fuck no.
And before you come back to this feedback loop of stupid and say that running to somebody for help when you can't physically handle the situation is somehow bad for the kids, I'd like you to present some actual evidence first. No anectdotal shit, some solid evidence that having help makes you weak. Yes, having everything handed to you your entire life could make people weak, timid, and reticent to act, but that's hardly what's going on, is it? If a kid's in over his head, and he needs help or else he's going to get the shit kicked out of him, the school best fucking be there. That's the problem, it's not the victim.
That's not my argument, my argument is that zero tolerance isolates victims and makes things worse because it prevents people from being able to make it to an authority figure without them getting punished just like the aggressor in most situations. You seem to keep saying the school should always be there and in an ideal world that'd be really great, but it's not an ideal world and humans are flawed and limited beings. I'll say again, how is punishing someone for being a victim helping them? Because that's an absolutely amazing leap of reasoning here, and that's exactly what zero tolerance does. It tells them that circumstance is irrelivent, you're both going to get expelled or maybe suspended no matter what.
You mean where they just say they have zero tolerance but actually throw the whole thing out and assess situations individually and intelligently and make decisions based on what they know? Yes that can protect the innocent, but that's not zero tolerance in anything other than name now isn't it?
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Designing the weapons is a different specialty. You're basically calling a fireman a pyrotechnician.
But firemen do have a good handle on how fires operate. It's their job.
Yes, but they also know how to put them out, and know how fires start in the context of how to put them out.
Another comparison: a person designing an anti-fission bunker has a slightly different skill set than the one designing a system for achieving fission.
I don't doubt that they do happen, but schools often - and if they aren't, they should - take measures to prevent them from happening or becoming serious. It's not a fucking problem with the kid if he needs help, it's a problem with the school if they're not there to help him in an extreme situation.
Well they happened in my district I can vouch for a fact at two different high schools and two junior highs that I attended. Secondly, if it's not the kid's fault why are we blaming him for just trying to make it to a teacher unscathed and un-beaten? Zero tolerance treats them both like criminals and when enforced as written basically gives a blank check to just expell anyone the school thinks might be involved with a problem. How is that not blaming the victim when you tell him if he reports violence he'll probably get expelled too? Authorities aren't omnipotent and omniescent and on any populated high school they will just not be able to watch what goes on 24/7. Should they try to help? of course, absolutely. Should a kid being bullied be able to go to the authorities with it? Absolutely. Should those same authorities then turn on the victim because he didn't want to get his head smashed in before he could make it to the authorities? Fuck no.
And before you come back to this feedback loop of stupid and say that running to somebody for help when you can't physically handle the situation is somehow bad for the kids, I'd like you to present some actual evidence first. No anectdotal shit, some solid evidence that having help makes you weak. Yes, having everything handed to you your entire life could make people weak, timid, and reticent to act, but that's hardly what's going on, is it? If a kid's in over his head, and he needs help or else he's going to get the shit kicked out of him, the school best fucking be there. That's the problem, it's not the victim.
That's not my argument, my argument is that zero tolerance isolates victims and makes things worse because it prevents people from being able to make it to an authority figure without them getting punished just like the aggressor in most situations. You seem to keep saying the school should always be there and in an ideal world that'd be really great, but it's not an ideal world and humans are flawed and limited beings. I'll say again, how is punishing someone for being a victim helping them? Because that's an absolutely amazing leap of reasoning here, and that's exactly what zero tolerance does. It tells them that circumstance is irrelivent, you're both going to get expelled or maybe suspended no matter what.
You mean where they just say they have zero tolerance but actually throw the whole thing out and assess situations individually and intelligently and make decisions based on what they know? Yes that can protect the innocent, but that's not zero tolerance in anything other than name now isn't it?
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
He designs death prevention systems, which, in his area, necessitates a knowledge of violence causes and preventions. JSTOR is archival accounts, in which I have found statements saying the Quincy Adams pimped for the Russian czar, which is patently untrue, yet popularly believed, causing him to lose to Jackson.
He designs death-prevention systems until they assign him to his next project, he works for a defense contractor, not some independent idealist research institution dedicated to peace and love. He designs weapons. Beyond that what designing the sort of death-prevention system he described necessitates is knowledge of how the various weapons-systems out there work. Mechanically/physically/etc. That has absolutely nothing to do with the questions at hand. You don't find out what an entire populace thinks by asking just one white male engineer living in New England and throwing out any and all research that ever gets published in an academic journal just because you don't know how to do research. That's retarded to a point that I don't think Will was even suggesting it.
Designing the weapons is a different specialty. You're basically calling a fireman a pyrotechnician.
The point that you ignored is that archival information is not necessarily accurate. For example, papers from that time would say that Japan's WWII government had reduced the emperor to a figurehead, while modern evidence and recently released accounts show that was just a story the US government made up as an excuse not to arrest the emperor, which would have caused chaos. Furthermore, I could probably find reports from that same year on JSTOR refuting the claim of the report you are referring to.
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
I think this whole discussion is idiotic. I never got in any real fights, but there just weren't all that many at my school, they were at best monthly event. I don't understand how it is a problem that fewer teens are bringing knives to school and beating each other up every day like stupid cavemen. There is nothing to be learned from pointless fighting over girls or whatever. The fact that teens are now encouraged to resolve their problems like civilized adults, rather than "oh leave 'em, boys will be boys" is a good thing.
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
Bullying sucks and shouldn't be in schools, but in that situation, its detrimental to children when they are taught that they should never fight back, and always run to authority to solve their problems rather than standing up for themselves. As for why, see the last post.
If a problem is not soluble through non-violent means then people absolutely should run to authority. If my neighbor cuts down trees that are past our property line, then I'll sue him for damages before I'll trash his house. Solving problems through physical fights is barbaric, and it's perhaps the one method of conflict resolution where the person who comes out ahead has least to do with who was actually right.
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
What then? Moral calculus! If you can't persuade Mr. Neighbor to stop cutting down your trees, and the police can't help you stop Mr. Neighbor cutting down your trees (and neither will the homeowner's association, or Mr. Neighbor's wife, or your other neighbors, etc.), maybe violence is your last resort. It is really a question of how much you are willing to hurt Mr. Neighbor. Will you give him a black eye to save a tree? Two black eyes? Break his leg? And how much will you have to hurt him before he gives up on the trees? Keep in mind that fights are unpredictable and tend to escalate, so that (even assuming you emerge unscathed) you may well inflict more damage than you had planned.
As far as I'm concerned, "what then" is let him have the damn trees, because you aren't a fucking barbarian and you recognize that the humiliation of property defacement is < the pain of being beaten insensible. If Mr. Neighbor escalates his depradations, then naturally the balance switches... But what about bullying?
I don't know -- perhaps you could, to borrow words from this thread -- stop being a wuss and suck it up. I sympathize with the people here who have been in danger of their lives, but wrt your anecdotal little bastards who wouldn't stop until you showed 'em what-for, I am rather less impressed. You definitely had the moral high ground there, but dude it was like a molehill on a floodplain.
(also re: the more recent stuff, I wanted to point out that risk-averse and violence-averse aren't quite synonymous.)
So you let the guy take the trees? I'm sorry, I find something really wrong with that. If I was offended enough to go through the trouble of taking every civilized action to stop him from taking my trees and still did not feel satisfied with the results, why should I stop? Mr Neighbor wronged me, not the other way around, and I shouldn't have to take that shit. You mentioned escalation, and you're quite right, if this guy knew he got away with taking my trees he might get the idea that he could mess with me some more, and worse. Aside from him destroying my property, he's now a bigger threat than ever as he knows he can get away with destroying my property. That to me is reason enough to prevent him from doing it the first time, and there is nothing wrong with defending yourself or your property.
As far as punching Mr Neighbor out, there are other "uncivilized" responses when nice solutions and the authorities fail. I might not beat him up, but he owes me for the cost of the trees. If no negotiation or authority will have him compensate me for my losses, maybe I take it out of him another way. There are sneaky ways to get justice, and yes they aren't all ethical. But honestly, I don't care about the moral highground when someone intends to push me around and take advantage of my nature and the system, I just care about taking care of myself.
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
WTF are you even talking about?
When the authority figure is no longer around or stops holding power, there is nothing stopping your aggressor from coming after you again. In some cases, informing an authority can get both the victim and the aggressor in trouble, or it may just further provoke the aggressor.
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
WTF are you even talking about?
When the authority figure is no longer around or stops holding power, there is nothing stopping your aggressor from coming after you again. In some cases, informing an authority can get both the victim and the aggressor in trouble, or it may just further provoke the aggressor.
Yes, exactly.
The superintendent may protect you within school grounds, but he won't be able to do jack shit when the guy trips you while you're making your way towards the back of the bus, or corners you with his buddies when you're walking back home. What the fuck are you going to do then?
Informing authority figures is not a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness. It may be the most rational course of action in certain extreme situations, but it should be avoided otherwise. Let people deal with their own problems and learn from them.
The superintendent may protect you within school grounds, but he won't be able to do jack shit when the guy trips you while you're making your way towards the back of the bus,
Bus driver.
or corners you with his buddies when you're walking back home. What the fuck are you going to do then?
Cops.
Unless of course there is no other alternative to violence which is not something anyone has put aside as something that should never be used under any circumstance.
And what the fuck? A sign of weakness? No, it's a sign of intelligence.
Bullying sucks and shouldn't be in schools, but in that situation, its detrimental to children when they are taught that they should never fight back, and always run to authority to solve their problems rather than standing up for themselves. As for why, see the last post.
If a problem is not soluble through non-violent means then people absolutely should run to authority. If my neighbor cuts down trees that are past our property line, then I'll sue him for damages before I'll trash his house. Solving problems through physical fights is barbaric, and it's perhaps the one method of conflict resolution where the person who comes out ahead has least to do with who was actually right.
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
What then? Moral calculus! If you can't persuade Mr. Neighbor to stop cutting down your trees, and the police can't help you stop Mr. Neighbor cutting down your trees (and neither will the homeowner's association, or Mr. Neighbor's wife, or your other neighbors, etc.), maybe violence is your last resort. It is really a question of how much you are willing to hurt Mr. Neighbor. Will you give him a black eye to save a tree? Two black eyes? Break his leg? And how much will you have to hurt him before he gives up on the trees? Keep in mind that fights are unpredictable and tend to escalate, so that (even assuming you emerge unscathed) you may well inflict more damage than you had planned.
As far as I'm concerned, "what then" is let him have the damn trees, because you aren't a fucking barbarian and you recognize that the humiliation of property defacement is < the pain of being beaten insensible. If Mr. Neighbor escalates his depradations, then naturally the balance switches... But what about bullying?
I don't know -- perhaps you could, to borrow words from this thread -- stop being a wuss and suck it up. I sympathize with the people here who have been in danger of their lives, but wrt your anecdotal little bastards who wouldn't stop until you showed 'em what-for, I am rather less impressed. You definitely had the moral high ground there, but dude it was like a molehill on a floodplain.
(also re: the more recent stuff, I wanted to point out that risk-averse and violence-averse aren't quite synonymous.)
So you let the guy take the trees? I'm sorry, I find something really wrong with that. If I was offended enough to go through the trouble of taking every civilized action to stop him from taking my trees and still did not feel satisfied with the results, why should I stop? Mr Neighbor wronged me, not the other way around, and I shouldn't have to take that shit. You mentioned escalation, and you're quite right, if this guy knew he got away with taking my trees he might get the idea that he could mess with me some more, and worse. Aside from him destroying my property, he's now a bigger threat than ever as he knows he can get away with destroying my property. That to me is reason enough to prevent him from doing it the first time, and there is nothing wrong with defending yourself or your property.
As far as punching Mr Neighbor out, there are other "uncivilized" responses when nice solutions and the authorities fail. I might not beat him up, but he owes me for the cost of the trees. If no negotiation or authority will have him compensate me for my losses, maybe I take it out of him another way. There are sneaky ways to get justice, and yes they aren't all ethical. But honestly, I don't care about the moral highground when someone intends to push me around and take advantage of my nature and the system, I just care about taking care of myself.
Have you thought that maybe that person had a reason for cutting down the tree? I'm pretty sure the law allows you to remove a tree on another's property in it endangers you or your belongings, which would explain why the authorities wouldn't intervene.
In such cases, the one "taking advantage" of you feels he is actually using an "'uncivilized' response when nice solutions and authorities fail," and so he doesn't "care about the moral highground when someone intends to push [him] around and take advantage of [his] nature and the system, [he] just care about taking care of [him]self."
If your problem revolves around the zero-tolerance policy, then the problem is with that policy and it's implementation, and not with kids going to designated authority figures when a situation gets out of hand.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
WTF are you even talking about?
When the authority figure is no longer around or stops holding power, there is nothing stopping your aggressor from coming after you again. In some cases, informing an authority can get both the victim and the aggressor in trouble, or it may just further provoke the aggressor.
Yes, exactly.
The superintendent may protect you within school grounds, but he won't be able to do jack shit when the guy trips you while you're making your way towards the back of the bus, or corners you with his buddies when you're walking back home. What the fuck are you going to do then?
Informing authority figures is not a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness. It may be the most rational course of action in certain extreme situations, but it should be avoided otherwise. Let people deal with their own problems and learn from them.
Weren't you the one who recommended getting big friends? I still don't get the difference between running to a legal authority and some tough who enforces your authority, besides the latter being the worst form of tribalism.
Now, go read about the social contract, by Voltaire I believe.
The superintendent may protect you within school grounds, but he won't be able to do jack shit when the guy trips you while you're making your way towards the back of the bus,
Bus driver.
Yeah, totally, because you can prove that the tripping was intentional.
Look, my point is that there are plenty of little things these kids can do to harass you and ruin your life and not get in trouble, because you either can't prove malintent or the authorities won't think it a big deal if they, say, "accidentally" bump into you while you're carrying your food tray to your table.
Plenty of little ways. They can make your life hell, and you can't do jack shit about it.
And what the fuck? A sign of weakness? No, it's a sign of intelligence.
Yes, and intelligent kids are absolutely revered in high school. :roll:
In any case, yes it is a sign of weakness, because it gives the message that you cannot stand up for yourself and you have to involve an authority figure. It's the sort of behavior that will only temporarily discourage the aggressor.
And the thing you have to understand about bully psychology is that they prey on weakness. The moment you start standing up for yourself though, they will leave you alone.
Assessing the situation and taking appropriate action is always the best alternative. One can't rely on the -same- method of reasoning -all- the time. Conflicts are never predictable..(Like with that one poster's Jaw situation).
Posts
This was pages and pages ago, but this thread's moved too fast and I wanted to address this.
I love people like you in this thread. You state that authorities should be informed of when a situation cannot be handled personally through non-violent means, but you say nothing about what happens if/ when the authority fails. Personally, I've never been assisted by an authority figure when I've been in real trouble. Not once. And taking matters into my own hands to solve that problem, even if my solution involved ethically poor actions on my part -- such as violence, as you've mentioned -- I feel is within my right once authorities have failed.
What exactly is your solution once the authorities, your non-violent last resort, cannot solve your problem? Because it seems like you, and people who think like you, are of the opinion that when the authorities are a last resort they will solve your problem, and discussing things to do after the authorities isn't mentioned. What do you do when a bully won't listen to reason and a teacher is unwilling to help, when the school board ignores you and the police don't consider it a big enough problem to seriously deal with? What then? Because that happens, and some of the remaining alternative solutions aren't all that "civilized".
What then? Moral calculus! If you can't persuade Mr. Neighbor to stop cutting down your trees, and the police can't help you stop Mr. Neighbor cutting down your trees (and neither will the homeowner's association, or Mr. Neighbor's wife, or your other neighbors, etc.), maybe violence is your last resort. It is really a question of how much you are willing to hurt Mr. Neighbor. Will you give him a black eye to save a tree? Two black eyes? Break his leg? And how much will you have to hurt him before he gives up on the trees? Keep in mind that fights are unpredictable and tend to escalate, so that (even assuming you emerge unscathed) you may well inflict more damage than you had planned.
As far as I'm concerned, "what then" is let him have the damn trees, because you aren't a fucking barbarian and you recognize that the humiliation of property defacement is < the pain of being beaten insensible. If Mr. Neighbor escalates his depradations, then naturally the balance switches... But what about bullying?
I don't know -- perhaps you could, to borrow words from this thread -- stop being a wuss and suck it up. I sympathize with the people here who have been in danger of their lives, but wrt your anecdotal little bastards who wouldn't stop until you showed 'em what-for, I am rather less impressed. You definitely had the moral high ground there, but dude it was like a molehill on a floodplain.
(also re: the more recent stuff, I wanted to point out that risk-averse and violence-averse aren't quite synonymous.)
Plus, there's the fact that he could be cutting down the tree because it's leaning over his house in such a way that it would fall on him in a storm.
Beyond that, if you enter a situation where authority won't help, you're learning how to deal with it. Ergo, if you encounter such a situation, you learn how to deal with it, and if you don't, you don't need it.
The Israeli press is infinitely more critical of violence than the American, and there's also the fact that the BBC will report a soldier sneezing in the direction of a Palestinian. Americans are much more bellicose about the conflict than Israelis. Despite this, Israel has done fairly well, with the exception of entering conflicts that it really shouldn't have, such as its disastrous occupation of Lebanon during the '90s.
Well played.
So access to old, usually contradictory, analysis trumps first hand experience and training?
How does this follow from my joke exactly? And what kind of developmental disorder leads one to the belief that those two sets of tools are all useful for the same set of purposes? If you're looking for information about societally-established beliefs why would you discard the responses of the people at large in favor of what a weapons-designer thinks? How does Will's ability to design tools of murder make him more qualified to tell you what the American people believe than thousands of American people?
He designs death prevention systems, which, in his area, necessitates a knowledge of violence causes and preventions. JSTOR is archival accounts, in which I have found statements saying the Quincy Adams pimped for the Russian czar, which is patently untrue, yet popularly believed, causing him to lose to Jackson.
He designs death-prevention systems until they assign him to his next project, he works for a defense contractor, not some independent idealist research institution dedicated to peace and love. He designs weapons. Beyond that what designing the sort of death-prevention system he described necessitates is knowledge of how the various weapons-systems out there work. Mechanically/physically/etc. That has absolutely nothing to do with the questions at hand. You don't find out what an entire populace thinks by asking just one white male engineer living in New England and throwing out any and all research that ever gets published in an academic journal just because you don't know how to do research. That's retarded to a point that I don't think Will was even suggesting it.
Duh.
Designing the weapons is a different specialty. You're basically calling a fireman a pyrotechnician.
The point that you ignored is that archival information is not necessarily accurate. For example, papers from that time would say that Japan's WWII government had reduced the emperor to a figurehead, while modern evidence and recently released accounts show that was just a story the US government made up as an excuse not to arrest the emperor, which would have caused chaos. Furthermore, I could probably find reports from that same year on JSTOR refuting the claim of the report you are referring to.
It should be an iron fist holding a heart or something.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Same here. I actually looked to make sure nobody had posted it before me.
Look again. I recognized it (unless it was from the AI thread, but that's doubtful).
But firemen do have a good handle on how fires operate. It's their job.
Well they happened in my district I can vouch for a fact at two different high schools and two junior highs that I attended. Secondly, if it's not the kid's fault why are we blaming him for just trying to make it to a teacher unscathed and un-beaten? Zero tolerance treats them both like criminals and when enforced as written basically gives a blank check to just expell anyone the school thinks might be involved with a problem. How is that not blaming the victim when you tell him if he reports violence he'll probably get expelled too? Authorities aren't omnipotent and omniescent and on any populated high school they will just not be able to watch what goes on 24/7. Should they try to help? of course, absolutely. Should a kid being bullied be able to go to the authorities with it? Absolutely. Should those same authorities then turn on the victim because he didn't want to get his head smashed in before he could make it to the authorities? Fuck no.
That's not my argument, my argument is that zero tolerance isolates victims and makes things worse because it prevents people from being able to make it to an authority figure without them getting punished just like the aggressor in most situations. You seem to keep saying the school should always be there and in an ideal world that'd be really great, but it's not an ideal world and humans are flawed and limited beings. I'll say again, how is punishing someone for being a victim helping them? Because that's an absolutely amazing leap of reasoning here, and that's exactly what zero tolerance does. It tells them that circumstance is irrelivent, you're both going to get expelled or maybe suspended no matter what.
You mean where they just say they have zero tolerance but actually throw the whole thing out and assess situations individually and intelligently and make decisions based on what they know? Yes that can protect the innocent, but that's not zero tolerance in anything other than name now isn't it?
Yes, but they also know how to put them out, and know how fires start in the context of how to put them out.
Another comparison: a person designing an anti-fission bunker has a slightly different skill set than the one designing a system for achieving fission.
Miss Truant! Timmy head-butted my knuckles!
Okay sure let's do that.
That's a seperate problem, the problem with that is that it just doesn't really solve anything. It can also make it worse.
WTF are you even talking about?
Rainbows are incredibly tacky
I would prefer a braided black circle, because if yout twist all the colors (pigments) of the rainbow together it makes black!
So you let the guy take the trees? I'm sorry, I find something really wrong with that. If I was offended enough to go through the trouble of taking every civilized action to stop him from taking my trees and still did not feel satisfied with the results, why should I stop? Mr Neighbor wronged me, not the other way around, and I shouldn't have to take that shit. You mentioned escalation, and you're quite right, if this guy knew he got away with taking my trees he might get the idea that he could mess with me some more, and worse. Aside from him destroying my property, he's now a bigger threat than ever as he knows he can get away with destroying my property. That to me is reason enough to prevent him from doing it the first time, and there is nothing wrong with defending yourself or your property.
As far as punching Mr Neighbor out, there are other "uncivilized" responses when nice solutions and the authorities fail. I might not beat him up, but he owes me for the cost of the trees. If no negotiation or authority will have him compensate me for my losses, maybe I take it out of him another way. There are sneaky ways to get justice, and yes they aren't all ethical. But honestly, I don't care about the moral highground when someone intends to push me around and take advantage of my nature and the system, I just care about taking care of myself.
When the authority figure is no longer around or stops holding power, there is nothing stopping your aggressor from coming after you again. In some cases, informing an authority can get both the victim and the aggressor in trouble, or it may just further provoke the aggressor.
Yes, exactly.
The superintendent may protect you within school grounds, but he won't be able to do jack shit when the guy trips you while you're making your way towards the back of the bus, or corners you with his buddies when you're walking back home. What the fuck are you going to do then?
Informing authority figures is not a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness. It may be the most rational course of action in certain extreme situations, but it should be avoided otherwise. Let people deal with their own problems and learn from them.
Cops.
Unless of course there is no other alternative to violence which is not something anyone has put aside as something that should never be used under any circumstance.
And what the fuck? A sign of weakness? No, it's a sign of intelligence.
Have you thought that maybe that person had a reason for cutting down the tree? I'm pretty sure the law allows you to remove a tree on another's property in it endangers you or your belongings, which would explain why the authorities wouldn't intervene.
In such cases, the one "taking advantage" of you feels he is actually using an "'uncivilized' response when nice solutions and authorities fail," and so he doesn't "care about the moral highground when someone intends to push [him] around and take advantage of [his] nature and the system, [he] just care about taking care of [him]self."
It is a sign of maturity, and of strong ethics.
Wanna fight about it?
If you don't then clearly I'm right.
Weren't you the one who recommended getting big friends? I still don't get the difference between running to a legal authority and some tough who enforces your authority, besides the latter being the worst form of tribalism.
Now, go read about the social contract, by Voltaire I believe.
Yeah, totally, because you can prove that the tripping was intentional.
Look, my point is that there are plenty of little things these kids can do to harass you and ruin your life and not get in trouble, because you either can't prove malintent or the authorities won't think it a big deal if they, say, "accidentally" bump into you while you're carrying your food tray to your table.
Plenty of little ways. They can make your life hell, and you can't do jack shit about it.
Yes, and intelligent kids are absolutely revered in high school. :roll:
In any case, yes it is a sign of weakness, because it gives the message that you cannot stand up for yourself and you have to involve an authority figure. It's the sort of behavior that will only temporarily discourage the aggressor.
And the thing you have to understand about bully psychology is that they prey on weakness. The moment you start standing up for yourself though, they will leave you alone.
Stop being a retard. You have to look at it from a bully's perspective.
Assessing the situation and taking appropriate action is always the best alternative. One can't rely on the -same- method of reasoning -all- the time. Conflicts are never predictable..(Like with that one poster's Jaw situation).