People are saying this 12 year old bully kid deserves to die and that they hope he suffers for the rest of his life, etc. I could see that sentiment if he killed somebody (though it’s still too harsh for a child), but for a bully? Are people really that unforgiving? Should we hang people for stealing bread too?
The kid is a punk but I don’t think he’s beyond redemption. He probably has terrible role models. I think the bigger kid would have been right to have punched him in the stomach or nose once and then forgiven him and got over it.
Hatred is counter-productive. I like to substitute it with other feelings that are more useful. If it is your place to be angry at him, feel anger. If not, you can be annoyed at him, or, if possible, I find pity to be really good. If someone knows you find them pitiable, you have not only substituted a sort of neutral emotion in place of one the is very negative, you have also sort of deprecated them. And that way, you have no moral dilemma over what you feel.
At the time that you are, maybe, but the question is, what will best ensure that that is not the sum total of all that you are or ever could be, especially at that age.
I think anyone who says a bully deserves to die or experience life long suffering are showing they’re just as slave to their irrational minds as the bully in question, even if they might be better at keeping it in check in their day to day lives.
Not wishing death and lifelong suffering on a 12-year old bully has nothing to do with a belief in “childhood innocence”. Of course a bully isn’t innocent. Most of them grow up to be productive members of society though, and limit their bullying to wishing death on 12-year olds not that much different from their own younger selves. Some even gain the self-awareness to look back and regret their actions.
Children not being as responsible for their actions as adults is not a modern invention either. And unless you think humans in general are vicious pack animals, a valid observation, your post becomes self-contradictory.
I forget the exact quote, but the screenwriter for the movie Heathers dismissed the idea of childhood innocence by saying “Some of the most evil people in the world are, like, eight.”
If the child can be shown to understand the consequences of their actions and not care, they should be treated as adults, and hatred is an appropriate emotion. If the kid in the ISIS video could be shown to know what he was doing, for example, then there’s no reason he shouldn’t be hated by decent people.
Take it from someone who was repeatedly thrown out of windows in high school by children as old as 15 who’re fairly ordinary citizens today. Your “logic” is just emotional bullshit.
No, it’s not since I was neither bully nor bullied. I suppose it would depend on your definition of “fairly ordinary” and how well you actually know these people today.
Hate is just an emotional response. I don’t label the feeling itself as either okay or not okay; they simply are. How someone responds to that I do consider a moral choice.
Hate the kid sure. Lashing out wishing them death…not so much.
I think that the strong reactions wishing death and suffering upon current bullies tend to come from people with experience at the hands of previous bullies (i.e. the bullied).
That is, I doubt that the harshest reactions against current bullies come from former bullies. They have never forgiven their former bullies, and that is what they wish for them. (For that matter, most of those former bullies have never apologized sincerely, and some of them would still maintain that no apologies are needed, it was just the natural order, or funny, or whatever.)
But yes, it’s irrational, and most of those people wouldn’t say such things if they thought it would really happen. That’s the interweb for you. It’s easy to shoot your mouth off.
I assume your “no” applies to my labeling of your “logic”. So you derived at it empirically did you? One doesn’t need to be emotionally vested in a topic to use the emotional systems of the brain.
Why is it so hard for you to accept that I have no emotional investment in my comment? Is it just because you cannot prove that bullies grow up to be “normal” people?
Yes, I am just surprised that anyone who bullied beyond, oh?, age 6 or so? didn’t continue to do so as an adult. Maybe you are different because you were also bullied?
As I said earlier, I was neither bully nor bullied so I really don’t know anything more than observing that the bullies I knew as children grew up to continue that routine.
