Bullies- enforcers of the status quo?

Great Debates
1

this IMHO thread got me thinking about the issue.

Nothing scientific, but in my own personal experience, plus what I’ve heard in talking to others and read from other people’s experiences here on this board, it seems like there are certain recurring patterns when bullying is reported to authority figures.

  1. The victim is usually blamed- “What are you doing to make him/them want to beat you up?”

  2. No meaningful action is taken against the bully to prevent further incidents.

  3. If the victim defends him/herself against the bully or retaliates, the victim is often punished while the bully either is either unpunished or receives a less severe punishment.

It can be even worse in workplace situations, where someone reporting bullying behaviour by a supervisor or coworker to management or HR all too often loses their job.

I have formulated a sort of theory about the reason for this.

Bullies, by and large, pick on people who are percieved as being “nerdy”, “different” or “strange”. For all our vaunted talk (at least in the US) of tolerating individual differences, different is generally considered to be undesirable. So, while we pay lip service to the idea that “bullying is bad”, as far as authority figures (teachers, administrators, peers, workplace managers), the bully is putting the oddball in his/her place. Thus nonconforming behavior is, to some extent kept under control.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the issue? Are bullies the “plausibly deniable” agents of authority figures and peer groups for controlling nonconformists, or is there another explanation as to why school or workplace authorities are so unwilling to take action against bullies, even to the point of punishing the person being bullied?

2

I have to head out in a moment, but I think that bullying is an extension of our primal instinct to be the dominant individual of the group. In the wild, without modern society, language, etc., you establish dominance physically. Nature shows are full of that, animals fighting for dominance. It’s not generally a kill or be killed thing, but a confrontation of some sort to weed out the “weaker” individuals and set the “stronger” ones up as leaders.

Kids eventually learn how to exist in our society, which is why bullying is common in the schoolyard, but very uncommon in the adult world.

3

Oh, and if you try to get an authority figure to fight your battle for you… you’ve demonstrated your inability to win the dominance battle, encouraging the bully to keep on going. This is also why we intuitively think that fighting back / standing up for yourself is the right response, it is a direct strike against the bully’s dominance play.

4

OK, that is a partial explanation of the motivation behind bullying behavior. It does not, however explain why in a so-called civilized society, authority figures (school administrators, usually) refuse to take action that will put a stop to the bullying- say expellling the bully from school so the math geeks can get their education without fear of being beaten up twice a week.

And if you think bullying in the adult world is uncommon, you are sadly deluded. Bullies don’t stop being bullies when they enter the adult world. They just realize that they can’t get away with physically beating their coworkers or subordinates in the workplace, so they turn instead to verbal harassment, threats and intimidation. And when faced with the need to earn a living, knowing that your job may be at stake can be just as frightening a prospect as a punch in the nose was in middle school.

5

I would disagree. Bullies target the weak. They will not target those who are different and strong. This is based on experience. I’ve been a nerd all of my life. It wasn’t until I was big enough to be a threat that the bullies left me alone.

6

Not necessarily the physically weak, though. A really big guy who is known to be a nonviolent type who would be unlikely to fight back is also likely to become a target for a bully who wants to “count coup” by getting licks in on someone physically larger than they are. Obviously not a universal truth. There are going to be a certain number of bullies who would be intimidated by physical size, but mostly they go after people who would be either unable or unwilling to fight back and if the reason is psychological rather than physical, so much the better.

Anyway, I’m still more interested in why authority-type figures seem so unwilling to put a stop to bullying behavior, often to the point of punishing someone who defends him/her self against a bully instead of the actual bully.

7

Maybe, maybe not. If you fight back and I don’t hurt you and keep hurting you, then I allow the other sheep to think that if they “stand-up” for themselves, I will leave them alone and I lose my “dominance”.

So unless you are able to fight well enough to take over the position of “alpha male”, standing up for yourself may end up with the bully and his pals kicking you until you piss your pants. Putting up a weak defense is just as bad as putting up none at all, now they have to humilate you, lest others get ideas.

Some bullies, just like the sound you make when they punch you in the gut. It’s just that basic sometimes, no broken home, no inferiority complex, no cries for attention; they just like hurt you.

Holmes: previous alpha male of a unnamed Catholic School in Brooklyn, who’s rise to power came by kicking the crap out the previous bully AND his friends and I got the strap for it from the Priest.

My mother after learning of reasons for my strapping and suspension, went to said school called the Priest out and tore him a new one for a suspending me, beating me and allowing the kid to harrass others for YEARS. She knew his family and they ALL were trouble.

His family may have been tough, but we were tougher still. I was never touched again, not by the staff and certainly none of the other students. Though it was predicted I would end up a “nothing”, by the Priest.

Anyway, bullying works because the school turns a blind eye to it. Either because the people in charge were bullies, OR were bullied themselves and are cowed. There’s a difference between sorting out the pecking order and allowing a group of kids to torture another, for YEARS; which is usually the case.

I may have worn the crown, but I was never a bully; but I knew the rules…fighting back is good, but you have to be willing to go toe to toe, get knocked down and get up again and again and again, until everyone involved is bloody. Anything less and they’ll kick your arse, just to watch you fight back like a girl. Of course, that was in the days, before accidentally stepping on someone’s Puma’s could get you shot…

For the most, i would agree that predators like the weak, and not being perceived as weak is a good thing, however what behaviour is considered weak varies. Getting the crap kicked out of you and telling no one, is a sure fire recipe for another ass kicking tomorrow.

No kid should have to run home everyday from school.

YMMV, of course.

8

As a teacher, I would say that I am one of the authority figures that so many are accusing of permitting bullying to take place. Here are a few points for you to consider:

  1. Why don’t we simply expell bullies? Because an expulsion isn’t the casual, easy process many seem to believe it to be. It isn’t done just by a building principal hollering “You’re expelled.” There is due process to be met and in many states the school district is still responsible for providing the expelled student with his state required and guaranteed education. This is all very expensive and so isn’t undertaken lightly.

  2. We are teachers and administrators, not bodyguards. It isn’t physically possible to have staff protecting an individual student all day long, especially in the upper grades where children change classrooms and teachers for every subject. We can only protect them while we can see them.

  3. Students to a large extent still observe omerta. A great deal of what happens between students is never reported to either the victim’s parents or teachers. Often the first we find out about it is when it (finally) erupts violently as mutual combat. This is where the idea that we punish the victim more than the bully comes from. Billy bullies Johnny every day. Johnny tells nobody. Eventually, Johnny can’t take it any more and snaps. He tries to decapitate Billy with a T-square in art class. Both go to the office. Johnny claims he acted because Billy bullied him. Billy denies. The school has no record of complaints by Johnny against Billy and so can act only on the infromation they do have i.e. Johnny attacked Billy.

9

Scumpup this is NOT an attack against you, but are you saying that you have NO idea who’s being picked on in your class right now? You have no idea who the bullies are? No one’s asking for bodyguards, but for Christ’s sakes, we’ve all been kids and know what the code is.

They’re not going to tell you, that they’re being picked on.

However i fail to understand how any teacher can say they never knew Johnny was being picked on. It seems incredible to me. Granted I’m not a teacher, so maybe I’m completely wrong… but it always seemed to me, that the staff still plays by the school yard rules.

My kids seem amazed that we know when they’re up to something…the reason why, is because we were kids once too. We’ve done all the tricks and some they haven’t even thought of yet. So I can’t imagine dealing with a kids and NOT knowing what the pecking order is.

10

Laziness, which you should never discount as a possible explanation. Kicking someone out of school is a hassle for administrators and it’s an extreme step, so they’d rather not take it. As such, they’re morel likely to take minor measures that don’t do anything - often the same ones over and over again.

11

I have anywhere from 25 to 35 kids per class. For the 45 minutes a day that they are in my classroom they are busy with the work I assign them and interact very little with each other. Outside of my classroom, I would beg you to consider that bullies aren’t necessarily stupid. They are smart enough not to do anything right in front of the staff on hall or cafeteria duty.

12

I had this one hellish math class where bullies did do things right in front of the teacher, and I did tell the teacher what they were doing, and she still did Jack Shit.

Thankfully I was transferred out of that class. This teacher supposedly had a good reputation, but she was useless as far as I was concerned. When I told her some of the things that the bullies were doing (under her nose, of course, so I shouldn’t have had to tell her) she just made this funny face and turned away.

13

I think a large part of why it isn’t stopped is because the people in charge (teachers, etc.) grew up in a generation where bullying wasn’t a big deal. In fact, bullying wouldn’t be a big deal now if it weren’t for kids being coddled by their overprotective parents. The main problem isn’t kids being physcially tormented, it’s the fact that being picked on bruises their precious egos.

14

I’m going to bow out of this thread now, because I am not going to argue whether what happened to you in your school is indicative of what occurs daily across the nation. If your stories are factually true, I feel sorry for you. If there is some exaggeration and/or you are still fixated on it, I feel sorry for you on that account as well.

15

In my opinion someone could say anything about a bully, and it could be true.

16

Guilty conscience?

17

Just out of curiosity, what other sociopathic attitudes do you have?

18

And now we sit back and watch as this turns into a Xerox of the Pit thread about bullying, where we saw this same ‘analysis’ repeated once or twice even though it’s absurd.

19

Clever. What exactly do you disagree with? You don’t think many teachers don’t think it’s a big deal? Do you not think kids are being coddled? Do you think bullying results in serious physical injuries in many cases?

20

Sorry, I don’t want to ruin someone’s debate. All I’m saying is that the dangers of bullying are dramatically overstated. A large part of this is due to parents whose kids are soft and can’t deal with anything that damages their fragile egos.