That’s one way to look at it. Here’s another: It’s about trying to resolve the issue instead of sitting around in a circle-jerk of nodding and compliments. “Here’s something you can do to make it stop” rather than “You’re right, life is hard and people suck, so let’s all wish really hard for those assholes to go away.”
Right. Yet when I offered a suggestion that would cause a behavior change from “Let’s make fun of the fat guy” to “Let’s watch out for the fat guy with a gun” most of the people here probably decided I was a psycho. Right? You did, didn’t you? Don’t lie, you sons of a bitches! I’LL FIX YOU ASSHOLES!!! :eek:
Making it stop, how? Most people are like the first bus driver on the bus, or like many of the passengers—do nothing. Canvas Shoes helped made the problem on the bus stop by pointing the finger at the asshole, and insisting that the asshole be held accountable. Her solution didn’t involve giving the asshole a free pass, and expecting the fat guy to do all the work, now did it?
But yet most people will give the asshole a free pass, and point their fingers at the victim. Hence this rant. Hence all these people who understand the validity of this rant.
[sub]Awesome thing you did, CanvasShoes! :)[/sub]
Good analysis, I hadn’t thought of it in such well lined out terms, but yes. In fact, i’m considering writing a scathing letter to the bus system admin. Stupid woman, rather than pull her lazy little face out of her ass to see what was really happening, she just saw the whole thing as a bother, when it is her responsibility (and states such both on the bus placques, and in the schedules and such) to have monitored and properly reacted to the behaviour the little idiot displayed.
Instead, it interrupted her day. I’ve seen her act similarly when she had to gasp actually get up and assist a man in a wheelchair with the appropriate procedures for onloading and securing the wheelchair. grrr
Yes, that was a situation where it was possible to hold the asshole accountable. In general, though, it isn’t always like that.
If you’re out jogging and the people who drive past are hollering at you, what are you gonna do? Ask the mayor to kick them out of your city? Sit around wishing they weren’t so mean? Good luck. In that situation you can either deal with the insults, or change your own behavior so you don’t attract insults, whether that means taking a different route or losing weight. Pouting and ranting might make you feel better for a while, but they won’t really solve anything.
Why can’t people wish that other people weren’t such assholes?
One can deal with the insults and still be pissed off at the assholes who dole out the insults, right?
How do you propose that gobear change his behavior to not attract insults? I’m sure he’d love to hear your wisdom.
And what if there is no route that won’t have assholes? And what if the thing that is attracting the assholes is something you cannot change, or should not want to change?
So every rant in the Pit must result in action or solution, or else it shouldn’t be said?
Neither will losing weight, or magically becoming “ungeeky” or something. That’s already been covered in this thread. These people will just find someone whose jogging fashion doesnt meet with their approval. Or as I mentioned before, “approve” of the person jogging by way of disgusting sexual suggestions or the like.
Yeah, does that ever work bozos? Have you EVER had a woman turn around and frantically run into your arms when you howl and yell “hey baby how bout a *******”???
Yeah, you’ve got a point, assholes on the move can’t be caught and held accountable. And though the bus asshole was, at least at that one moment, held accountable and “punished”. Honestly? I doubt it did anything other than make me and the older gentleman feel a teensy bit better for standing up for what was right. The little ashole was too stupid to have his momentary punishment act as any sort of beneficial lesson, or to make him reconsider and change his ways any.
Sadly, Farmwoman, imho, has the right of it. If instead, this sort of person DID have to face consequences from several people on the bus, instead of just 2 “old fogies” and one bus driver, he might start changing his ways. But instead, now he probably just thinks of we two “old jerks” as being in the wrong and he’ll likely continue his asshole ways. It is, in a large part, the lack of appropriate socialization in our schools and by too many absentee parents. I hate to sound all “the world’s going to hell in a handbasket”, but damn. It seems as if more and more lately, people are just turning into immoral monsters with no conscience, social or otherwise.
sigh…
I didn’t say you couldn’t. Go for it, if it makes you feel better. But you know what they say: wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which fills up first. Wishing they would stop isn’t going to make it happen.
I’m sure there are plenty of people ready to dispense such wisdom - enough of them to merit all these complaints from you, at least. But I’m not one of them.
Then the problem will never go away. Sad times.
No. I’m saying don’t complain when people offer solutions, even if those solutions involve changing your behavior. You can change yourself; you can’t change everyone else around you.
If you don’t want suggestions, you just want to throw a pity party, then you should either make that clear in your OP so the problem-solving types can steer clear, or take it to a personal blog.
Sure, but it’ll be someone else, right? You can’t eliminate assholes, but you can at least keep yourself from being harassed by them.
Gee, what would we do without you to dispense this wisdom? Do you say this on every thread where people rant?
Cop out. You’re so quick to tell someone like gobear to change, but you have no solutions for him? Do you even know if there are any viable solutions for him, other than him never leaving his house?
I can tell you’re really broken up about it.
Solutions that don’t work, you mean? Because the problem is the assholes, and how they’re not changing because no one holds them accountable. Read Canvas Shoes’ explanation.
:rolleyes: I think we’ve been discussing solutions, and guess what: they don’t involve blaming the victim, or telling the victim to suck it up.
You’re obviously not reading some of what has been said here. Read farmwoman’s post again.
I like what Lewis Carroll wrote in his preface (Afterword?) to Alice in Wonderland. He reflected on what he felt was the unhappy practice of following conventional attitudes. He was referring in particular to the way that many people thought that they had to act serious in church (or on Sundays in general) and be flippant on other days. He saw no good reason why people should not be the same (attitude-wise) on every occasion, in every setting.
I do find that there’s a great deal of pressure on people to comply with conceptions about how to respond (in terms of attitude as much as anything else) depending on the situation. Thus, there’s pressure to overlook anything untoward that one’s bosses do, and to support one’s immediate boss in censure of a colleague, even if it’s not something you actually believe is reasonable or true.
One problem of modern society (and its plethora of pressure groups, charities, etc.) is that this tendency to rationalise bad behaviour away is exacerbated by the compartmentalisation of our lives. It is further exacerbated by the fact that we are often sympathising (through our affiliation to such pressure groups) at a remove. We ourselves don’t know what it is like to be on death row, or to be an endangered species.
What should be condemned unequivocally as bad behaviour can be brushed off with remarkable ease by someone who lacks sympathetic understanding or is just plain ambitious to get on.
Sure, if you pulverize them.
I think it’s naive to assume that changing yourself automatically means that assholes will leave you alone. There’s always something else to pick on. Lose weight? Now you’re a whore or too skinny. Not “geeky” anymore? OMG! You’re so weak! Or you’re a ‘wannabe’. Once assholes can see that you change if you’re tormented, then they’ll just think that they can easily mold you.
Just because someone feels that they shouldn’t have to change, doesn’t mean they deserve harassment. Don’t like someone? How hard is to LEAVE THE PERSON THE FUCK ALONE?
Just the ones where people seem to think wallowing in pity is a way to get anything done.
I haven’t told anyone to change, as you well know. I’m merely defending people who offer solutions; what you call “putting the spotlight on the victim”, I call being realistic about what can and can’t be done to solve an immediate problem.
I read it the first time, and after reading it again, I still agree. Schools are a terrible place for kids’ social development, and I proudly support reform whenever education issues are on the ballot.
But still, blaming schools for turning out assholes won’t make the assholes go away. It’s definitely something we should talk about and act on to prevent future generations from turning out wrong, but it won’t help anyone who still has to deal with the current generation of assholes.
See? That’s offering a solution. 
Well, not everyone is harassed equally. There must be some reason for that, don’t you think?
You’re being rather dense. No one on this thread has been “wallowing in pity”. Anger, yes, frustration for the assholes that got away, yes. Stories of assholes that didn’t get away, yes.
Ranting does NOT = wallowing in pity. And on that note, if the supposed “wallowing in pity” is bothering you sooooo much, why are you participating in this thread? You’ve had your say, you were roundly disagreed with. Why continue saying the same thing?
People who offer solutions can’t be “defended”, since the “charge” that was lobbied at them is true. That of their solutions being useless or worse if they entail the victim changing in order to prevent harrassment. This is an illogical and untrue sentiment.
1.) Changing to order doesn’t solve the problem. You lose weight, the harrasser finds something new.
2.) Changing to order “rewards” the harrasser. It works for HIM, which causes him or her to escalate. That’s how bullies work.
3.) And that IS what is going on here, is bullying. And that, all by its little selfy is reason enough for people to take notice and try to do the right thing to prevent it.
No, this is true, and it wasn’t brought up in order TO change the current generation of assholes, but merely to explain them. And in explaining and using them as examples, maybe start the ball rolling in preventing bullying in the future.
Yeah, because bullies aren’t intelligent, or original enough to think of something to pick on unless it’s obvious enough to slap them upside the head. Like weight, geekiness, looks and so on.
AND, their lack of originality and intelligence is compounded due to those things being deemed “okay” to discriminate against by Americans in general. Thanks to our media, and general mentality that “beautiful” = good, “ugly” = bad.
There are about 36% of Americans who are overweight. The recidivism rate, even for Atkins is at around the 85-95% mark. Obviously being bullied about one’s “difference” isn’t a logical or effective solution.
You’re right, that was uncalled for.
Roundly? I didn’t realize you and yosemite were the only ones in this thread.
Maybe if he has something against you personally, but I thought we were talking about harassment in public by random assholes - the passing cars mentioned in the OP, for example, or the kid on the bus.
If we’re talking about someone who latches onto you individually, and continues to hound you for whatever he can think of no matter what you do, then that’s an entirely different breed of asshole. I agree that the only thing to do in that situation is to hold him personally accountable, and get school officials, bosses, or police involved if necessary.
Earlier, you said “changing to order doesn’t solve the problem” because the harasser will find something new. Now you’re saying they only pick on people with certain traits that stick out. Are these two different groups of harassers? If not, which is it?
Do you know of any countries where ugly is good and beautiful is bad? I don’t see how this one can be blamed on American media or culture.
If I may offer some suggestions here -
I believe that folks are not necessarily talking about the same type of situation, and perhaps if you clarify types of situations it may help.
Sitaution A:
Random assholerly - absolute stranger hollers some negative crap, the recipient is only interacting (if that’s the suitable word) for a brief span of time, not likely to encounter same asshole again.
In this situation, while it may be true that some types of folks may be the recipients of such assholery more often than others (due to a weight problem, bad skin, or whatever) it can also be said that -
- such an asshole does not need a ‘reason’ to be an asshole, and may indeed holler out some abuse to virtually anyone.
- there is no particular long term solution to this since ther seems to be no shortage of assholes in the universe.
- any particular individual may indeed lessen the potential for such abuse by loosing weight or whatever, but it will never make the problem go away entirely (since assholes seem to procreate faster than the speed of light).
So in this case, a particular individual may choose to alter (if possible) their situtation by changing their circumstances to lessen the possability of random assholerly, but all should be aware that such random assholerly occurs even when there are no outward reasons for same. IOW, change has potential for reducing (but not eliminating) random assholerly, but such random assholerly is normally not a significant portion of ones daily routine. Note, too, that it is possible to increase your potential for routine assholerly by doing such things as singing Barry Manilow tunes while wearing hot pink satin hotpants with ruby red clown shoes and a green feather boa.
Situation B:
Specific assholery: In this case, the asshole is someone that is part of your daily life and as such unavoidable (at least temporarily). In this case, again while it is true that some conditions may attract the attention of such an asshole more than other conditions, we can note that changing the condition of the recipient does not change the assholic nature of the asshole. Therefore, the recipient may indeed loose weight or find a new skin care product or whatever, but the asshole may choose then to randomly target another aspect of the person. In these cases, once again, we cannot change the asshole, and depending on the nature of said asshole changing the target (if you will) of abuse may or may not alter the amount of abuse one suffers.
Note that in this situation, the power really lies within the asshole - they may be a target specific jerk (only harassing fat folks or short folks or whatever), or they may be an equal opportunity jerk, choosing to harrass individuals, refusing to let go despite conditional changes by their target.
Therefore, in this type of situation, altering/changing the aspect that ahs been targeted may if it’s a “Nice” asshole, reduce your harassment, but if it’s a “not nice” asshole, it won’t matter.
So, in the random case, attempting to change the aspect being targeted may, might, sometimes have a reducing effect on the frequency of being targeted, but the reduction of frequency of being targeted is likely to be not significant. (you’d only be reducing those case specific random targeting).
In the case of a specific asshole w/whom you have to share part of your routine days, the attempt to reduce the target of attention will only have an effect if that asshole is a case specific, “nice” asshole. But in that case, yes, it will have an effect. However, IRL, they don’t wear labels so you don’t know if it’s a case specific ‘nice’ asshole or the other kind, and if it’s the other kind, they’ll only find some other target on you to be an asshole about, and you’ll have given them incentive to do so, since they see that you respond to such assholerly.
There’s little you can do to make these assholery problems stop, but there are ways to “manage” the situation. Disclaimer: be warned - there are a lot of psychos out there. I’ve been assaulted and had a weapon pulled on me for refusing to see someone bullied, judge each situation carefully. I am not accountable if something goes wrong, I’m simply relating my own experience.
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some moron throws stuff at you from the safety of their cars? It might be useful to keep some rocks in your pocket for the occasion (and be ready to vanish), OR take down their licence plate and report them to the police (but don’t do both!)
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Some idiot kid out to prove his manhood harrasses you or someone else in a bus or similar environment, and no one seems willing to do anything? Stand up to the little shit, give him lip right back then, the moment he so much as brushes against you, gestures menacingly, or vocalizes an intent to cause you harm, hit him with a surprise throat jab, follow-up with some opportunistic strikes, and as soon as he is on the floor kick seven kinds of hell out of him - all in the name of self defence. There is little else as gratifying as seeing the tears and mucus run down an arrogant asshole’s battered face. For goodness’ sake take a self-defence class and practice on a target before attempting this, and don’t try it with someone who looks like he can kick your ass.
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Make a joke of it all, at the expense of the offending shit of course. Joke about anything that springs to mind – if the offender is on the short side, tell him there is no need to overcompensate for being a little guy. If he is trying to play macho, tell him you are deeply sorry he is unable to satisfy a woman and is forced to vent his frustration against strangers. If he flips the finger, the demonstration of IQ response is always a good one. This kind of entertaining response seems to embolden bystanders and shake them out of their Kitty Genovese stupor – the last thing these shits want is to be laughed at, if you can accomplish that you’ll make them feel like crap about themselves.
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Be dismissive and highly technical, thus confouding the offender’s peanut-sized brain. Proclaim you have no time for this nonsense and recite (or make up) some law whereby the little shit is liable for fines and imprisonment as a result of his behaviour, then identify some witnesses (this gives the illusion that you are recruiting allies and outnumbering him) and advise him to remove himself from the situation before he gets into real trouble. Point out the premises are under electronic surveillance even if they aren’t and he will be identified if necessary. Talk bigger than his prognathous antisocial outlook allows him to and he may just scurry away like the diseased rat he is.
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Learn the Vulcan neck pinch and follow Spock’s fine example in Star Trek IV. I’m still working on that one, but I am told it is possible to knock someone out with a blow to the side of the neck.
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Walk away and be the better person, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later the little shit is bound to run into someone who will kick seven kinds of hell out of him. I should add that this is the preferred, mature option…
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Move to a friendlier locale. You’d be surprised how little this kind of thing happens in civilized countries or regions.
As CanvasShoes pointed out, this isn’t a case of ‘blame the school’, but rather a commentary on the failed experiment of institutional socialization we’ve been running for the past 100 odd years. I think schools are a terrible place to pass on our social values to the next generation and would like to see a shift to short school days of academic rigor supplemented by real-world immersion programs where children will learn social conventions as they always have, from the elders in the culture.
But that, as you say, is a future solution, so I have to jump back in and tell you about some exciting programs up and running in many schools right now. There’s a push to bring real character ed into the classroom. (real, as opposed to touchy-feely I’m-okay-you’re-okay types of character education we often associate with the term.) One of the pillars of the new programs is bystander responsibility and the message that standing around doing nothing while a peer is suffering cruel bullies is the moral equivalent of bullying. Also that social exclusion is a form of bullying and won’t be tolerated.
This last point strikes a chord with me, since the horrors of social exclusion are something I’ve done some soul-searching on since my school days (about a million years ago) I was neither a bully nor a victim of exclusion. What I did was far worse, in my opinion. I sat quietly and watched as one or two of my peers were systematically tortured throughout their long school careers…and for no apparent reason that I can remember. All it would have taken was for a couple of people like me to set our lunch trays down next to the victim once or twice a week. I could have really changed someone’s life experience if I hadn’t been indoctrinated in the school culture code that forbids such acts. But I was, and I didn’t.
To the assholes: Yes, there will always be assholes in society. In a civilized society, we recognize the assholes and call them what they are. They suffer social consequences for being assholes and thus their behaviors are diminished either by extinction or distance. But in a society suffering from school hangover, we ignore the assholes and do our best to avoid their attention. Nice. Sometimes we even go so far as to suggest that the victim has it coming.
Indeed. This mentality of “Well, what did you do?” when dealing with someone who has been harrassed by an asshole, well, it doesn’t help. And this sort of veiled question:
Yeah, that’s really helpful. And Canvas Shoes already answered why some people get targetting more than others.
Unless the person is behaving in an extreme way (like wring’s hypothetical Barry Manilow-singing person with the boa), there often really isn’t any good reason—or at least not a reason that will make any difference.
An example that sort of fits: Years ago I was travelling on the Greyhound bus. Crowded bus, late at night, everyone was tired and stressed. I got the last seat, but the woman in the seat next to me had put a big box at the feet of my seat. There’s no way I could sit there—no room for my feet—but the woman wouldn’t move the box. I went to the bus driver, told him my problem, and with some reluctance (I think I had to tell him twice about my problem before he’d do anything) he had her box put in the luggage compartment.
She bitched and griped and proceeded to tell me that the reason she couldn’t keep her box was because I was too fat. But I wasn’t too fat for the seat (I was at somewhat goddess-like proportions at that time—curvy, etc.). The problem was that I had legs and the box was where my legs needed to be. But according to this asshole, it was all about me being too fat. Blah blah blah too fat blah blah blah. But had I been able to instantly lose weight, it wouldn’t have changed anything and her box would have still had to go. But my weight was an easy target so this asshole used that as the basis for her insults. Had I not had goddess-like curves, she would have found something else to bitch about—because she was an asshole.