I thought my bully deserved an awful life. But then he had one.
February 22, 2018 4:24 PM Subscribe
Bullies who experience consequences are sometimes shocked into changing their ways. I wonder if the bully described in this article might have had a less awful life if he wasn’t constantly permitted to get away with being vile.
posted by faineg at 4:58 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by faineg at 4:58 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
okay just out of curiosity just now
I looked up a little dude from middle school
he was kind of a bully but mostly a brat and I wondered did he ever turn a corner
welp
he's been dead for sixteen years
I, uh, I feel some kind of way about this
posted by Countess Elena at 5:03 PM on February 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
I looked up a little dude from middle school
he was kind of a bully but mostly a brat and I wondered did he ever turn a corner
welp
he's been dead for sixteen years
I, uh, I feel some kind of way about this
posted by Countess Elena at 5:03 PM on February 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
cod-Satanists
I am v v curious about these Satanic fish mongers, they sound like an interesting crowd
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:05 PM on February 22, 2018 [38 favorites]
I am v v curious about these Satanic fish mongers, they sound like an interesting crowd
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:05 PM on February 22, 2018 [38 favorites]
I had forgotten about the only individual bully I remember from school until #MeToo happened and he was called out, by name and with screenshots of emails, as having sexually harassed at least one female colleague in his role as head of his company. So.
posted by Lexica at 5:06 PM on February 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
posted by Lexica at 5:06 PM on February 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
My emotionally abusive ex had some pretty horrible things happen to her, including emotional and physical abuse, quite possibly sexual abuse though I don't know for sure. She had PTSD and depression and problems with drugs. She also treated me like shit, insisting all the while that she wasn't being a bully. That it really hurt her when I made her feel like a bully.
The shitty things that happen to you may be reasons why you do shitty things to other people, but they never excuse it. They never make it ok. I poured myself into trying to help her, support her, understand her. It was never enough.
I have no idea what has happened to her. To be honest, I would not be unhappy if she were dead, even if she had died in unpleasant circumstances. I am not about to look her up to try to find out.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:07 PM on February 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
The shitty things that happen to you may be reasons why you do shitty things to other people, but they never excuse it. They never make it ok. I poured myself into trying to help her, support her, understand her. It was never enough.
I have no idea what has happened to her. To be honest, I would not be unhappy if she were dead, even if she had died in unpleasant circumstances. I am not about to look her up to try to find out.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:07 PM on February 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about "will no one think of the bullies, they are all sad pandas". The bullying that has really stayed with me was perpetrated by the richest, most popular kids in school, many of whom have gone on to the sort of pointless rich person careers that ran in their families. One of them used to park the Mercedes that he got for his birthday in front of my house - I lived sort of close to the school, but not close enough that there was any real use in parking there - just so that I'd be aware that I was too poor to have one. (An error on his part - I don't like cars and never wanted one.) His dad was some kind of big deal stockbroker.
I mean, those were the kids whose bullying was actively enabled by teachers - what's their excuse? The teachers - reasonably well off union professionals at a high school in a nice suburb - actively participated in bullying the poor and weird kids in the honors program. If I saw anything like that go down today, I would be in the principal's office so fast there'd be a sonic boom in my wake, but it was a different time.
Bullying by working class kids was often physically scarier but not really as horrible. It wasn't horizontal because I was about two kids up from the very bottom of the school pecking order and the poorest, pimpliest kid from the wrongest side of the tracks could bully me with impunity, but I understood that things weren't real great for those kids and I don't hold much against them.
We always want to believe that kids do mean things because they have sad lives. Plenty of kids - like plenty of adults - are cruel because they have the power to get away with it and they think it's fun. It would be comforting to believe that every single one of the rich white straight boys who very aggressively bullied me were all enduring great suffering in private life, but given their number that seems statistically unlikely.
Also, when I was teaching, one of the things they warned you about was that teachers tend to like bullies better than victims because of the poor-woobie effect. They didn't call it that, but they did tell us that very often teachers would get really invested in "fixing" the bullies, seeing them as victims, seeing things from their point of view and therefore neglecting the kids who were actually being attacked.
When I read this article, it struck me as another instance of the "taking away people's privileges is seen as attacking them" thing - as if taking bullying seriously and stopping the kids who do it is somehow an attack on those kids which puts them at the same kind of risk as the kids they hurt.
posted by Frowner at 5:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [139 favorites]
I mean, those were the kids whose bullying was actively enabled by teachers - what's their excuse? The teachers - reasonably well off union professionals at a high school in a nice suburb - actively participated in bullying the poor and weird kids in the honors program. If I saw anything like that go down today, I would be in the principal's office so fast there'd be a sonic boom in my wake, but it was a different time.
Bullying by working class kids was often physically scarier but not really as horrible. It wasn't horizontal because I was about two kids up from the very bottom of the school pecking order and the poorest, pimpliest kid from the wrongest side of the tracks could bully me with impunity, but I understood that things weren't real great for those kids and I don't hold much against them.
We always want to believe that kids do mean things because they have sad lives. Plenty of kids - like plenty of adults - are cruel because they have the power to get away with it and they think it's fun. It would be comforting to believe that every single one of the rich white straight boys who very aggressively bullied me were all enduring great suffering in private life, but given their number that seems statistically unlikely.
Also, when I was teaching, one of the things they warned you about was that teachers tend to like bullies better than victims because of the poor-woobie effect. They didn't call it that, but they did tell us that very often teachers would get really invested in "fixing" the bullies, seeing them as victims, seeing things from their point of view and therefore neglecting the kids who were actually being attacked.
When I read this article, it struck me as another instance of the "taking away people's privileges is seen as attacking them" thing - as if taking bullying seriously and stopping the kids who do it is somehow an attack on those kids which puts them at the same kind of risk as the kids they hurt.
posted by Frowner at 5:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [139 favorites]
Sorry, trying to make me feel sympathy for those who mercilessly prey on their weaker peers simply because someone thinks they might have it rough too ain't gonna happen.
Absolutely none of her apologia for bullies gives them any right at all to do what they do. They are, in fact, just being jerks, and almost all of them repeat that behavior over and over and over again, which is far different than someone lashing out after having a rough go.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:21 PM on February 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
Absolutely none of her apologia for bullies gives them any right at all to do what they do. They are, in fact, just being jerks, and almost all of them repeat that behavior over and over and over again, which is far different than someone lashing out after having a rough go.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:21 PM on February 22, 2018 [27 favorites]
I’m more and more convinced that there’s nothing more important right now than tearing down the patriarchy and teaching boys to deal with their feelings.
posted by advicepig at 5:24 PM on February 22, 2018 [101 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 5:24 PM on February 22, 2018 [101 favorites]
Yeah, most of the people I thought of back then were guys who engaged in what we now call sexual harassment but back then I was not even supposed to complain about. I am okay with judging them for that and not feeling sorry for them.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [21 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [21 favorites]
... teaching boys to deal with their feelings.
For real. I grew up thinking little boys were just born bad, and I was pretty well told as much by the grownups around me ("you're already mature, they'll take years to grow up"). Then I grew up, and my friends started having children, and I met these little boys who were so sweet. And they stayed sweet, too, because I am friends with woke people who put in hard work to raise good boys.
Here's something I've noticed about threads about bullying, wherever they happen on the internet. We all have to tell our own stories. I know I do; I just did. It's like a compulsion. We need to tell the stories nobody was listening to when we were kids.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:30 PM on February 22, 2018 [87 favorites]
For real. I grew up thinking little boys were just born bad, and I was pretty well told as much by the grownups around me ("you're already mature, they'll take years to grow up"). Then I grew up, and my friends started having children, and I met these little boys who were so sweet. And they stayed sweet, too, because I am friends with woke people who put in hard work to raise good boys.
Here's something I've noticed about threads about bullying, wherever they happen on the internet. We all have to tell our own stories. I know I do; I just did. It's like a compulsion. We need to tell the stories nobody was listening to when we were kids.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:30 PM on February 22, 2018 [87 favorites]
When I was about four or so there was a neighbor kid named Jeff who’d show up at our house asking if I could play. I’d go out to meet him and within minutes we’d be in a fight, rolling around in the dust of a vacant lot. Then he’d calm down and we’d play peacefully, sometimes with other kids. I’d ask my mother to say I wasn’t home when he came over but she’d insist he was a nice boy from whom I had nothing to fear. It wasn’t really bullying, but it wasn’t normal friendly behavior either. I had a lot of bruises and for many years would grimace at the memory of my old “friend.”
We moved away when I was nine. Nearly thirty years later, one of our former neighbors hosted a reunion of everyone who’d lived on their street. I looked forward to the event and imagined myself seeing Jeff again, maybe giving him a nice pop in the nose as long-deserved retribution.
At the reunion I mentioned Jeff to another former neighbor my age, someone who’d grown up next to Jeff’s family. She looked down sadly. “We used to hear Jeff’s Dad beating him every night,” she said. “He would scream and scream.”
Jeff didn’t come to the reunion, but if he had, I would have hugged him. Hard.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:31 PM on February 22, 2018 [50 favorites]
We moved away when I was nine. Nearly thirty years later, one of our former neighbors hosted a reunion of everyone who’d lived on their street. I looked forward to the event and imagined myself seeing Jeff again, maybe giving him a nice pop in the nose as long-deserved retribution.
At the reunion I mentioned Jeff to another former neighbor my age, someone who’d grown up next to Jeff’s family. She looked down sadly. “We used to hear Jeff’s Dad beating him every night,” she said. “He would scream and scream.”
Jeff didn’t come to the reunion, but if he had, I would have hugged him. Hard.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:31 PM on February 22, 2018 [50 favorites]
I remember reading about Emily Bazelon's book ages ago on Slate, I didn't realize it was that old. It's a shame in some ways to only realize as an adult how awful some children live. I grew up in one of those townhouse complexes where little gangs of kids were common and adults were never around. I didn't realize how lucky we were to have parents that were over-involved instead of under-involved.
My junior high bully - she ended up in prison, but working for the prison as a guard, so I guess it swings both ways.
I have mentioned it before, but if the opportunity presents itself to mentor a young person, go for it - an hour or two a week will make a lifetime of difference to a young person.
posted by Calzephyr at 5:33 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
My junior high bully - she ended up in prison, but working for the prison as a guard, so I guess it swings both ways.
I have mentioned it before, but if the opportunity presents itself to mentor a young person, go for it - an hour or two a week will make a lifetime of difference to a young person.
posted by Calzephyr at 5:33 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
The bullying that has really stayed with me was perpetrated by the richest, most popular kids in school, many of whom have gone on to the sort of pointless rich person careers that ran in their families.
Yeah, it would be nice if this were always the case - I'd certainly feel better if it were. But my worst bullies were all boys of ethnic minority groups, along with one working-class white boy. Even at the time, it was painfully obvious that they bullied others because they had no other way to gain social status in my preppy high school. The rich white boys and girls mostly ignored me because I had nothing to offer them, not even as a bullying target. But Parham, Keivon, and Nikhil were my daily tormenters, and it was because they had no other outlet.
They're all doing fine as adults, by the way, and none of them ever wanted to date me, like my dad assured me they would.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:53 PM on February 22, 2018 [17 favorites]
Yeah, it would be nice if this were always the case - I'd certainly feel better if it were. But my worst bullies were all boys of ethnic minority groups, along with one working-class white boy. Even at the time, it was painfully obvious that they bullied others because they had no other way to gain social status in my preppy high school. The rich white boys and girls mostly ignored me because I had nothing to offer them, not even as a bullying target. But Parham, Keivon, and Nikhil were my daily tormenters, and it was because they had no other outlet.
They're all doing fine as adults, by the way, and none of them ever wanted to date me, like my dad assured me they would.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:53 PM on February 22, 2018 [17 favorites]
The author survived a brain tumor and being hacked and banned on Twitter, but she’s writing about some kid from her childhood? I really don’t get it.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:59 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 5:59 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
the occasional bullying revenge video gets online. there's something extremely fucked up about a bunch of grown adults going "hell yeah!!!" because they saw one little kid slug another in the face.
some bullies do it for understandable reasons, some do it just for the pleasure of hurting other people. or both. it may or may not be worth trying to have empathy for them. they're children though, and we aren't anymore.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:59 PM on February 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
some bullies do it for understandable reasons, some do it just for the pleasure of hurting other people. or both. it may or may not be worth trying to have empathy for them. they're children though, and we aren't anymore.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:59 PM on February 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
What strikes me is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of taxonomy of bullying - it gets discussed as though all bullies are the same, like bullying by a social peer or someone who is marginalized in some way comes from the same place as bullying by someone who has a lot of social power compared to the victim; or as though systemic racist bullying comes from the same place as kids picking fights.
I surmise, too, that bullying varies by school because school ecosystems vary. At my school, popular kids did do a lot of bullying, but I assume that at other kinds of schools that wouldn't happen.
And no one wants to talk about the ways that misogynist bullying varies. I had an classmate in junior high who, like me, was kind of fat. Unlike me, she was very pretty. We both got a lot of really horribly and damaging sexualized bullying, but it was different types. No one attacked me because they had ambivalent feelings of sexual attraction - the usual narrative - they bullied me because I was disgustingly unbeautlful and unfeminine. Talking to people about this fact and having them not believe me was absolutely crazy-making - trying to convince adults that I understood the social ecosystem and they did not, that was the worst.
Ugh, bad memories. You know what? Let others pity my bullies. My bullies harmed me irrevocably and altered the course of my life for the worse. People were really cruel to me, and I spent quite a lot of young adulthood around people who wanted to minimize how damaging my experiences were. If folks who were not bullied want to get into the assisting-sad-ex-bullies industry, that's their apres-midi, but as god is my witness it won't be mine.
posted by Frowner at 6:04 PM on February 22, 2018 [87 favorites]
I surmise, too, that bullying varies by school because school ecosystems vary. At my school, popular kids did do a lot of bullying, but I assume that at other kinds of schools that wouldn't happen.
And no one wants to talk about the ways that misogynist bullying varies. I had an classmate in junior high who, like me, was kind of fat. Unlike me, she was very pretty. We both got a lot of really horribly and damaging sexualized bullying, but it was different types. No one attacked me because they had ambivalent feelings of sexual attraction - the usual narrative - they bullied me because I was disgustingly unbeautlful and unfeminine. Talking to people about this fact and having them not believe me was absolutely crazy-making - trying to convince adults that I understood the social ecosystem and they did not, that was the worst.
Ugh, bad memories. You know what? Let others pity my bullies. My bullies harmed me irrevocably and altered the course of my life for the worse. People were really cruel to me, and I spent quite a lot of young adulthood around people who wanted to minimize how damaging my experiences were. If folks who were not bullied want to get into the assisting-sad-ex-bullies industry, that's their apres-midi, but as god is my witness it won't be mine.
posted by Frowner at 6:04 PM on February 22, 2018 [87 favorites]
could you imagine if, just once, someone really got in Trump's face and yelled and screamed and told him what a piece of shit he is, and no lackeys got in the way?
I would be willing to bet he's heard those sentiments from one or more of his spouses, among others.
The responses to this article really drive home how difficult it is to empathize with those who we perceive as evil. Yet it is important to do so. Whether it is a school shooter, a serial killer, a genocidal dictator, or any other person who does horrible, often inexcusable, things, it is important to remember that they are still human beings. It is much easier to dismiss people who do bad things as somehow not being human (monsters) than to try to understand how they ended up where they did. But it is only by learning about them and why they ended up where they did that we can work to divert others from following the same path.
posted by TedW at 6:08 PM on February 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
I would be willing to bet he's heard those sentiments from one or more of his spouses, among others.
The responses to this article really drive home how difficult it is to empathize with those who we perceive as evil. Yet it is important to do so. Whether it is a school shooter, a serial killer, a genocidal dictator, or any other person who does horrible, often inexcusable, things, it is important to remember that they are still human beings. It is much easier to dismiss people who do bad things as somehow not being human (monsters) than to try to understand how they ended up where they did. But it is only by learning about them and why they ended up where they did that we can work to divert others from following the same path.
posted by TedW at 6:08 PM on February 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
The biggest bully at my high school was a skinny blonde girl who's parents were very well off, she owned multiple horses is now I believe an Oxford-educated veterinarian. She was bursting with unending, focused, vicious, seething hatred for anyone fat, poor, odd looking. As mentioned upthread it's comforting to believe the shitty people in our lives had shitty backgrounds and it's something we can be big enough to realise, overcome and 'forgive' them for as adults, but IME that's not usually how it works in reality.
The boys in my class who knocked the disabled boy around before every geography lesson (six against one, as well) all came from *nice* families too. I'm sure they sleep like babies at night. I know they don't feel bad about any of it even now bc unfortunately I have connections connected to them on social media.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't feel bad at all if bad things befell these people, who seem as awful now as they were as teenagers, seemed to have learned nothing, changed nothing. I don't feel sorry for the people who followed the girl in my class around who's dad had just died, calling her a 'bastard' all day every day until she left. Or the boy who found out a girl had been raped and used to laugh in her face about it every class we had. They're doing fine in life and don't need or want my sympathy anyway.
posted by everydayanewday at 6:10 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
The boys in my class who knocked the disabled boy around before every geography lesson (six against one, as well) all came from *nice* families too. I'm sure they sleep like babies at night. I know they don't feel bad about any of it even now bc unfortunately I have connections connected to them on social media.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't feel bad at all if bad things befell these people, who seem as awful now as they were as teenagers, seemed to have learned nothing, changed nothing. I don't feel sorry for the people who followed the girl in my class around who's dad had just died, calling her a 'bastard' all day every day until she left. Or the boy who found out a girl had been raped and used to laugh in her face about it every class we had. They're doing fine in life and don't need or want my sympathy anyway.
posted by everydayanewday at 6:10 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
#nelsonmuntz
posted by gottabefunky at 6:11 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 6:11 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Maybe this is different, but when I was growing up one of my parents made some really unfortunate choices when it came to partners. I was essentially bullied and otherwise abused at home from ages 4-15. It shaped a great deal of how I deal with the world and my interpersonal relationships, stuff that I've been working on since 16-current day.
One of the abusers lives went completely sideways. They came from an abusive home and heroin addiction, and after they left they dealt with weight issues so they had a tummy tuck surgery that ended up getting botched. The nerves in their abdominal wall had gone haywire, leaving them in constant crippling pain. They lost their job that they spent 10 years working towards, and had to move in with their parents where they'll live on disability indefinitely. The parents were aging ungracefully. The father became stricken with alzheimers and dementia. He became physically violent and paranoid, and when he finally died the mother became stricken with the same condition. The abuser can't afford to send them to a home, so they're stuck being the primary caretaker for a mother who doesn't recognize them, lives in fear, and hates them. No friends, no leaving the house, just stuck there. In pain. Caring for a parent who's a fearful, mean husk of their former self.
My current position: Never in my wildest childhood dreams would I have wished such a hell on them. No matter how awful they were as a person. No one should have to endure that. I feel sad for them.
But that position, is that healthy? Or is that a kind of weakness and sickness? Is the healthy thing to say "Fuck them, they deserve no sympathy"?
posted by Philipschall at 6:16 PM on February 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
One of the abusers lives went completely sideways. They came from an abusive home and heroin addiction, and after they left they dealt with weight issues so they had a tummy tuck surgery that ended up getting botched. The nerves in their abdominal wall had gone haywire, leaving them in constant crippling pain. They lost their job that they spent 10 years working towards, and had to move in with their parents where they'll live on disability indefinitely. The parents were aging ungracefully. The father became stricken with alzheimers and dementia. He became physically violent and paranoid, and when he finally died the mother became stricken with the same condition. The abuser can't afford to send them to a home, so they're stuck being the primary caretaker for a mother who doesn't recognize them, lives in fear, and hates them. No friends, no leaving the house, just stuck there. In pain. Caring for a parent who's a fearful, mean husk of their former self.
My current position: Never in my wildest childhood dreams would I have wished such a hell on them. No matter how awful they were as a person. No one should have to endure that. I feel sad for them.
But that position, is that healthy? Or is that a kind of weakness and sickness? Is the healthy thing to say "Fuck them, they deserve no sympathy"?
posted by Philipschall at 6:16 PM on February 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
There was this girl in my class. She was thin, blonde, from a very conservative, upper class family. She had 6 sisters and they all had names with 'María' in them (she mas 'María Jesús', which is typical in Chile for upper class super catholic people, as is having a ton of kids).
She was a classic mean girl, bullying everybody around her for being poor, fat, weird, whatever, giving people nicknames, etc., feeling like the queen bee.
Anywho, her father got into some sort of financial trouble and lost most of his money. The 7 Marías where pulled out of our private school and had to go mingle with the public school hoi polloi.
To add to this, in Chile in your second-to-last year of school your class goes on a trip, out of the country if you can afford it. We were going to Argentina. This is a big deal, you spend years planning it, doing raffles to raise money, etc. She'd been pulled from our school a few months before the trip, which is devastating.
They came to tell us that she'd lost her money so couldn't afford to go, plus she wasn't in our school anymore, but the parents had agreed that if we wanted to they'd chip in and pay for her trip and the school would let her go with us, as long as we were OK with it. So we voted.
The 'no fucking way' vote won.
So, somebody had to go tell her that she wasn't going. Three hands shot up at the speed of vengeance, including my best friend's. They went over to her house just to see her face when they gave her the news.
I voted against her, and I've always felt a bit of regret.
Regret that I wasn't one of the ones who went to tell her she wasn't going.
posted by signal at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2018 [51 favorites]
She was a classic mean girl, bullying everybody around her for being poor, fat, weird, whatever, giving people nicknames, etc., feeling like the queen bee.
Anywho, her father got into some sort of financial trouble and lost most of his money. The 7 Marías where pulled out of our private school and had to go mingle with the public school hoi polloi.
To add to this, in Chile in your second-to-last year of school your class goes on a trip, out of the country if you can afford it. We were going to Argentina. This is a big deal, you spend years planning it, doing raffles to raise money, etc. She'd been pulled from our school a few months before the trip, which is devastating.
They came to tell us that she'd lost her money so couldn't afford to go, plus she wasn't in our school anymore, but the parents had agreed that if we wanted to they'd chip in and pay for her trip and the school would let her go with us, as long as we were OK with it. So we voted.
The 'no fucking way' vote won.
So, somebody had to go tell her that she wasn't going. Three hands shot up at the speed of vengeance, including my best friend's. They went over to her house just to see her face when they gave her the news.
I voted against her, and I've always felt a bit of regret.
Regret that I wasn't one of the ones who went to tell her she wasn't going.
posted by signal at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2018 [51 favorites]
I've encountered both types of bullies. The worst bully I ever dealt with had a pretty miserable home life, and it wouldn't surprise me if being terrible to other people was her big "FUCK YOU" to the world. There were others that seemed perfectly happy. Of course, they could have had secret pain - but like others in this thread I don't think that's necessary to explain why some people enjoy hurting others.
I still have sympathy for all of them, though, because they were children. I bet some of them didn't change much and grew up to be awful people, but regardless, until that happened, they were still children.
I'm pretty reluctant to write off children. I think society as a whole should be pretty reluctant to write off children. Deciding that children who do bad things are just irredeemably bad has led us to some pretty dark places.
If people who have been severely bullied can't feel sympathy - that's fair. But I don't think that's something that we should all be striving for. I also don't think considering where bullies are coming from (and where they're going) means you don't take bullying seriously, or don't prioritize protecting the victims of bullying first.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
I still have sympathy for all of them, though, because they were children. I bet some of them didn't change much and grew up to be awful people, but regardless, until that happened, they were still children.
I'm pretty reluctant to write off children. I think society as a whole should be pretty reluctant to write off children. Deciding that children who do bad things are just irredeemably bad has led us to some pretty dark places.
If people who have been severely bullied can't feel sympathy - that's fair. But I don't think that's something that we should all be striving for. I also don't think considering where bullies are coming from (and where they're going) means you don't take bullying seriously, or don't prioritize protecting the victims of bullying first.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:22 PM on February 22, 2018 [35 favorites]
Most of the bullies of my youth have been 20 years or more. As an adult I've found some folk who still won't back down, and in the main, a direct serious threat kind of sets their boundaries. It's a ride move tho',but I've seen about three people become nice after this action - I suppose they grew up without behavioural boundaries.
posted by unearthed at 6:26 PM on February 22, 2018
posted by unearthed at 6:26 PM on February 22, 2018
See, what gets me about this article is the idea that there are only two positions - "my bully is a human too, how sad their life must be, I forgive them and recognize that their life is far, far sadder than my own" and "I wish my bully would die slowly of cancer while living in a pit of voles". And it seems to assume that no one else dies at 25 except bullies in drug deals gone wrong, as if the universe only deals that stuff out to people whose lives are off the rails because of personal suffering. And as if personal suffering turns everyone cruel, which it does not.
Plenty of blameless people die at 25, and we wouldn't wish it on them either - like, I don't want anyone to have a tragically foreshortened life, or chronic pain, or anything, really, although I'd prefer it if my bullies hadn't risen to manage hedge funds and so on, and I'd prefer to feel confident that they weren't raising little nests of replica bullies.
Mainly I don't care. Mainly I just never want to see or hear of them again, and hope I develop the strength to stop reading about bullying so that I can get out of the habit of thinking about it. I suppose that if I have any hope about it at all, I hope that they never find out a single thing about me and my life now.
My point being that the alternative to "I wish my bullies would die in a fire" doesn't need to be "poor little woobies, their lives must be so sad"; it can just be "I hate them, but whatever, I have my life now".
posted by Frowner at 6:26 PM on February 22, 2018 [50 favorites]
Plenty of blameless people die at 25, and we wouldn't wish it on them either - like, I don't want anyone to have a tragically foreshortened life, or chronic pain, or anything, really, although I'd prefer it if my bullies hadn't risen to manage hedge funds and so on, and I'd prefer to feel confident that they weren't raising little nests of replica bullies.
Mainly I don't care. Mainly I just never want to see or hear of them again, and hope I develop the strength to stop reading about bullying so that I can get out of the habit of thinking about it. I suppose that if I have any hope about it at all, I hope that they never find out a single thing about me and my life now.
My point being that the alternative to "I wish my bullies would die in a fire" doesn't need to be "poor little woobies, their lives must be so sad"; it can just be "I hate them, but whatever, I have my life now".
posted by Frowner at 6:26 PM on February 22, 2018 [50 favorites]
ride = risky move
posted by unearthed at 6:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by unearthed at 6:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was bullied horribly throughout my childhood, and I'm sure some of my bullies had rough lives, but I know others didn't in the least. They made my life miserable for years. I got emotional and physical abuse from the same kids for years, because I thought I wasn't supposed to say anything. The insult on top of injury when someone would hit me, or put me in a headlock: "what's wrong, gonna cry?" It was emasculating in middle school, humiliating in a way I was too young to even fully understand. I lived at home with a sibling bully who convinced me I was weak and worthless. In short, bullies made me question everything about myself to such an extent that I'm still dealing with the consequences today.
I feel weird about reacting to this article as if it's an excuse for bullying, or some other kind of refusal to acknowledge the problem. This is the author's lived experience with bullying, and her feelings about this are valid whether or not they resemble our feelings about our own experiences. Some bullies I don't think about anymore, some I do. I don't know what happened to the kids who used to punch me for fun in 7th grade, or to the kids in 10th grade who tried to rape me with a drumstick for fun. The most I know is that the one guy who yelled "the fuck you looking at?" if I ever looked at his face (probably part of the reason I don't make eye contact as an adult) - I know his sister died tragically, very young. This author knows that her bully was murdered at 25.
I grew up with the stock-standard bullshit stuff from my hippie mom: "oh, they're just bullying you because they're insecure!" or "no one can MAKE you feel bad about yourself!" She even bought me a book called Stick Up For Yourself! because the problem came from within, not from without where all the, you know, people saying and doing hurtful stuff to me were. I feel like that's where the big problem is. It seems like it's out of fashion now, but that's the bullshit that always gets me. "Oh, they're just hurting from something and they don't know how to handle it except take it out on you!" Like, no, it doesn't help anyone if you're just empathetic enough to tell the victim that their abuser is a victim too. If we're going to recognize the nuances surrounding bullying, we should probably take steps to address things like toxic masculinity and cycles of abuse, instead of just passing the burden onto the person who's already on the receiving end of everything.
On preview:
See, what gets me about this article is the idea that there are only two positions - "my bully is a human too, how sad their life must be, I forgive them and recognize that their life is far, far sadder than my own" and "I wish my bully would die slowly of cancer while living in a pit of voles".
I didn't get that from this article. Maybe I misread it, but I don't think she ever said we need to forgive anyone. Understanding their motivation, and how they might be hurt, doesn't make anything they ever did the least bit acceptable. I don't think she's making excuses for anyone, or saying they had it worse. It seems way less conclusive than anything like that.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:28 PM on February 22, 2018 [25 favorites]
I feel weird about reacting to this article as if it's an excuse for bullying, or some other kind of refusal to acknowledge the problem. This is the author's lived experience with bullying, and her feelings about this are valid whether or not they resemble our feelings about our own experiences. Some bullies I don't think about anymore, some I do. I don't know what happened to the kids who used to punch me for fun in 7th grade, or to the kids in 10th grade who tried to rape me with a drumstick for fun. The most I know is that the one guy who yelled "the fuck you looking at?" if I ever looked at his face (probably part of the reason I don't make eye contact as an adult) - I know his sister died tragically, very young. This author knows that her bully was murdered at 25.
I grew up with the stock-standard bullshit stuff from my hippie mom: "oh, they're just bullying you because they're insecure!" or "no one can MAKE you feel bad about yourself!" She even bought me a book called Stick Up For Yourself! because the problem came from within, not from without where all the, you know, people saying and doing hurtful stuff to me were. I feel like that's where the big problem is. It seems like it's out of fashion now, but that's the bullshit that always gets me. "Oh, they're just hurting from something and they don't know how to handle it except take it out on you!" Like, no, it doesn't help anyone if you're just empathetic enough to tell the victim that their abuser is a victim too. If we're going to recognize the nuances surrounding bullying, we should probably take steps to address things like toxic masculinity and cycles of abuse, instead of just passing the burden onto the person who's already on the receiving end of everything.
On preview:
See, what gets me about this article is the idea that there are only two positions - "my bully is a human too, how sad their life must be, I forgive them and recognize that their life is far, far sadder than my own" and "I wish my bully would die slowly of cancer while living in a pit of voles".
I didn't get that from this article. Maybe I misread it, but I don't think she ever said we need to forgive anyone. Understanding their motivation, and how they might be hurt, doesn't make anything they ever did the least bit acceptable. I don't think she's making excuses for anyone, or saying they had it worse. It seems way less conclusive than anything like that.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:28 PM on February 22, 2018 [25 favorites]
The responses to this article really drive home how difficult it is to empathize with those who we perceive as evil. Yet it is important to do so.
I empathised with my ex for quite some time. I still feel a great deal of empathy for the mistreated and abused child she was. It is not my job to feel empathy for her anymore. She crossed the line repeatedly and she will never get empathy from me again.
I hope she is in a better place now, mostly because then she might not be continuing to bully, abuse and otherwise mistreat others in her life. She is not evil and does not deserve still more horrible things to happen to her. But I have a really hard time believing she'd ever change, that she'd ever stop the cycle of abuse and manipulation. And I will not mourn her. She gets nothing more from me.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:31 PM on February 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
I empathised with my ex for quite some time. I still feel a great deal of empathy for the mistreated and abused child she was. It is not my job to feel empathy for her anymore. She crossed the line repeatedly and she will never get empathy from me again.
I hope she is in a better place now, mostly because then she might not be continuing to bully, abuse and otherwise mistreat others in her life. She is not evil and does not deserve still more horrible things to happen to her. But I have a really hard time believing she'd ever change, that she'd ever stop the cycle of abuse and manipulation. And I will not mourn her. She gets nothing more from me.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:31 PM on February 22, 2018 [18 favorites]
I still remember the moment when almost my entire grade in public school stood up to our bully, -a student who had failed a year so he was older and bigger than all of us. He had bullied us for years. And one day everyone just stood up to him and he got pelted with everything we had to hand during a recess until he was just curled up against the school wall and recess ended. It completely broke him. He never bullied again. In fact I barely remember anything about him after that even though he lived on the corner of my street.
Years later I heard the full story of the family life he and his two sisters endured from my parents who were completely unaware he was the school yard bully. It was a bloody awful story of child abuse, incest, a completely broken severely mentally ill father and a mother who went catatonic. It all came to a very public and noticeable head when they committed the suburban crimes of failing at maintaining a lawn, had a collapsed fence on their corner lot and had stopped taking their garbage to the curb.
I still kind of hate him for the bullying but I also feel so sorry for him because nobody deserves that nightmare of a childhood. He made all of us miserable when he was around but he wasn't always around us. He on the hand had no escape from his torments.
posted by srboisvert at 6:39 PM on February 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
Years later I heard the full story of the family life he and his two sisters endured from my parents who were completely unaware he was the school yard bully. It was a bloody awful story of child abuse, incest, a completely broken severely mentally ill father and a mother who went catatonic. It all came to a very public and noticeable head when they committed the suburban crimes of failing at maintaining a lawn, had a collapsed fence on their corner lot and had stopped taking their garbage to the curb.
I still kind of hate him for the bullying but I also feel so sorry for him because nobody deserves that nightmare of a childhood. He made all of us miserable when he was around but he wasn't always around us. He on the hand had no escape from his torments.
posted by srboisvert at 6:39 PM on February 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
Can I say I don't like feeling like I'm morally obliged have empathetic feelings towards anyone who's abused me just so I can take some pious high road for other's approval?
This includes my awful parents, family, ex boyfriend, any man who's ever touched me by force or spat some awful slur in my face?
I know for example, that my dad had a very violent father. But does understanding that make it OK for him to pull me out of bed and drag me downstairs by the hair at 1am to re-iron his shirts because they weren't perfect enough for him? He was traumatised, after all?
What I'm saying is I just don't care why. I don't have to forgive him or empathise with him or have him in my life or think about him at all really. And the most interesting question about this is why people are SO invested in papering over the cracks of abuse and silencing the voices of the abused, what function that serves for us as humans.
posted by everydayanewday at 6:42 PM on February 22, 2018 [47 favorites]
This includes my awful parents, family, ex boyfriend, any man who's ever touched me by force or spat some awful slur in my face?
I know for example, that my dad had a very violent father. But does understanding that make it OK for him to pull me out of bed and drag me downstairs by the hair at 1am to re-iron his shirts because they weren't perfect enough for him? He was traumatised, after all?
What I'm saying is I just don't care why. I don't have to forgive him or empathise with him or have him in my life or think about him at all really. And the most interesting question about this is why people are SO invested in papering over the cracks of abuse and silencing the voices of the abused, what function that serves for us as humans.
posted by everydayanewday at 6:42 PM on February 22, 2018 [47 favorites]
One of my worst bullies has now done jail time for amphetamine use and dealing. His father, I found out subsequent to school, was abusive. I don't feel great about his life - even if he thinks his life is good now.
I think it's helpful to remember the disproportionate nature of bullying, too. We remember the slings and arrows hurled at us with almost crystalline accuracy, but the ones we may have thrown, not so much.
I was bullied quite a bit in school. But I also had a wicked, serrated tongue that I would often deploy without mercy. It was my only defense, in some ways. I never broke anyone's nose, the way my nose was broken, no. But I'm very sure I dished out some real hurt on people - including some I've forgotten, and some I never realised in the first place.
I don't think anyone needs to feel overwhelming sympathy for their bullies, but a recognition of how flawed we are as children - and the way those flaws are given to us by parents, other children, society - may be worthwhile. We might need, or be able, to give some of that sympathy back to ourselves. A weak substitute for justice, I grant, the alternatives - hate, resentment, vengeance, hurt, pain etc, are not very appealing. If the sympathy helps me slacken the grip on the negative feelings around that time, I'm all for it.
posted by smoke at 6:50 PM on February 22, 2018 [24 favorites]
I think it's helpful to remember the disproportionate nature of bullying, too. We remember the slings and arrows hurled at us with almost crystalline accuracy, but the ones we may have thrown, not so much.
I was bullied quite a bit in school. But I also had a wicked, serrated tongue that I would often deploy without mercy. It was my only defense, in some ways. I never broke anyone's nose, the way my nose was broken, no. But I'm very sure I dished out some real hurt on people - including some I've forgotten, and some I never realised in the first place.
I don't think anyone needs to feel overwhelming sympathy for their bullies, but a recognition of how flawed we are as children - and the way those flaws are given to us by parents, other children, society - may be worthwhile. We might need, or be able, to give some of that sympathy back to ourselves. A weak substitute for justice, I grant, the alternatives - hate, resentment, vengeance, hurt, pain etc, are not very appealing. If the sympathy helps me slacken the grip on the negative feelings around that time, I'm all for it.
posted by smoke at 6:50 PM on February 22, 2018 [24 favorites]
The best I can hope for my bullies is that they never have/had children.
posted by rhizome at 7:01 PM on February 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 7:01 PM on February 22, 2018 [10 favorites]
I think the other angle to this that I haven't considered is how this contributes to the presumption so many people seem to have that any victim should empathize, and ultimately forgive, their abuser. Even if it's not presented as an obligation, it's still seen as the better thing to do, the healthier thing to do. Someone says "I learned to pity the person who made my life hell," and we all say "how wise!" because at least from my perspective it feels like there's this unspoken agreement that forgiving someone is the most morally right thing to do. Sure, it's understandable if you don't want to, but it's better to forgive and forget. As if never forgiving someone is less than ideal.
I think I also read this article from the perspective of the general public, as opposed to an individual who has experienced bullying firsthand. I do think it's valuable for the public to recognize what feeds into bullying as a social problem. But for the individual, it's the stuff I used to hear from the adults around me: they're suffering too, so we might understand why you hate them, but we all know the right thing to do.
I don't know where this article falls. Maybe it really is implying that if she could learn to pity her abuser, we all should too. I was hoping it was something else, that we as a society should tailor our solutions to the problem to a more nuanced picture of it. I may very well be wrong.
I hope I didn't come across as heartless or uncaring in my last comment, or worse, like I didn't hear what people were saying.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:12 PM on February 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
I think I also read this article from the perspective of the general public, as opposed to an individual who has experienced bullying firsthand. I do think it's valuable for the public to recognize what feeds into bullying as a social problem. But for the individual, it's the stuff I used to hear from the adults around me: they're suffering too, so we might understand why you hate them, but we all know the right thing to do.
I don't know where this article falls. Maybe it really is implying that if she could learn to pity her abuser, we all should too. I was hoping it was something else, that we as a society should tailor our solutions to the problem to a more nuanced picture of it. I may very well be wrong.
I hope I didn't come across as heartless or uncaring in my last comment, or worse, like I didn't hear what people were saying.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:12 PM on February 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
My taxonomy of bullies--some who hurt other kids because they're being abused at home, physically or emotionally, and they're letting off that stress, or resentful of anyone who doesn't have to go through that, or plain not capable of other ways of interacting because they've never been shown them. Others who take part in bullying out of fear, because it's a way to keep from being bullied themselves. Others, especially among younger kids, who are just too emotionally immature to understand that what they're doing is actually cruel and not just silly and harmless. Others again who do understand it and do it for no other reason than because they enjoy seeing people in pain (physical or emotional), enjoy having the capacity to cause pain in others, have always been taught that their own feelings are the only ones that matter and compassion or integrity are irrelevant.
Depending on the situation, I can have some empathy for the first three categories. The last, not so much.
posted by huimangm at 7:13 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
Depending on the situation, I can have some empathy for the first three categories. The last, not so much.
posted by huimangm at 7:13 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
"interesting question about this is why people are SO invested in papering over the cracks of abuse and silencing the voices of the abused, what function that serves for us as humans."
I think people find comfort in convincing themselves that things aren't so bad after all and people can't really be that fucked up. I've seen it in every codependent person I've met. Better to pretend the mitigating circumstances are really that important, when deep down we all know A. People CAN actually be that awful, and B. To the victims of abuse, the line between looking for context and looking for excuses is very, very blurry.
posted by Tarumba at 7:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
I think people find comfort in convincing themselves that things aren't so bad after all and people can't really be that fucked up. I've seen it in every codependent person I've met. Better to pretend the mitigating circumstances are really that important, when deep down we all know A. People CAN actually be that awful, and B. To the victims of abuse, the line between looking for context and looking for excuses is very, very blurry.
posted by Tarumba at 7:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
Absolutely none of her apologia for bullies gives them any right at all to do what they do.
Of course it doesn't, but how long do you really want to hold a grudge against a child?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:21 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
Of course it doesn't, but how long do you really want to hold a grudge against a child?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:21 PM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
And the most interesting question about this is why people are SO invested in papering over the cracks of abuse and silencing the voices of the abused, what function that serves for us as humans.
I think it’s a way of dealing with our own vulnerability. It’s terrifying to realize that people are tortured, systemically, all the time, and no one does anything. That the same thing could happen to you, and people would rather find a way to minimize or dismiss what happened to you, just so they wouldn’t have to deal with the possibility that it could happen to them, too.
That, or maybe the divide is partially among people who are still living with the effects of bullying, and those who’ve managed to avoid long term consequences?
PSA: bullying and abusive relationships can totally give you ptsd, sometimes complex ptsd. Though it doesn’t have to rise to the level of ptsd for you to be like, nah still fuck those guys. I feel like you get to be like “still fuck those guys” for as long as it feels right.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:23 PM on February 22, 2018 [22 favorites]
I think it’s a way of dealing with our own vulnerability. It’s terrifying to realize that people are tortured, systemically, all the time, and no one does anything. That the same thing could happen to you, and people would rather find a way to minimize or dismiss what happened to you, just so they wouldn’t have to deal with the possibility that it could happen to them, too.
That, or maybe the divide is partially among people who are still living with the effects of bullying, and those who’ve managed to avoid long term consequences?
PSA: bullying and abusive relationships can totally give you ptsd, sometimes complex ptsd. Though it doesn’t have to rise to the level of ptsd for you to be like, nah still fuck those guys. I feel like you get to be like “still fuck those guys” for as long as it feels right.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:23 PM on February 22, 2018 [22 favorites]
shapes that haunt the dusk, I have a big problem with the rhetoric used around forgiveness for the reasons you outlined, and more. I often feel the people pressing me to forgive don't actually care about me or my wellbeing/feelings about the situation, but want to stop feeling uncomfortable themselves. They want me to stop making a fuss. Many of the people pressing me to forgive, -most- , have never themselves faced abuse, concentrated year or decades long mistreatment, things that are not actually ever, really, forgivable. They're thinking of when they broke up with their boyfriend when they were 20.
posted by everydayanewday at 7:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by everydayanewday at 7:27 PM on February 22, 2018 [23 favorites]
The sadist who turned my entire fifth grade class against me (including the teacher!) married his school sweetheart, had kids, has a decent job, and is a republican.
All unsurprising. And I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
posted by 41swans at 7:35 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
All unsurprising. And I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
posted by 41swans at 7:35 PM on February 22, 2018 [19 favorites]
I have some fairly complex feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm quite aware that not all bullies are children (some grown-up, but still children in a way) who are caught in the cycle of abuse. The most intense period of bullying that I was subjected to was when I was in seventh grade and temporarily staying in my small town's group home for "troubled kids", and suddenly found myself the target of numerous kids with whom I'd previously had no particular beef, including, much to my embarrassment (although I shouldn't have been the one embarrassed), my social worker's son. I was assigned to a particular social category, and that was simply what was done to people in it. Some of the kids coming after me were not far above that category--I would find out, about a decade or so later via one of my former classmates attending my sister's wedding, that some of them ended up in fairly serious trouble fairly early, including one guy who went to prison for murder--but not all of them, and certainly not my social worker's son.
There's also the factor, though, of wanting to be able to move on with my life and not want to have my desire for karmic retribution dragging at me throughout the years, even if only on some subconscious, rarely visited level. The last time I really felt bullied was my last year of college, when I was a resident assistant in a dorm--a job for which I wasn't very well suited--and one of the residents decided that he was going to be John Belushi in Animal House and I was designated as all of the Omegas wrapped into one. He eventually got recognized for what he really was, after he'd physically assaulted one of the other RAs, but managed to not get kicked out, and I used to occasionally fantasize of some sort of karmic retribution, if not the more deliberate kind. Come the internet, I'd google him occasionally, finding nothing. And then, a couple of years ago, his obituary popped up; he'd actually died over a decade ago, this thing only surfacing recently for who knows what reason. I guess that I could gloat over having simply outlived him, but the fact is, he occupied space in my head and used up bits of my attention that I could have turned into things that would actually benefit me, even after he'd gone beyond the veil. What good does that do me? If living well is the best revenge, that's still only true if you live well.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:16 PM on February 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
There's also the factor, though, of wanting to be able to move on with my life and not want to have my desire for karmic retribution dragging at me throughout the years, even if only on some subconscious, rarely visited level. The last time I really felt bullied was my last year of college, when I was a resident assistant in a dorm--a job for which I wasn't very well suited--and one of the residents decided that he was going to be John Belushi in Animal House and I was designated as all of the Omegas wrapped into one. He eventually got recognized for what he really was, after he'd physically assaulted one of the other RAs, but managed to not get kicked out, and I used to occasionally fantasize of some sort of karmic retribution, if not the more deliberate kind. Come the internet, I'd google him occasionally, finding nothing. And then, a couple of years ago, his obituary popped up; he'd actually died over a decade ago, this thing only surfacing recently for who knows what reason. I guess that I could gloat over having simply outlived him, but the fact is, he occupied space in my head and used up bits of my attention that I could have turned into things that would actually benefit me, even after he'd gone beyond the veil. What good does that do me? If living well is the best revenge, that's still only true if you live well.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:16 PM on February 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
I have an abusive older brother. Well, two actually, but one was much, much worse than the other. When I was a kid, he loved hurting and humiliating me and did so at every opportunity, and would take it upon himself to provide a running stream of criticism and ridicule on everything I did and was. My weight and other physical flaws, my schoolwork, artwork I'd done, a dress I'd made for one of my dolls, you name it, absolutely everything was fair game for him. He'd go through my room and read my diary and other things I'd written, and then quote my words at me and laugh uproariously over how stupid it was and I was. He'd constantly go on about how smart he was and how much he'd accomplished and how I was nothing by comparison. If he made me cry over the cruel things he'd say he'd look at me with utter contempt and say, "Well, the truth hurts, doesn't it?" If I said anything that got under his skin, he'd slap me around. If anyone in the family made fun of me behind my back he delighted in telling me all about it. He was very controlling and tried to make up and enforce rules for our family home -- like he wouldn't let me do my homework at the kitchen table when my parents weren't home "because the table should be kept cleared off" and one night he kept at me and at me for half an hour about how I should do my homework at the small and uncomfortable desk in my room and I was a "stupid, spoiled brat" for refusing to do so -- when he knew perfectly well our parents had no such rule and that they'd only expect me to take my books back to my room when I was done with them. He wasn't a kid either -- he was doing this at 21, when I was 14 -- at which point he at least stopped hitting me, and now if he goes through my things when he gets a chance (and I would not be at all surprised if he does!) he at least has the sense not to give himself away.
He's now 51 and he hasn't significantly improved in the last 30 years. He's absolutely convinced that he's incredibly intelligent and well-informed and that everyone else is exasperatingly stupid and that he has the right to tell them so. He's a very, very irritable person and often yells at people for doing completely innocuous things that just happened to get on his nerves. He's horribly overbearing in conversation, takes it upon himself to correct people constantly -- and a lot of his corrections are total bullshit (i.e., like the time I was telling his girlfriend I got my university degree at night school and he interrupted to snap, "No, night school is high school.") He constantly cuts people off and yells them down when he disagrees with them, which is often because, as I have said, he believes he knows everything and other people are stupid, and oh my God, the mansplaining. He asks prying questions about my finances and other personal matters. If I make the mistake of giving him the information he wants, he'll start lecturing me and ridiculing me for the choices I've made. When I refuse, even mildly and politely, to tell him say, what my house costs, he says huffily that it's not personal information (uh, read an etiquette book, sport) and he can look it up and he's going to look it up. At the same time he's outraged to be criticized for any of his out of line behaviour, and can't take the mildest teasing.
I avoid him as much as I can -- I haven't seen him for something like three years or more -- but I hear about his life circumstances from my parents and man, do I enjoy it. The guy thinks he's a financial genius and he's always giving other people presumptuous and condescending lectures about how to manage their money, but guess what? He has nothing -- no property, so capital, not so much as a car. He works in a lumberyard and he boards with his boss. He has had a car repossessed. One time when he gave another family member a cheque to repay a loan he'd gotten from him, the cheque bounced. The rest of his life is on par with his finances. He never finished university despite spending years working on his B.A. He's worked a series of odd jobs: managing a restaurant or two, roofing, carpeting, did a stint in the Reserves, airplane parts sales rep, and now the lumberyard. He used to talk about how he was going into politics but he's never gotten up off his rear end to do anything about that, probably because he'd need to start as a volunteer. He's single. He did spend most of his twenties in a relationship, but since then he's only had a few relationships, none of which have lasted very long.
My assessment of his problem is that his incredibly outsized ego is keeping him from seeing himself or the world with anything like self-awareness or realism, from learning or growing, from accomplishing anything, from connecting with others, from even seeing what an abusive asshole he is and has always been. He should take that ego of his out behind the nearest building and shoot it. He won't though, because his belief in his own superiority is the only thing he has. So his life sucks. He can cry me a river. He can sit in a really shitty nursing home some day and wonder where his life went. I spent years trying to acquire a reasonable level of confidence and self-worth after he destroyed mine with the daily, years-long abuse that fed his ego. It wasn't until I was 40 that I finally learned not to cope with abuse by overcompensating with herculean amounts of emotional labour. I do not care what happens to him and intend to avoid him as much as I can for as long as we both live.
I don't think it's necessary to forgive our abusers or bullies, or to wish them well, and honestly I have little time or patience for those who try to police how others respond to their abuse with sanctimonious lectures. If you're generally focused on your current life instead of preoccupied with abusers from your past however you've chosen to regard them and you're productive and functioning well on the whole, you're probably doing fine regardless of whether you have managed to forgive or forget or intend to cherish a lifelong flame of hatred.
I often feel the people pressing me to forgive don't actually care about me or my wellbeing/feelings about the situation, but want to stop feeling uncomfortable themselves. They want me to stop making a fuss.
Oh, this is so, so true. My father likes to loftily tell me I should just get over how my brothers treated me -- despite the fact that they continue to treat me like crap to this day -- and produce that old saw about how cherishing grudges is like taking poison and hoping the person you hate dies. When the fact of the matter is that he doesn't want to have to hear about what his horrible sons did because he might have to feel like he should have fucking done something about their abuse of his daughters.
posted by orange swan at 8:35 PM on February 22, 2018 [52 favorites]
He's now 51 and he hasn't significantly improved in the last 30 years. He's absolutely convinced that he's incredibly intelligent and well-informed and that everyone else is exasperatingly stupid and that he has the right to tell them so. He's a very, very irritable person and often yells at people for doing completely innocuous things that just happened to get on his nerves. He's horribly overbearing in conversation, takes it upon himself to correct people constantly -- and a lot of his corrections are total bullshit (i.e., like the time I was telling his girlfriend I got my university degree at night school and he interrupted to snap, "No, night school is high school.") He constantly cuts people off and yells them down when he disagrees with them, which is often because, as I have said, he believes he knows everything and other people are stupid, and oh my God, the mansplaining. He asks prying questions about my finances and other personal matters. If I make the mistake of giving him the information he wants, he'll start lecturing me and ridiculing me for the choices I've made. When I refuse, even mildly and politely, to tell him say, what my house costs, he says huffily that it's not personal information (uh, read an etiquette book, sport) and he can look it up and he's going to look it up. At the same time he's outraged to be criticized for any of his out of line behaviour, and can't take the mildest teasing.
I avoid him as much as I can -- I haven't seen him for something like three years or more -- but I hear about his life circumstances from my parents and man, do I enjoy it. The guy thinks he's a financial genius and he's always giving other people presumptuous and condescending lectures about how to manage their money, but guess what? He has nothing -- no property, so capital, not so much as a car. He works in a lumberyard and he boards with his boss. He has had a car repossessed. One time when he gave another family member a cheque to repay a loan he'd gotten from him, the cheque bounced. The rest of his life is on par with his finances. He never finished university despite spending years working on his B.A. He's worked a series of odd jobs: managing a restaurant or two, roofing, carpeting, did a stint in the Reserves, airplane parts sales rep, and now the lumberyard. He used to talk about how he was going into politics but he's never gotten up off his rear end to do anything about that, probably because he'd need to start as a volunteer. He's single. He did spend most of his twenties in a relationship, but since then he's only had a few relationships, none of which have lasted very long.
My assessment of his problem is that his incredibly outsized ego is keeping him from seeing himself or the world with anything like self-awareness or realism, from learning or growing, from accomplishing anything, from connecting with others, from even seeing what an abusive asshole he is and has always been. He should take that ego of his out behind the nearest building and shoot it. He won't though, because his belief in his own superiority is the only thing he has. So his life sucks. He can cry me a river. He can sit in a really shitty nursing home some day and wonder where his life went. I spent years trying to acquire a reasonable level of confidence and self-worth after he destroyed mine with the daily, years-long abuse that fed his ego. It wasn't until I was 40 that I finally learned not to cope with abuse by overcompensating with herculean amounts of emotional labour. I do not care what happens to him and intend to avoid him as much as I can for as long as we both live.
I don't think it's necessary to forgive our abusers or bullies, or to wish them well, and honestly I have little time or patience for those who try to police how others respond to their abuse with sanctimonious lectures. If you're generally focused on your current life instead of preoccupied with abusers from your past however you've chosen to regard them and you're productive and functioning well on the whole, you're probably doing fine regardless of whether you have managed to forgive or forget or intend to cherish a lifelong flame of hatred.
I often feel the people pressing me to forgive don't actually care about me or my wellbeing/feelings about the situation, but want to stop feeling uncomfortable themselves. They want me to stop making a fuss.
Oh, this is so, so true. My father likes to loftily tell me I should just get over how my brothers treated me -- despite the fact that they continue to treat me like crap to this day -- and produce that old saw about how cherishing grudges is like taking poison and hoping the person you hate dies. When the fact of the matter is that he doesn't want to have to hear about what his horrible sons did because he might have to feel like he should have fucking done something about their abuse of his daughters.
posted by orange swan at 8:35 PM on February 22, 2018 [52 favorites]
I think what angers me more about the bullying I got as a child was not so much that I got no help at all from the adults around me, but that the bullies never had their behavior addressed. And no, I don't mean addressed in a karmic sense, but addressed as in "that child is clearly acting out in a violent and despicable manner - why is that exactly and who or what is teaching them that this is an acceptable way to act?"
I know where most of my bullies are. A lot of them are dead. One has vanished after working as a stripper for a time. A couple are okay with families and divorces and the usual mess of human existence. So while I don't exactly have compassion towards them, I DO have a lot of anger towards the enablers who let this go on because I find their behavior to be just as heinous (if not more) than the bullies.
Adults and teachers - people who's sole job was to look after kids - knew exactly what was going on, probably had a good idea why, and took no action. None. And I'm sure there was all sort of good reasons like "it's not my place to interfere" or "kids will be kids" and so on, but ultimately this is the worse sort of enabling bullshit. And I'm never going to forgive them for that, partly because I don't think they've earned it, but also because I think forgiveness might be some sort of tacit approval.
So no. The anger doesn't have to go away, and some sins don't get to be forgiven.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:49 PM on February 22, 2018 [22 favorites]
I know where most of my bullies are. A lot of them are dead. One has vanished after working as a stripper for a time. A couple are okay with families and divorces and the usual mess of human existence. So while I don't exactly have compassion towards them, I DO have a lot of anger towards the enablers who let this go on because I find their behavior to be just as heinous (if not more) than the bullies.
Adults and teachers - people who's sole job was to look after kids - knew exactly what was going on, probably had a good idea why, and took no action. None. And I'm sure there was all sort of good reasons like "it's not my place to interfere" or "kids will be kids" and so on, but ultimately this is the worse sort of enabling bullshit. And I'm never going to forgive them for that, partly because I don't think they've earned it, but also because I think forgiveness might be some sort of tacit approval.
So no. The anger doesn't have to go away, and some sins don't get to be forgiven.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:49 PM on February 22, 2018 [22 favorites]
but also because I think forgiveness might be some sort of tacit approval
I think it is, isn't it? It's reaching out to the other person and letting them know you're OK with them, with it now. It's saying, it's water under the bridge, it doesn't affect me. It's extending your acceptance, and putting your approval on their social rehabilitation and group inclusion. It kind of maddens me that those pressuring us to do this don't seem to need regret, apologies, or even acknowledgement on the part of the abuser?
The anger doesn't have to go away, and some sins don't get to be forgiven.
Yes. And what if my forgiveness is not a choice? I could spend years talking about this, and intellectually know the reasons I should forgive them like the old bull about drinking poison and expecting the other person to get hurt and them taking up space in my head and all that, but I do not, emotionally, forgive them. I am fundamentally incapable of ever truly forgiving them, actually. What then? Am I just not an enlightened enough person, and it's understandable, but such a shame I can't do the morally correct thing? Why is it so uncomfortable for some that I do NOT forgive some of the things done to me, I do NOT forgive the people?
And orange swan, I do think some of this is people trying to avoid responsibility, either directly from abuse they failed to stop, or in a more general social sense, and then putting it on the victim to solve and telling them it's a virtue.
posted by everydayanewday at 9:10 PM on February 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
I think it is, isn't it? It's reaching out to the other person and letting them know you're OK with them, with it now. It's saying, it's water under the bridge, it doesn't affect me. It's extending your acceptance, and putting your approval on their social rehabilitation and group inclusion. It kind of maddens me that those pressuring us to do this don't seem to need regret, apologies, or even acknowledgement on the part of the abuser?
The anger doesn't have to go away, and some sins don't get to be forgiven.
Yes. And what if my forgiveness is not a choice? I could spend years talking about this, and intellectually know the reasons I should forgive them like the old bull about drinking poison and expecting the other person to get hurt and them taking up space in my head and all that, but I do not, emotionally, forgive them. I am fundamentally incapable of ever truly forgiving them, actually. What then? Am I just not an enlightened enough person, and it's understandable, but such a shame I can't do the morally correct thing? Why is it so uncomfortable for some that I do NOT forgive some of the things done to me, I do NOT forgive the people?
And orange swan, I do think some of this is people trying to avoid responsibility, either directly from abuse they failed to stop, or in a more general social sense, and then putting it on the victim to solve and telling them it's a virtue.
posted by everydayanewday at 9:10 PM on February 22, 2018 [15 favorites]
One of the things I learned while drafting my school district's new bullying policy (one of the most advanced and comprehensive in the nation, I am very proud), during which we met with a LOT of specialists who study bullying, and professionals who work with bullies and victims, is that there are generally two broad categories of bullies: kids who have fucking shitty home lives and are acting out like whoa because they have major problems themselves, and kids who are socially advantaged and savvy and use their powers for evil.
The good news is that both forms of bullying are declining somewhat -- the former category because those kids are getting more help earlier; the latter, which is the "Mean Girls" model, because hyper-competitive girls who had few outlets for being hypercompetitive now have a lot more outlets in sports (in particular), and it's not weird for "popular girls" to be kicking ass on the soccer team or swim team. There are still socially-advantaged bullies who are just kind-of sociopathic, but a percentage of those bullies were hypercompetitive, driven girls who had no approved outlet other than social competition, and now they have many more, much healthier outlets.
It's always a little bit dangerous to say "My bully was like X, therefore all bullies should be treated like Y." Because bullying isn't monolithic, and bullies become bullies for different reasons, and one size won't fit all.
(IMO bored rich kid bullies will be the hardest type to combat, especially when their parents see the bullying as a form of winning at a social competition and tacitly or actively approve of it. Bullies with shitty home lives are more intractable -- it's hard to intervene with those families in ways that make a difference -- but they don't have socially-savvy parents actively fighting schools' attempts to stop their kids from bullying, like bored rich kid bullies do.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:12 PM on February 22, 2018 [48 favorites]
The good news is that both forms of bullying are declining somewhat -- the former category because those kids are getting more help earlier; the latter, which is the "Mean Girls" model, because hyper-competitive girls who had few outlets for being hypercompetitive now have a lot more outlets in sports (in particular), and it's not weird for "popular girls" to be kicking ass on the soccer team or swim team. There are still socially-advantaged bullies who are just kind-of sociopathic, but a percentage of those bullies were hypercompetitive, driven girls who had no approved outlet other than social competition, and now they have many more, much healthier outlets.
It's always a little bit dangerous to say "My bully was like X, therefore all bullies should be treated like Y." Because bullying isn't monolithic, and bullies become bullies for different reasons, and one size won't fit all.
(IMO bored rich kid bullies will be the hardest type to combat, especially when their parents see the bullying as a form of winning at a social competition and tacitly or actively approve of it. Bullies with shitty home lives are more intractable -- it's hard to intervene with those families in ways that make a difference -- but they don't have socially-savvy parents actively fighting schools' attempts to stop their kids from bullying, like bored rich kid bullies do.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:12 PM on February 22, 2018 [48 favorites]
shapes that haunt the dusk, I have a big problem with the rhetoric used around forgiveness for the reasons you outlined, and more.
Yeah, sorry, I meant to quote your comment! I didn't think about it until you mentioned it, and I'm glad you did.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:36 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, sorry, I meant to quote your comment! I didn't think about it until you mentioned it, and I'm glad you did.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:36 PM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
(IMO bored rich kid bullies will be the hardest type to combat, especially when their parents see the bullying as a form of winning at a social competition and tacitly or actively approve of it. Bullies with shitty home lives are more intractable -- it's hard to intervene with those families in ways that make a difference -- but they don't have socially-savvy parents actively fighting schools' attempts to stop their kids from bullying, like bored rich kid bullies do.)
I don't want to suggest anything that would make anyone here uncomfortable but maybe we should just get rid of the rich people.
posted by Madame Defarge at 9:43 PM on February 22, 2018 [36 favorites]
I don't want to suggest anything that would make anyone here uncomfortable but maybe we should just get rid of the rich people.
posted by Madame Defarge at 9:43 PM on February 22, 2018 [36 favorites]
See, what gets me about this article is the idea that there are only two positions - "my bully is a human too, how sad their life must be, I forgive them and recognize that their life is far, far sadder than my own" and "I wish my bully would die slowly of cancer while living in a pit of voles".
Why can't we do both?
I can feel sorry for certain really unpleasant folks I deal with daily because they are justified in their unhappiness, and in one case I know they've been bullied themselves. But at the same time I do not enjoy having to deal with them either and hope to god they get new jobs. I do not feel nearly as charitable about them as I normally would because of how they act towards me. I guess they feel better to have an "enemy" or something, but you're a grownass adult, you should know better than to choose to act like that. You're not a 12 year old from an abusive home who doesn't have any idea how to deal with other humans without hitting them. You should be more mature than that. At this point I am not going to go out of my way to help them when they need help if they don't directly ask for it. Normally I would, but...nope, you can figure out how to answer all those emails by yourself, brah. You don't want anything to do with me anyway, so that's cool by me.
Adults and teachers - people who's sole job was to look after kids - knew exactly what was going on, probably had a good idea why, and took no action.
THIS. It is fucking amazing how much leeway bullies get in the world to do whatever the hell they want and nobody in power OVER THE BULLY has any interest in stopping them. Why is that okay? Why is it so fucking hard to decide to separate people? Or at least don't make them spend 8 hours a day constantly together if one person cannot behave towards the other? Why the shit can't you move one kid out of a class and into another class? Is that totally impossible for you?
Between bullies and sexual harassers, I want there to be a "one strike and you're out" policy. You get one warning. One warning, stop now or there will be heavy consequences. If the person stops after one warning, great. If they can't stop/won't stop, then get them the hell out.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:55 PM on February 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
Why can't we do both?
I can feel sorry for certain really unpleasant folks I deal with daily because they are justified in their unhappiness, and in one case I know they've been bullied themselves. But at the same time I do not enjoy having to deal with them either and hope to god they get new jobs. I do not feel nearly as charitable about them as I normally would because of how they act towards me. I guess they feel better to have an "enemy" or something, but you're a grownass adult, you should know better than to choose to act like that. You're not a 12 year old from an abusive home who doesn't have any idea how to deal with other humans without hitting them. You should be more mature than that. At this point I am not going to go out of my way to help them when they need help if they don't directly ask for it. Normally I would, but...nope, you can figure out how to answer all those emails by yourself, brah. You don't want anything to do with me anyway, so that's cool by me.
Adults and teachers - people who's sole job was to look after kids - knew exactly what was going on, probably had a good idea why, and took no action.
THIS. It is fucking amazing how much leeway bullies get in the world to do whatever the hell they want and nobody in power OVER THE BULLY has any interest in stopping them. Why is that okay? Why is it so fucking hard to decide to separate people? Or at least don't make them spend 8 hours a day constantly together if one person cannot behave towards the other? Why the shit can't you move one kid out of a class and into another class? Is that totally impossible for you?
Between bullies and sexual harassers, I want there to be a "one strike and you're out" policy. You get one warning. One warning, stop now or there will be heavy consequences. If the person stops after one warning, great. If they can't stop/won't stop, then get them the hell out.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:55 PM on February 22, 2018 [14 favorites]
But it is only by learning about them and why they ended up where they did that we can work to divert others from following the same path.
I didn't have to learn about my bullies to effectively teach my kids to not be cruel little assholes. It didn't take any concern about the backgrounds of my bullies at all.
"Hey, don't be a miserable little shitbird" is easily taught. Lead by example - be loving and kind and generous of heart. Look out for people who are having a hard time and do what you can to help. Stand up for the vulnerable. Some people have it really bad at home, be someone they can trust.
They seem to have grown into kind and caring adults without me ever needing to think anything more about my bullies than "I'll snatch the Monsters bald-headed if they EVER mistreat anyone."
posted by MissySedai at 10:18 PM on February 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
I didn't have to learn about my bullies to effectively teach my kids to not be cruel little assholes. It didn't take any concern about the backgrounds of my bullies at all.
"Hey, don't be a miserable little shitbird" is easily taught. Lead by example - be loving and kind and generous of heart. Look out for people who are having a hard time and do what you can to help. Stand up for the vulnerable. Some people have it really bad at home, be someone they can trust.
They seem to have grown into kind and caring adults without me ever needing to think anything more about my bullies than "I'll snatch the Monsters bald-headed if they EVER mistreat anyone."
posted by MissySedai at 10:18 PM on February 22, 2018 [12 favorites]
I think people find comfort in convincing themselves that things aren't so bad after all and people can't really be that fucked up. I've seen it in every codependent person I've met. Better to pretend the mitigating circumstances are really that important, when deep down we all know A. People CAN actually be that awful, and B. To the victims of abuse, the line between looking for context and looking for excuses is very, very blurry.
This definitely matches my personal experience. I have known plenty of people in abusive dynamics - relationships that would garner a hundred DTFMAs in AskMe, people with horrible parents, the works - and the common thread is minimization because the alternative is too painful to consider.
I'm sometimes grateful that my childhood was traumatic enough to help me see that anybody could be capable of anything, instead of soft peddling stuff that way.
Tell me how holding a grudge against a child is making your life better
This is an elegant example of the dynamics people are talking about upthread: it both minimizes the actions of bullies and dismisses the concerns of victims in one single sentence. As misunderstandings of this issue go, that was impressive.
If abusers would like to be forgiven, the onus is on them to seek restitution - not just apologies, but to actively improve themselves. Some people do that, and that's great. Some people don't, and that's on them, not the rest of us.
posted by mordax at 10:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [26 favorites]
This definitely matches my personal experience. I have known plenty of people in abusive dynamics - relationships that would garner a hundred DTFMAs in AskMe, people with horrible parents, the works - and the common thread is minimization because the alternative is too painful to consider.
I'm sometimes grateful that my childhood was traumatic enough to help me see that anybody could be capable of anything, instead of soft peddling stuff that way.
Tell me how holding a grudge against a child is making your life better
This is an elegant example of the dynamics people are talking about upthread: it both minimizes the actions of bullies and dismisses the concerns of victims in one single sentence. As misunderstandings of this issue go, that was impressive.
If abusers would like to be forgiven, the onus is on them to seek restitution - not just apologies, but to actively improve themselves. Some people do that, and that's great. Some people don't, and that's on them, not the rest of us.
posted by mordax at 10:19 PM on February 22, 2018 [26 favorites]
It is fucking amazing how much leeway bullies get in the world to do whatever the hell they want and nobody in power OVER THE BULLY has any interest in stopping them.
I was suspended once because one of my bullies set my hair on fire. The reasoning was that if he made the effort to bring a can of hairspray and a lighter to school to torch me with, I surely must have done something to bring it on.
First and second-degree burns and a 3 day suspension for the Honors student with the spotless disciplinary record, 3 days suspension for the frequently truant, frequently in dtention shithead who assaulted me. Yay.
My Opa wasn't having it. He demanded my suspension be lifted and the little fucker with the DIY torch be expelled. The Dean refused and said something about all parties needing to "understand that actions have consequences". Opa told the Dean that I would henceforth have his permission to defend myself. "Peach, I don't ever want to hear that you threw the first punch. But you go ahead and make sure you throw the last one."
I moved to Germany the following summer, and had a pretty good cackle when a friend wrote to tell me that Mr. Torch landed in the ER when he tried his trick with another girl and her brother beat him to a paste.
posted by MissySedai at 10:38 PM on February 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
I was suspended once because one of my bullies set my hair on fire. The reasoning was that if he made the effort to bring a can of hairspray and a lighter to school to torch me with, I surely must have done something to bring it on.
First and second-degree burns and a 3 day suspension for the Honors student with the spotless disciplinary record, 3 days suspension for the frequently truant, frequently in dtention shithead who assaulted me. Yay.
My Opa wasn't having it. He demanded my suspension be lifted and the little fucker with the DIY torch be expelled. The Dean refused and said something about all parties needing to "understand that actions have consequences". Opa told the Dean that I would henceforth have his permission to defend myself. "Peach, I don't ever want to hear that you threw the first punch. But you go ahead and make sure you throw the last one."
I moved to Germany the following summer, and had a pretty good cackle when a friend wrote to tell me that Mr. Torch landed in the ER when he tried his trick with another girl and her brother beat him to a paste.
posted by MissySedai at 10:38 PM on February 22, 2018 [33 favorites]
It is fucking amazing how much leeway bullies get in the world to do whatever the hell they want and nobody in power OVER THE BULLY has any interest in stopping them.
Yes. Also, a lot of times the teachers like knowing they have a person they can safely lash out at to blow off steam. My gym teacher just loooooooooooved laying into the schizophrenic girl with the disabled parents after hockey in the changing rooms, for example. It always drew a big crowd around and we were always half naked and she had NO ONE to stick up for her. We were tiny and our teacher was 6 foot and muscly. I'll always remember her stood over that tiny girl, shouting in her face. She eventually had an episode bad enough so she left our school and I was relieved for her.
And our gym teacher? A famous professional sports player for our country who's participation in her traditionally masculine sport has her touted as a feminist
:(
posted by everydayanewday at 10:48 PM on February 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yes. Also, a lot of times the teachers like knowing they have a person they can safely lash out at to blow off steam. My gym teacher just loooooooooooved laying into the schizophrenic girl with the disabled parents after hockey in the changing rooms, for example. It always drew a big crowd around and we were always half naked and she had NO ONE to stick up for her. We were tiny and our teacher was 6 foot and muscly. I'll always remember her stood over that tiny girl, shouting in her face. She eventually had an episode bad enough so she left our school and I was relieved for her.
And our gym teacher? A famous professional sports player for our country who's participation in her traditionally masculine sport has her touted as a feminist
:(
posted by everydayanewday at 10:48 PM on February 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I learned two important lessons in middle school, which I have kept with me my whole life. The first, in seventh grade, was that anyone could torment me at any time for any reason, which meant that everyone was a threat, and that I needed to do everything I could to keep them from noticing me. The second, in eighth grade, was that torture that starts for no reason can end for no reason, so there is nothing I can do to change my fate.
In ninth grade, one of my classmates admitted that everyone knew what was happening to me, and no one did anything to stop it. I told her that I forgave everyone for what they did. They were just kids. They didn't know any better. They were probably just stressed about their grades and taking it out on the smart kid. I was pretty weird and cringy back then anyway, ha ha. It felt like the right thing to say. It meant I was over being bullied. It couldn't hurt me anymore. It took me not making a single friend in high school to realize how much it still did. And so instead of hating the bullies for causing my suffering, I hated myself for deserving it.
In fairness, holding a grudge on a bunch of 12-year-olds probably wouldn't have been much fun either. But I think it's important to realize that forgiving your abuser is just as lousy of a coping mechanism.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:20 PM on February 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
In ninth grade, one of my classmates admitted that everyone knew what was happening to me, and no one did anything to stop it. I told her that I forgave everyone for what they did. They were just kids. They didn't know any better. They were probably just stressed about their grades and taking it out on the smart kid. I was pretty weird and cringy back then anyway, ha ha. It felt like the right thing to say. It meant I was over being bullied. It couldn't hurt me anymore. It took me not making a single friend in high school to realize how much it still did. And so instead of hating the bullies for causing my suffering, I hated myself for deserving it.
In fairness, holding a grudge on a bunch of 12-year-olds probably wouldn't have been much fun either. But I think it's important to realize that forgiving your abuser is just as lousy of a coping mechanism.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:20 PM on February 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
German for grandfather.
posted by pracowity at 12:14 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by pracowity at 12:14 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
No. Fuck them. Fuck them for the weeks of my life with a broken arm. Fuck them for having to explain to my parents why my maths books were 'lost'. Fuck them for the concussions, for the shame about my sexuality, for changing schools and never feeling fucking safe. I will never feel sympathy for the people who hurt me every day for years, and I will never be sorry for that.
posted by prismatic7 at 2:28 AM on February 23, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by prismatic7 at 2:28 AM on February 23, 2018 [19 favorites]
Here's something I've noticed about threads about bullying, wherever they happen on the internet. We all have to tell our own stories. I know I do; I just did. It's like a compulsion. We need to tell the stories nobody was listening to when we were kids.
Confirmation bias. You won't know how many people have untold stories, that they don't feel compelled to share, because they just won't mention it. I know I don't.
posted by Dysk at 3:35 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
Confirmation bias. You won't know how many people have untold stories, that they don't feel compelled to share, because they just won't mention it. I know I don't.
posted by Dysk at 3:35 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
One of my bullies was the son of a wealthy and successful businessman in my town. This skinny kid with his brand-new bought-for-him-right-at-16 sports car used to make fun of both my weight and relative poverty pretty regularly. He and a lot of his peer group made things pretty miserable for me.
He went on to a prestigious university and a successful journalism career at a national magazine. This did not mellow him at all, apparently. He wrote a piece a while back about our twentieth high school reunion in which he went quite a bit out of his way to point out how OMG fat several of our classmates had gotten. (Bizarrely, he even managed to work in a dig at the state governor's weight somehow.)
He died a couple of years ago. Heart attack at the age of forty-six.
It's a complex mix of feelings I have about that. The one I'm least proud of can best be summed up as something like "Yes, I'm out of shape and in an okay-ish at best job, but who's dead, asshole?".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:45 AM on February 23, 2018 [17 favorites]
He went on to a prestigious university and a successful journalism career at a national magazine. This did not mellow him at all, apparently. He wrote a piece a while back about our twentieth high school reunion in which he went quite a bit out of his way to point out how OMG fat several of our classmates had gotten. (Bizarrely, he even managed to work in a dig at the state governor's weight somehow.)
He died a couple of years ago. Heart attack at the age of forty-six.
It's a complex mix of feelings I have about that. The one I'm least proud of can best be summed up as something like "Yes, I'm out of shape and in an okay-ish at best job, but who's dead, asshole?".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:45 AM on February 23, 2018 [17 favorites]
Ditto the sentiment that people's feelings about perpetrators of bullying are their own business, and trying to impose blanket forgiveness is tantamount to tacit approval. My feelings for my bullies: if they were children - meh; if they were adolescents - I owe them no forgiveness, and no mental space, but if they pop into my mind they can have some animosity; if they were adults - go to hell. I'd rather not know anything about how any of them are doing now.
posted by threecheesetrees at 4:08 AM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by threecheesetrees at 4:08 AM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
"This is an elegant example of the dynamics people are talking about upthread: it both minimizes the actions of bullies and dismisses the concerns of victims in one single sentence."
And this sanctimonious bullshit also manages to blame victims for not getting over their trauma quickly enough.
"Why don't you just be the bigger person!" Is the smarmiest, pseudo conciliatory tactic ever deviced by those who want to keep the status quo or avoid discomfort to the detriment of people who actually need compassion.
In reality, the "why can't we just get along" crowd ends up being complicit in this type of bullshit, because they make it easier for the bullies to get away with their behavior. See all those people making excuses for sexual harassment, for example.
Being all kumbaya about someone else's trauma is easy, and it's nothing more than a self-serving, opportunistic tactic that exploits the experiences of other people to, at best, deal with your own trauma, or, at worst, bolster your image of "enlightened martyr".
posted by Tarumba at 5:05 AM on February 23, 2018 [12 favorites]
And this sanctimonious bullshit also manages to blame victims for not getting over their trauma quickly enough.
"Why don't you just be the bigger person!" Is the smarmiest, pseudo conciliatory tactic ever deviced by those who want to keep the status quo or avoid discomfort to the detriment of people who actually need compassion.
In reality, the "why can't we just get along" crowd ends up being complicit in this type of bullshit, because they make it easier for the bullies to get away with their behavior. See all those people making excuses for sexual harassment, for example.
Being all kumbaya about someone else's trauma is easy, and it's nothing more than a self-serving, opportunistic tactic that exploits the experiences of other people to, at best, deal with your own trauma, or, at worst, bolster your image of "enlightened martyr".
posted by Tarumba at 5:05 AM on February 23, 2018 [12 favorites]
huh, well, that was sure a rabbit-hole of googling i just fell down
i have discovered that literally all of the assholes and bullies of my younger days are doing just fine thank you, far better than me on purely socio-economic metrics, and at least one of them has become exactly the entirely-insufferable sort of social-media-posturing loft-dwelling 'venture capitalist' he was destined to become. the meanest and fiercest of the lot, the one who followed me home on the regular to laugh and scream about how ugly i was, the one who stole my library books to rip them apart in front of me, appears to be the only one who hit anything like a rough patch, but even he is now, somehow, a sommelier living abroad.
i had two friends in middle school. i can't seem to find either of them by googling. i hope they're doing half as well as the people who savaged us.
hi ho, funny old thing, life
posted by halation at 5:57 AM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
i have discovered that literally all of the assholes and bullies of my younger days are doing just fine thank you, far better than me on purely socio-economic metrics, and at least one of them has become exactly the entirely-insufferable sort of social-media-posturing loft-dwelling 'venture capitalist' he was destined to become. the meanest and fiercest of the lot, the one who followed me home on the regular to laugh and scream about how ugly i was, the one who stole my library books to rip them apart in front of me, appears to be the only one who hit anything like a rough patch, but even he is now, somehow, a sommelier living abroad.
i had two friends in middle school. i can't seem to find either of them by googling. i hope they're doing half as well as the people who savaged us.
hi ho, funny old thing, life
posted by halation at 5:57 AM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
Most of my bullies and bullying-adjacent people were the "bored rich kids" mentioned up above and have gone on to lead powerful, wealthy lives. One of them committed suicide in his mid-twenties, and was eaten by his own dogs. Can't say I feel much about either outcome extreme at this stage of my life; most of my childhood feels like it was a million years ago and happened to somebody else, and I'm just out of fucks to give about it. Whether this means I am a therapy success story or a therapy failure, I couldn't tell you.
(It does *not* mean that I'm an enlightened and wonderful person now; I regularly make some metaphorical popcorn and check in on my Worst Ex's live-tweeting of his divorce from the person he cheated on me with. I assume in another five years or so I'll be out of fucks to give about him, too, if the disappearance-of-fucks-given proceeds at a constant pace in relation to time passed, but I'm not there yet.)
posted by Stacey at 6:25 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
(It does *not* mean that I'm an enlightened and wonderful person now; I regularly make some metaphorical popcorn and check in on my Worst Ex's live-tweeting of his divorce from the person he cheated on me with. I assume in another five years or so I'll be out of fucks to give about him, too, if the disappearance-of-fucks-given proceeds at a constant pace in relation to time passed, but I'm not there yet.)
posted by Stacey at 6:25 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
I've had bullies but I was never physically or sexually abused, "just" emotionally and psychologically.
Ultimately I can't get down with the idea that most bullies are born evil. I don't think anyone here is arguing that specifically, but if you don't think bullies are born evil then that means they were socialized to be evil right? If that's the case then they're just as much victims as anyone else. This is the part where everyone jumps to the conclusion that we're ignoring the real victims or we're feeling bad for people who (in the best / most transparent circumstances) got away with their crimes with zero psychological or material consequences.
It's cliche and trite and boring and pathological and immoral and evil to say but I think there is something to forgiveness of others under any circumstances. I can't convince myself that my bullies were fully formed as inhuman in a one dimensional vacuum. It's not a coping mechanism as others above seem to passive aggressively suggest but it's a humanizing mechanism. If someone is irredeemably evil why not just imprison them for life? Why not kill them? Why not kill the bad kids too since they're just going to become bad adults? I'm sure there are many people here who will say "yeah, why not" and I just deep down don't think that's the right answer.
posted by laptolain at 6:46 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
Ultimately I can't get down with the idea that most bullies are born evil. I don't think anyone here is arguing that specifically, but if you don't think bullies are born evil then that means they were socialized to be evil right? If that's the case then they're just as much victims as anyone else. This is the part where everyone jumps to the conclusion that we're ignoring the real victims or we're feeling bad for people who (in the best / most transparent circumstances) got away with their crimes with zero psychological or material consequences.
It's cliche and trite and boring and pathological and immoral and evil to say but I think there is something to forgiveness of others under any circumstances. I can't convince myself that my bullies were fully formed as inhuman in a one dimensional vacuum. It's not a coping mechanism as others above seem to passive aggressively suggest but it's a humanizing mechanism. If someone is irredeemably evil why not just imprison them for life? Why not kill them? Why not kill the bad kids too since they're just going to become bad adults? I'm sure there are many people here who will say "yeah, why not" and I just deep down don't think that's the right answer.
posted by laptolain at 6:46 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
See, what gets me about this article is the idea that there are only two positions - "my bully is a human too, how sad their life must be, I forgive them and recognize that their life is far, far sadder than my own" and "I wish my bully would die slowly of cancer while living in a pit of voles".
I didn't get this at all from this piece, and I don't actually think the article is about needing to forgive or absolve bullies. I think it is specifically about how "don't worry your bully will grow up and be miserable" is constantly used to comfort bullied children, and that it is a terrible lie in two ways-- either your bully grows up and has a normal (or successful) life and you realize some bullies are never punished, or your bully DOES grow up to have a terrible life and it turns out to be no comfort at all, just another dose of misery.
I feel like this piece isn't really about the bullies themselves, but about how much parents and adults tend to fail bullied kids (and, sometimes, bullies as well, in the case of "children throwing out red flags that demonstrate they need help," not "rich teens who think torment is funny"). If the only comfort you can offer a child undergoing psychological torture is "don't worry sweetheart, someday the torture will be aimed at your torturer", then that is a TERRIBLE way to approach the problem. (See also: your torturers hate you because they want to grope you! Don't you feel better now?) When bullied children are begging to be seen and helped in the present, a response based on possible future vengeance (perpetrated by the vagaries of karma rather than actual adults or systems of justice) is uniquely unhelpful.
I don't think it is a "but what about the bullies??" piece at all. I think it is about how focusing on the bullies (vengeance, forgiveness, redemption) instead of healing for the bullied is profoundly wrongheaded.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:00 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
I didn't get this at all from this piece, and I don't actually think the article is about needing to forgive or absolve bullies. I think it is specifically about how "don't worry your bully will grow up and be miserable" is constantly used to comfort bullied children, and that it is a terrible lie in two ways-- either your bully grows up and has a normal (or successful) life and you realize some bullies are never punished, or your bully DOES grow up to have a terrible life and it turns out to be no comfort at all, just another dose of misery.
I feel like this piece isn't really about the bullies themselves, but about how much parents and adults tend to fail bullied kids (and, sometimes, bullies as well, in the case of "children throwing out red flags that demonstrate they need help," not "rich teens who think torment is funny"). If the only comfort you can offer a child undergoing psychological torture is "don't worry sweetheart, someday the torture will be aimed at your torturer", then that is a TERRIBLE way to approach the problem. (See also: your torturers hate you because they want to grope you! Don't you feel better now?) When bullied children are begging to be seen and helped in the present, a response based on possible future vengeance (perpetrated by the vagaries of karma rather than actual adults or systems of justice) is uniquely unhelpful.
I don't think it is a "but what about the bullies??" piece at all. I think it is about how focusing on the bullies (vengeance, forgiveness, redemption) instead of healing for the bullied is profoundly wrongheaded.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:00 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
but if you don't think bullies are born evil then that means they were socialized to be evil right? If that's the case then they're just as much victims as anyone else
NO. That absolutely does not follow. Everyone accumulates trauma at some point. Many of us had shitty childhoods. Some of us were permanently changed by those experiences, and sometimes in ways that, later, might have caused us to hurt others. There are very few people who have managed to get through life without being damaged by others and inflicting damage in return, albeit perhaps unwittingly. (And, from my own experience: I didn’t even SEE that I was sometimes the bad guy until years later, bc trauma responses make you interpret things as a threat, even if they aren’t. FUN.)
But most of us did not become committed terrorists who abused chosen victims over extended periods of time. Outside of the most horrific childhoods — which most of these people did not have — that is a fucking a choice. It was a choice they made because it was easier, or because they enjoyed it. But it was a choice, and they are responsible for making it, just as they are responsible for who it made them become.
I think it is tempting to believe that those committed terrorists and abusers were somehow victimized, themselves, as a way of maintaining some sense of humanity, or maybe of believing in some form of justice. But it’s only a lie that people tell themselves to feel better about the fact that the world isn’t fair. And it’s a lie that hurts people who still suffer from the effects of abuse.
So stop it.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:08 AM on February 23, 2018 [15 favorites]
NO. That absolutely does not follow. Everyone accumulates trauma at some point. Many of us had shitty childhoods. Some of us were permanently changed by those experiences, and sometimes in ways that, later, might have caused us to hurt others. There are very few people who have managed to get through life without being damaged by others and inflicting damage in return, albeit perhaps unwittingly. (And, from my own experience: I didn’t even SEE that I was sometimes the bad guy until years later, bc trauma responses make you interpret things as a threat, even if they aren’t. FUN.)
But most of us did not become committed terrorists who abused chosen victims over extended periods of time. Outside of the most horrific childhoods — which most of these people did not have — that is a fucking a choice. It was a choice they made because it was easier, or because they enjoyed it. But it was a choice, and they are responsible for making it, just as they are responsible for who it made them become.
I think it is tempting to believe that those committed terrorists and abusers were somehow victimized, themselves, as a way of maintaining some sense of humanity, or maybe of believing in some form of justice. But it’s only a lie that people tell themselves to feel better about the fact that the world isn’t fair. And it’s a lie that hurts people who still suffer from the effects of abuse.
So stop it.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:08 AM on February 23, 2018 [15 favorites]
Schadenfrau so are you saying there is some kind of genetic component to being a totally evil bully?
Because like you I realize in retrospect there were periods of my life where I was an asshole but also I know for fact that I wasn't a psychological/physical terrorist. So what is the difference between the casual "sometimesthe bad guy" and the terrorist? How much of it is the perception of the victim? How much of it is objective evil? I assume that such things have been studied and such truly pathological behavior isn't a secret to the medical profession? What percentage of bullies should we assume are irredeemable or just plain evil?
And no, I'm not going to stop it. I'm not going to stop trying to find the humanity in other people unless I get a very good reason to, thanks.
posted by laptolain at 7:14 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Because like you I realize in retrospect there were periods of my life where I was an asshole but also I know for fact that I wasn't a psychological/physical terrorist. So what is the difference between the casual "sometimesthe bad guy" and the terrorist? How much of it is the perception of the victim? How much of it is objective evil? I assume that such things have been studied and such truly pathological behavior isn't a secret to the medical profession? What percentage of bullies should we assume are irredeemable or just plain evil?
And no, I'm not going to stop it. I'm not going to stop trying to find the humanity in other people unless I get a very good reason to, thanks.
posted by laptolain at 7:14 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don’t remember the names of most of the kids who harassed me in middle school or high school. I left that town when I went to college. If my high school has reunions, I’m not on the mailing list for them, and that suits me just fine. So I don’t know what happened to any of the people who harassed me, and I don’t care.
posted by Anne Neville at 7:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Anne Neville at 7:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
Find their humanity on your own time, then. But there is a difference between finding humanity and making false equivalences, which is what you did and should not do. Do not tell people who have been victimized by abusers over a period of years that their abusers must have been “socialized” to it and are therefore “just as much victims.”
And I’m almost...like did you read my comment? Where I said, repeatedly, that the vast majority of people who take part in these sustained abusive terror campaigns make the choice to do so, and are therefore responsible for who they’ve chosen to be?
Because I have no idea where you’re getting some weird genetics argument from that.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
And I’m almost...like did you read my comment? Where I said, repeatedly, that the vast majority of people who take part in these sustained abusive terror campaigns make the choice to do so, and are therefore responsible for who they’ve chosen to be?
Because I have no idea where you’re getting some weird genetics argument from that.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
How can an evil child sustain such a lifestyle without the support (active or passive) of their family, community and society? Sorry I don't buy that most bullies just wake up one day and decide "hey it would be cool to stuff timmy in a locker." There are obvious social pressures and things to gain and lose related to being a bully. It seems like serious mental gymnastics to just throw away the environment a bully is raised in as if it has no part in his or her development.
Appreciating that a bully is a wholly formed human being doesn't mean they're absolved of their sins or that we toss the suffering of the victims into the "problem solved" column.
posted by laptolain at 7:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Appreciating that a bully is a wholly formed human being doesn't mean they're absolved of their sins or that we toss the suffering of the victims into the "problem solved" column.
posted by laptolain at 7:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, most of the people I thought of back then were guys who engaged in what we now call sexual harassment but back then I was not even supposed to complain about. I am okay with judging them for that and not feeling sorry for them.
I'm a guy, but in retrospect it stands out to me how all the bullying I got in high school was sexual/gender-based. "You fag!" was the least of it; like others described above, the teachers at the time just shrugged or even encouraged it.
I had it easy; for me it was only a couple years of high school and then my family moved, leaving the bullying behind. I don't remember any of their names and don't care enough to dig through old boxes to see if there is a yearbook somewhere. I don't in the slightest care if they went on to have great lives or terrible. It basically feels irrelevant to my life now.
What I do remember, though, are the some of the names of the people who had it worse than I did -- people who were bullied and didn't have a loving family, or whose bullying escalated beyond just cruel words to violence. At the time I mostly shunned them, fearing anything that would make my own situation worse, but in retrospect, now I wish that I had done the reverse and shown kindness and friendship; I think it would have made both of our situations better.
Also, I don't think of myself as a bully at all, but I wonder if there might be some people who remember me that way. Things you think of as "in fun" or "all as a joke" can feel very differently to other people, and I know I've said cruel things before.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm a guy, but in retrospect it stands out to me how all the bullying I got in high school was sexual/gender-based. "You fag!" was the least of it; like others described above, the teachers at the time just shrugged or even encouraged it.
I had it easy; for me it was only a couple years of high school and then my family moved, leaving the bullying behind. I don't remember any of their names and don't care enough to dig through old boxes to see if there is a yearbook somewhere. I don't in the slightest care if they went on to have great lives or terrible. It basically feels irrelevant to my life now.
What I do remember, though, are the some of the names of the people who had it worse than I did -- people who were bullied and didn't have a loving family, or whose bullying escalated beyond just cruel words to violence. At the time I mostly shunned them, fearing anything that would make my own situation worse, but in retrospect, now I wish that I had done the reverse and shown kindness and friendship; I think it would have made both of our situations better.
Also, I don't think of myself as a bully at all, but I wonder if there might be some people who remember me that way. Things you think of as "in fun" or "all as a joke" can feel very differently to other people, and I know I've said cruel things before.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
It seems like serious mental gymnastics to just throw away the environment a bully is raised in as if it has no part in his or her development.
Once again, it’s like you didn’t read my comment, and are instead responding to something you made up.
It’s not mental gymnastics if you are explicitly comparing the environment of the bullies to those they bully. Literally the entire premise of my comment was “many of us grow up in those environments, only some of us choose to torture others.”
And your continued insistence on talking exclusively about children, when many people have noted that their bullies and abusers simply stayed that way, is weird.
At what point do you think people become responsible for their actions? For who they’ve chosen to be? Is it ever?
posted by schadenfrau at 7:54 AM on February 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
Once again, it’s like you didn’t read my comment, and are instead responding to something you made up.
It’s not mental gymnastics if you are explicitly comparing the environment of the bullies to those they bully. Literally the entire premise of my comment was “many of us grow up in those environments, only some of us choose to torture others.”
And your continued insistence on talking exclusively about children, when many people have noted that their bullies and abusers simply stayed that way, is weird.
At what point do you think people become responsible for their actions? For who they’ve chosen to be? Is it ever?
posted by schadenfrau at 7:54 AM on February 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
Ultimately I can't get down with the idea that most bullies are born evil. I don't think anyone here is arguing that specifically, but if you don't think bullies are born evil then that means they were socialized to be evil right? If that's the case then they're just as much victims as anyone else.
They might be victims to a degree as well, but no, they are not just as much so. The people who are the last link in the chain of "a kicks b, b kicks c, c kicks d" are more the victims than the people who also victimise.
posted by Dysk at 8:09 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
They might be victims to a degree as well, but no, they are not just as much so. The people who are the last link in the chain of "a kicks b, b kicks c, c kicks d" are more the victims than the people who also victimise.
posted by Dysk at 8:09 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Considering the fact that the original comment I wrote which you responded to uses the term "born evil" I don't see how you're confused about why I'm talking about children. "Weird."
>“many of us grow up in those environments, only some of us choose to torture others.”
But you didn't grow up in your bully's social environment. Maybe you went to the same school as them but you didn't have their family and you have no idea about their social reality outside of your second hand experience. Maybe you don't care or don't want to know but that doesn't mean you know.
>At what point do you think people become responsible for their actions? For who they’ve chosen to be? Is it ever?
Hey good question, now I think we might be on the same page. I don't know if I have a good answer to that. Is the person you "choose to be" at age 7 the same person that you choose to be in high school? How does choosing to be someone really work in a complex social environment? Do people ever really change? Are you the same person after your parents die or after any number of potentially life altering events? How do we talk about an abusive person changing when they leave in their wake such evil and destruction? Very complicated questions.
posted by laptolain at 8:12 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
>“many of us grow up in those environments, only some of us choose to torture others.”
But you didn't grow up in your bully's social environment. Maybe you went to the same school as them but you didn't have their family and you have no idea about their social reality outside of your second hand experience. Maybe you don't care or don't want to know but that doesn't mean you know.
>At what point do you think people become responsible for their actions? For who they’ve chosen to be? Is it ever?
Hey good question, now I think we might be on the same page. I don't know if I have a good answer to that. Is the person you "choose to be" at age 7 the same person that you choose to be in high school? How does choosing to be someone really work in a complex social environment? Do people ever really change? Are you the same person after your parents die or after any number of potentially life altering events? How do we talk about an abusive person changing when they leave in their wake such evil and destruction? Very complicated questions.
posted by laptolain at 8:12 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Way to use other people's pain for a high falutin "but can we ever REALLY know a person??" thought experiment.
posted by Dysk at 8:15 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 8:15 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
"they're just as much victims as anyone else"
Fucking shit. The fact that there are reasons for their behavior doesn't absolve them from responsibility and consequences. You have to do the work to be forgiven, and even then, it's not a guarantee.
In fact, I would argue that a born sociopath who wasn't abused is less responsible for their actions than a person who has functioning empathy and still takes their suffering out on those weaker than them.
Plus I don't know if I'm a rare case, but I remember being a little shit when I was a child and knowing 100% that I was behaving unethically. Children need guidance, but it's pretty clueless to paint them like they don't know right from wrong, or like they don't know what's fair or unfair.
I mean kids grow into adults, and malice without consequences is what brings you much more problematic patterns of behavior in the future. Some kids might mature on their own, but without intervention you are likely to end up with a bunch of entitled assholes who never repented.
I would not feel mad if people I went to school with wanted me to have a bad life based on the fact that I was a snobby, spoiled brat who enjoyed ridiculing people. It's on me to earn their good will back, and it's on me to respect them and deal with it if they still want me to go fuck myself.
Like, it sounds so ridiculously entitled to even consider that I could just go to them and be like "my mum was abusive, so I needed to feel superior to you all through middle school, sorry I fucked up your self-esteem for life lol" and expect their fucking compassion like my circumstances erase years of pain.
posted by Tarumba at 8:16 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
Fucking shit. The fact that there are reasons for their behavior doesn't absolve them from responsibility and consequences. You have to do the work to be forgiven, and even then, it's not a guarantee.
In fact, I would argue that a born sociopath who wasn't abused is less responsible for their actions than a person who has functioning empathy and still takes their suffering out on those weaker than them.
Plus I don't know if I'm a rare case, but I remember being a little shit when I was a child and knowing 100% that I was behaving unethically. Children need guidance, but it's pretty clueless to paint them like they don't know right from wrong, or like they don't know what's fair or unfair.
I mean kids grow into adults, and malice without consequences is what brings you much more problematic patterns of behavior in the future. Some kids might mature on their own, but without intervention you are likely to end up with a bunch of entitled assholes who never repented.
I would not feel mad if people I went to school with wanted me to have a bad life based on the fact that I was a snobby, spoiled brat who enjoyed ridiculing people. It's on me to earn their good will back, and it's on me to respect them and deal with it if they still want me to go fuck myself.
Like, it sounds so ridiculously entitled to even consider that I could just go to them and be like "my mum was abusive, so I needed to feel superior to you all through middle school, sorry I fucked up your self-esteem for life lol" and expect their fucking compassion like my circumstances erase years of pain.
posted by Tarumba at 8:16 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
>Children need guidance, but it's pretty clueless to paint them like they don't know right from wrong, or like they don't know what's fair or unfair.
I completely agree. And the environment they're raised in either rewards or punishes this behavior. I don't think it's a coincidence that many people here identify teachers are in the best position to stop it and are also the first to turn a blind eye.
Apparently trying to understand the motivations behind what creates a bully that aren't just "well they woke up one day and decided to be an asshole" means that I not only have zero regard for their victims but that I also support the bullies more than the victims. So I'm just gonna call this thread a day.
posted by laptolain at 8:20 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I completely agree. And the environment they're raised in either rewards or punishes this behavior. I don't think it's a coincidence that many people here identify teachers are in the best position to stop it and are also the first to turn a blind eye.
Apparently trying to understand the motivations behind what creates a bully that aren't just "well they woke up one day and decided to be an asshole" means that I not only have zero regard for their victims but that I also support the bullies more than the victims. So I'm just gonna call this thread a day.
posted by laptolain at 8:20 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was suspended once because one of my bullies set my hair on fire.
Yup. I stood up to my two bullies in grade school and got in trouble for both. The first bully was the traditional big kid who tormented everyone with headlocks and noogies and general assholery. One day, he was picking on my friend Margaret who was the only person in the class who was nice to the developmentally challenged kid in our class. He was throwing rocks at her and calling her an r-word lover and I snapped. I kicked him and punched him with all I had and being half his size and girl, it did little. Then he put me in his classic headlock with my face pinned in his armpit, so you could suffer his smell, and I did the only thing I could think of. I bit the shit out of him. He let me go and ran, bleeding to the teachers crying the whole way. These teachers who did nothing about him throwing rocks at a girl, promptly punished me and soothed him. I got a paddling and had to sit on the naughty wall at recess for a week.
Second bully in 4th grade spent the entire year pulling my hair, pinching me hard enough to leave bruises, and spitting down the back of my neck while we waiting in line for lunch. I told the teachers and was told over and over again, he's just likes you, ignore him and he'll stop. Finally, after a year of this torment, I told him for the 400th time to stop and he said there was nothing I could do about it. So I hit him with my lunch box. In the junk. Since it was a metal lunch box and I had considerable rage behind the swing, I did some serious damage to the young man. I was promptly put in detention and given anger management counseling because my reaction was "way beyond what was rational."
That's when I learned that the whole "stand up to your bully" bullshit was all lies and all it got you was in trouble. Neither of those two boys stopped being shits and I'm assuming they are still the same jerky little assholes they were back then.
posted by teleri025 at 8:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [16 favorites]
Yup. I stood up to my two bullies in grade school and got in trouble for both. The first bully was the traditional big kid who tormented everyone with headlocks and noogies and general assholery. One day, he was picking on my friend Margaret who was the only person in the class who was nice to the developmentally challenged kid in our class. He was throwing rocks at her and calling her an r-word lover and I snapped. I kicked him and punched him with all I had and being half his size and girl, it did little. Then he put me in his classic headlock with my face pinned in his armpit, so you could suffer his smell, and I did the only thing I could think of. I bit the shit out of him. He let me go and ran, bleeding to the teachers crying the whole way. These teachers who did nothing about him throwing rocks at a girl, promptly punished me and soothed him. I got a paddling and had to sit on the naughty wall at recess for a week.
Second bully in 4th grade spent the entire year pulling my hair, pinching me hard enough to leave bruises, and spitting down the back of my neck while we waiting in line for lunch. I told the teachers and was told over and over again, he's just likes you, ignore him and he'll stop. Finally, after a year of this torment, I told him for the 400th time to stop and he said there was nothing I could do about it. So I hit him with my lunch box. In the junk. Since it was a metal lunch box and I had considerable rage behind the swing, I did some serious damage to the young man. I was promptly put in detention and given anger management counseling because my reaction was "way beyond what was rational."
That's when I learned that the whole "stand up to your bully" bullshit was all lies and all it got you was in trouble. Neither of those two boys stopped being shits and I'm assuming they are still the same jerky little assholes they were back then.
posted by teleri025 at 8:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [16 favorites]
I don't think it is a "but what about the bullies??" piece at all. I think it is about how focusing on the bullies (vengeance, forgiveness, redemption) instead of healing for the bullied is profoundly wrongheaded.
I think this is the key. Forgive or don't forgive, when you spend time (== effort) thinking about some bully from your past, you're giving them power. Perhaps the best "revenge" is forgetting them completely, and living now.
posted by theorique at 8:37 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think this is the key. Forgive or don't forgive, when you spend time (== effort) thinking about some bully from your past, you're giving them power. Perhaps the best "revenge" is forgetting them completely, and living now.
posted by theorique at 8:37 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Some of the kids who bullied me during K-12 grew up to be assholes with consequences. One decided to become a meth dealer and was in prison a couple times for assault. He died a couple years ago of cardiac arrest. Another died suddenly about 10 years ago of sepsis—no idea how that came about, it was a weird incident where he checked into the hospital with an infection and 6 hours later he was dead.
Some of them grew up to be decent people, though. One of my classmates (who was a longtime friend but we fell out in our 20s) recently lost a child who was hit by a car, and one of our worst middle-school bullies posted the nicest, most caring message imaginable. I couldn’t help but reflect on how much times had changed when I saw that.
In adulthood, I had a bully on a BBS who took offense at the fact that I could dish it out as well as anyone, and posted revenge porn of me on a couple different occasions, as well as banning me from one of our mutual communities so he could talk shit behind my back. A few years ago he posted about how he had fallen victim to mental illness, become unemployable due to burning bridges with multiple employers, had recently become homeless, and was seeking donations in order to pay for rent and food. He was homeless-buddies with another guy who had teamed up on all of the above, also lost his means of support, and was disabled due to a brutal beating that he received as a result of being an asshole to someone who happened to own a baseball bat. My response post was “Karma’s a bitch, motherfucker”, and I left it at that, though I did temporarily toy with sending him a bag of dick gummies or a lump of coal via his Amazon wishlist. I still have to go through life wondering if any of those photos are going to turn up in my future. Enjoy your cardboard box, you piece of shit.
I do make allowances for people who were little shits as kids. I was a total wallflower as a kid, but even I did some things that shame me to think about. But I grew up and learned better, and if I see evidence that former bullies did too, then cool. If they’re still stepping on people as adults, though, then they get what they get, and I’m not gonna feel bad. If they wind up with cancer and nobody wants to donate to their gofundme because they’ve been such a colossal prick, then hey. You reap what you sow.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:38 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
Some of them grew up to be decent people, though. One of my classmates (who was a longtime friend but we fell out in our 20s) recently lost a child who was hit by a car, and one of our worst middle-school bullies posted the nicest, most caring message imaginable. I couldn’t help but reflect on how much times had changed when I saw that.
In adulthood, I had a bully on a BBS who took offense at the fact that I could dish it out as well as anyone, and posted revenge porn of me on a couple different occasions, as well as banning me from one of our mutual communities so he could talk shit behind my back. A few years ago he posted about how he had fallen victim to mental illness, become unemployable due to burning bridges with multiple employers, had recently become homeless, and was seeking donations in order to pay for rent and food. He was homeless-buddies with another guy who had teamed up on all of the above, also lost his means of support, and was disabled due to a brutal beating that he received as a result of being an asshole to someone who happened to own a baseball bat. My response post was “Karma’s a bitch, motherfucker”, and I left it at that, though I did temporarily toy with sending him a bag of dick gummies or a lump of coal via his Amazon wishlist. I still have to go through life wondering if any of those photos are going to turn up in my future. Enjoy your cardboard box, you piece of shit.
I do make allowances for people who were little shits as kids. I was a total wallflower as a kid, but even I did some things that shame me to think about. But I grew up and learned better, and if I see evidence that former bullies did too, then cool. If they’re still stepping on people as adults, though, then they get what they get, and I’m not gonna feel bad. If they wind up with cancer and nobody wants to donate to their gofundme because they’ve been such a colossal prick, then hey. You reap what you sow.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:38 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
"Apparently trying to understand the motivations behind what creates a bully that aren't just "well they woke up one day and decided to be an asshole" means that I not only have zero regard for their victims but that I also support the bullies more than the victims. "
Nope, the problem is that while their circumstances might partially explain the behavior, we're trying to point to out that the pain and the consequences remain. Nobody ever argued that they are just" born evil" (although I did argue that people who are born evil are less to blame), but as schadenfrau pointed out, many people are abused and choose to use that experience to help others, not to recreate the cycle.
If you have a horrible abusive relationship which culminates in a violent fight, get drunk, go for a drive and run over a person, your victim is entitled to be fucking angry at you. It might be tragic, but you still fucked up an innocent bystander's life, and you don't have an automatic right to their forgiveness and compassion.
posted by Tarumba at 8:43 AM on February 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
Nope, the problem is that while their circumstances might partially explain the behavior, we're trying to point to out that the pain and the consequences remain. Nobody ever argued that they are just" born evil" (although I did argue that people who are born evil are less to blame), but as schadenfrau pointed out, many people are abused and choose to use that experience to help others, not to recreate the cycle.
If you have a horrible abusive relationship which culminates in a violent fight, get drunk, go for a drive and run over a person, your victim is entitled to be fucking angry at you. It might be tragic, but you still fucked up an innocent bystander's life, and you don't have an automatic right to their forgiveness and compassion.
posted by Tarumba at 8:43 AM on February 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
I think there’s also a component that frequently gets missed, where the laws of physics and biology have no compassion, and that bad choices can have fatal consequences even if you’re a kid who doesn’t fully understand the ramifications when you make those choices.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:56 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Autumnheart at 8:56 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
I just looked up some of my childhood bullies and couldn't find any of them. But the people I can't bring myself to look up, are the ones who suffered even more at the hands of those bullies, than I did. Because I remember carefully keeping my distance from those other victims, fearing that if I got anywhere near them, I'd be targeted even more. And thinking about how things were going at 17, for the kids I didn't dare stand next to at 10, makes my heart just break.
Thinking back on it, the best thing we could have done would have been to band together. Being each of us alone in this hostile environment was just intensifying the distress from the bullying, and it made us each easier targets. And in pushing each other away, we were causing our fellow victims even more hurt. I wonder how many of the minor slings and arrows that hurt me every day, were that kind of defensive pushing-away? And if we stopped doing it to each other, would we have become stronger against the more major slings and arrows from the kids who were not fellow-targets?
posted by elizilla at 9:06 AM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
Thinking back on it, the best thing we could have done would have been to band together. Being each of us alone in this hostile environment was just intensifying the distress from the bullying, and it made us each easier targets. And in pushing each other away, we were causing our fellow victims even more hurt. I wonder how many of the minor slings and arrows that hurt me every day, were that kind of defensive pushing-away? And if we stopped doing it to each other, would we have become stronger against the more major slings and arrows from the kids who were not fellow-targets?
posted by elizilla at 9:06 AM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
One of the things that's weird about this article to me is its focus on "now that my bully is actually dead, I reconsider my thoughts". Look, last year a person I'd cared about a great deal in high school killed herself. She'd struggled with severe depression since her early teens. We hadn't stayed in touch, but she was one of the very few people I ever really thought about or missed from back then. She wasn't a bad person. She had a hard life - an abusive father and some other stuff. Now she's dead. She had a science-y job so I'm hoping that she had the knowledge to make the process not hurt much.
She was bullied. Not as much as I was because she was pretty hard core.
She didn't bully people and she had a strong moral sense.
What about her? How do I feel about this in the schema of "my bully had a bad life and died"? I knew a guy, a promising activist and left academic, who died at forty out of the blue. What about him?
Like, the reason not to wish a foreclosed and miserable life on someone is because no one should have a foreclosed and miserable life, not because "I guess when my bully went to jail and was murdered that made me realize that I didn't really want him to suffer".
It seems morally obvious that, eg, being murdered in a drug deal gone wrong isn't what we really, truly wish on bullies, or what we'd deal out if we had the power to deal.
It's not wrong to wish that there were proportionate material consequences at the time of bullying for bullies, and that's what most people wish. Nor is it wrong to wish that people didn't just go on to adult lives of privilege and power, completely unchanged by what they did, while the people they victimized deal with it for life.
posted by Frowner at 9:09 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
She was bullied. Not as much as I was because she was pretty hard core.
She didn't bully people and she had a strong moral sense.
What about her? How do I feel about this in the schema of "my bully had a bad life and died"? I knew a guy, a promising activist and left academic, who died at forty out of the blue. What about him?
Like, the reason not to wish a foreclosed and miserable life on someone is because no one should have a foreclosed and miserable life, not because "I guess when my bully went to jail and was murdered that made me realize that I didn't really want him to suffer".
It seems morally obvious that, eg, being murdered in a drug deal gone wrong isn't what we really, truly wish on bullies, or what we'd deal out if we had the power to deal.
It's not wrong to wish that there were proportionate material consequences at the time of bullying for bullies, and that's what most people wish. Nor is it wrong to wish that people didn't just go on to adult lives of privilege and power, completely unchanged by what they did, while the people they victimized deal with it for life.
posted by Frowner at 9:09 AM on February 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
The biggest bullying assholes from my junior high & high school were all wealthy, popular kids. I never figured out why people needed to be such dicks -- nor how/why they lacked the introspection to realize they were doing it.
Do I forgive them? No, they were terrible for no reason, and they showed no remorse. But life moves on.
Now, as an adult I have recently run across someone who's so completely brined in self-confidence that his belief in his righteousness makes him behave outrageously. He's kind of pathetic (when I can set aside the damage he does to the kids he works with), but I am made actually angry by the other adults in this organization who enable & defend this behavior. They should be ashamed of their own cowardice, but their kids benefit -- the jaguar hasn't eaten their face -- so they aid and abet the chief offender.
Pisses me off.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Do I forgive them? No, they were terrible for no reason, and they showed no remorse. But life moves on.
Now, as an adult I have recently run across someone who's so completely brined in self-confidence that his belief in his righteousness makes him behave outrageously. He's kind of pathetic (when I can set aside the damage he does to the kids he works with), but I am made actually angry by the other adults in this organization who enable & defend this behavior. They should be ashamed of their own cowardice, but their kids benefit -- the jaguar hasn't eaten their face -- so they aid and abet the chief offender.
Pisses me off.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:23 AM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was suspended once because one of my bullies set my hair on fire.
I was always small, and in grade school I got picked on especially during bus rides. I seethed at the injustice until I'd finally had enough, and the next kid who hit me got my tiny hand locked onto his windpipe until the shocked bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and pried me off the kid. (He was a big hairy, bearded guy, and couldn't believe that kids were fighting so dirty.)
I'd like to say that my standing up for myself helped and no one bothered me again, but it didn't, and I had to get pretty feral for the rest of the year, and repeat the demonstration a few more times before summer came and I was free.
The next year I was a rung up the social ladder, though not much bigger, and it was quiet for two years. But then came middle school, and I rode a bus full of rich kids for an hour each way, every day. They were beastly to each other, and I hid behind a pair of earphones so I wasn't tormented every day. But it was still "Lord of the Flies" on wheels, capacity 72, for ten hours a week: they never let up on the small kids, the gay kid, the pimply kid, anybody.
I still kind of hate People because of those years of watching everyone be so terrible to each other.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:39 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was always small, and in grade school I got picked on especially during bus rides. I seethed at the injustice until I'd finally had enough, and the next kid who hit me got my tiny hand locked onto his windpipe until the shocked bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and pried me off the kid. (He was a big hairy, bearded guy, and couldn't believe that kids were fighting so dirty.)
I'd like to say that my standing up for myself helped and no one bothered me again, but it didn't, and I had to get pretty feral for the rest of the year, and repeat the demonstration a few more times before summer came and I was free.
The next year I was a rung up the social ladder, though not much bigger, and it was quiet for two years. But then came middle school, and I rode a bus full of rich kids for an hour each way, every day. They were beastly to each other, and I hid behind a pair of earphones so I wasn't tormented every day. But it was still "Lord of the Flies" on wheels, capacity 72, for ten hours a week: they never let up on the small kids, the gay kid, the pimply kid, anybody.
I still kind of hate People because of those years of watching everyone be so terrible to each other.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:39 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
Because I remember carefully keeping my distance from those other victims, fearing that if I got anywhere near them, I'd be targeted even more.
A therapist once told me that most primates, when they find a fellow primate who doesn’t have a pack, or who is off or weird for some reason, they murder it. The assumption is that this is to protect against the spread of disease, because a primate that doesn’t have a pack? That’s weird or off? Possibly contagious, better kill it.
I side eye this, a little, because it seems to me that murdering a diseased monkey with your bare monkey hands is an excellent way to spread contagion.
But it remains (if that therapist was correct) that we are descended from the wrong monkeys. Kids who suffer developmental trauma are a little (or a lot) off — they literally miss out on developmental stages and skills because their caregivers aren’t able or willing to provide the necessary care. So then they become targets outside of the home, too.
Of course, we have the ability to better than that. We just often aren’t.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:40 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
A therapist once told me that most primates, when they find a fellow primate who doesn’t have a pack, or who is off or weird for some reason, they murder it. The assumption is that this is to protect against the spread of disease, because a primate that doesn’t have a pack? That’s weird or off? Possibly contagious, better kill it.
I side eye this, a little, because it seems to me that murdering a diseased monkey with your bare monkey hands is an excellent way to spread contagion.
But it remains (if that therapist was correct) that we are descended from the wrong monkeys. Kids who suffer developmental trauma are a little (or a lot) off — they literally miss out on developmental stages and skills because their caregivers aren’t able or willing to provide the necessary care. So then they become targets outside of the home, too.
Of course, we have the ability to better than that. We just often aren’t.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:40 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
I spent childhood with a very visible physical deformity, and I also moved around a lot, and on top of that I was a weird, nervous, extremely high-strung kid--so I had a lot of experiences of kids being mean. I never really thought of it as bullying though because I was mean right back.
Quick googling reveals none of them are dead. I wonder if they are googling me to see if I'm dead.
I agree that super rich, entitled, bored kids were the worst bullies. The school I attended 8th grade through high school was filled with them (it was private school). The first year I attended, I was immediately targeted by a group of girls who had been there since kindergarten. They'd do stuff like throw balled up paper at my head during assemblies. I was really quiet and stoic about it at first because I didn't have allies yet and I didn't quite know what to do.
By the next year, I had friends, and we were the vaguely goth kids, and I got really loud and weird. The mean girls started calling me (and my friends) satanic and leaving mean notes in my locker--and once, a popsicle in my algebra book. They'd hiss "satan" at me while passing me in the hall. We retaliated with similar shenanigans, writing cruel graffiti treatises about them, calling them mean, body-shaming nicknames ("the moose," "the heifer") etc. There were mean prank calls and terrible early-day internet awfulnesses on both sides (this was 97-2000). We called them "the clique" and we were "the cult."
Whenever I try to explain this high school dynamic to anyone who didn't directly experience it, they always want to know how I knew they were the mean girls and we weren't, because we were also awful right back to them--it wasn't the classic bully-victim dynamic, it was like a WAR. It's hard to explain, but they were definitely the "popular" girls and we were the "weird" ones. They listened to more mainstream music. They did athletics. We were artier and also hung out with the gay kid.
posted by millipede at 10:12 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
Quick googling reveals none of them are dead. I wonder if they are googling me to see if I'm dead.
I agree that super rich, entitled, bored kids were the worst bullies. The school I attended 8th grade through high school was filled with them (it was private school). The first year I attended, I was immediately targeted by a group of girls who had been there since kindergarten. They'd do stuff like throw balled up paper at my head during assemblies. I was really quiet and stoic about it at first because I didn't have allies yet and I didn't quite know what to do.
By the next year, I had friends, and we were the vaguely goth kids, and I got really loud and weird. The mean girls started calling me (and my friends) satanic and leaving mean notes in my locker--and once, a popsicle in my algebra book. They'd hiss "satan" at me while passing me in the hall. We retaliated with similar shenanigans, writing cruel graffiti treatises about them, calling them mean, body-shaming nicknames ("the moose," "the heifer") etc. There were mean prank calls and terrible early-day internet awfulnesses on both sides (this was 97-2000). We called them "the clique" and we were "the cult."
Whenever I try to explain this high school dynamic to anyone who didn't directly experience it, they always want to know how I knew they were the mean girls and we weren't, because we were also awful right back to them--it wasn't the classic bully-victim dynamic, it was like a WAR. It's hard to explain, but they were definitely the "popular" girls and we were the "weird" ones. They listened to more mainstream music. They did athletics. We were artier and also hung out with the gay kid.
posted by millipede at 10:12 AM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
"The biggest bullying assholes from my junior high & high school were all wealthy, popular kids. I never figured out why people needed to be such dicks -- nor how/why they lacked the introspection to realize they were doing it."
I was one of those kids, and I was completely aware of what I was doing. I felt some fucked up pleasure humiliating people and not having consequences was the cherry on top, like I got away with it, see? You're nothing! I even bullied a couple of teachers. It was like a power trip and I got a lot of positive reinforcement from people (including adults) who agreed that being wealthy and pretty makes you "better". Bonus for being kinda white which in my country means automatic admiration.
I never got in trouble because family prestige, plus everyone was terrified of my mum and I also knew when and in the presence of whom I had to be a charming kid (which I knew how to do, so yeah, I was completely aware).
Years passed and I met my husband, who was the poor kid who was mocked and bullied in school, and seeing him deal with it is what made me realize what a piece of shit I used to be. I went to therapy for years and while my mum's abusive behavior played a role, it was clear that the problem had been me, and I worked on anger management to make sure I don't hurt anyone else.
The sad part is I got away with it. I mean I could paint this as a story of redemption but really it's just a story about how I took care of myself and could only be arsed to face my behavior as a kid when I saw it through the eyes of someone I loved. The people I actually hurt are out there, maybe still dealing with the aftermath of my bullying, and maybe they would not like to know I'm happily married, living in a developed country and overall being as privileged as I ever was, only now I get sjw and self-awareness cred. Even worse, the same interactions that hurt them are nothing more than learning experiences to me, which is fucked up in its own way.
In other words, I learned the lessons I needed to learn for my own benefit, and only when it became clear that they would contribute to the happiness of those I love.
I have since contacted a couple of people and apologized and made it clear I know I was an asshole and my behavior had no excuse (they were kind which makes me feel worse), but in the end I wonder how much of the apology was for their benefit rather than mine, and all I can say is life is pretty fucking unfair and I'm a lucky bastard.
posted by Tarumba at 10:20 AM on February 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
I was one of those kids, and I was completely aware of what I was doing. I felt some fucked up pleasure humiliating people and not having consequences was the cherry on top, like I got away with it, see? You're nothing! I even bullied a couple of teachers. It was like a power trip and I got a lot of positive reinforcement from people (including adults) who agreed that being wealthy and pretty makes you "better". Bonus for being kinda white which in my country means automatic admiration.
I never got in trouble because family prestige, plus everyone was terrified of my mum and I also knew when and in the presence of whom I had to be a charming kid (which I knew how to do, so yeah, I was completely aware).
Years passed and I met my husband, who was the poor kid who was mocked and bullied in school, and seeing him deal with it is what made me realize what a piece of shit I used to be. I went to therapy for years and while my mum's abusive behavior played a role, it was clear that the problem had been me, and I worked on anger management to make sure I don't hurt anyone else.
The sad part is I got away with it. I mean I could paint this as a story of redemption but really it's just a story about how I took care of myself and could only be arsed to face my behavior as a kid when I saw it through the eyes of someone I loved. The people I actually hurt are out there, maybe still dealing with the aftermath of my bullying, and maybe they would not like to know I'm happily married, living in a developed country and overall being as privileged as I ever was, only now I get sjw and self-awareness cred. Even worse, the same interactions that hurt them are nothing more than learning experiences to me, which is fucked up in its own way.
In other words, I learned the lessons I needed to learn for my own benefit, and only when it became clear that they would contribute to the happiness of those I love.
I have since contacted a couple of people and apologized and made it clear I know I was an asshole and my behavior had no excuse (they were kind which makes me feel worse), but in the end I wonder how much of the apology was for their benefit rather than mine, and all I can say is life is pretty fucking unfair and I'm a lucky bastard.
posted by Tarumba at 10:20 AM on February 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
"Nope, the problem is that while their circumstances might partially explain the behavior, we're trying to point to out that the pain and the consequences remain. "
But here's the thing. Most people in this thread are talking as if they are still the children who were the bullies' victims. And that pain is real and the consequences are real. But laptolain is point out that now we are the adults, we are the teachers and principals and coaches and parents and community members who were given a chance to step in and failed us as children. Are we going to be those same adults, who acquiesce to the social order where bullies win, who respond in crisis situations (if at all), and who allow another generation of children to suffer what we suffered? Or are we going to address the root causes of bullying and try to prevent it from happening to our own children? Are we going to make ourselves responsible for their well-being? Because if we are going to be the adults who are better than the adults who blew us off, we have to look at the root causes of bullying.
I spent two years working with experts in the field to craft our bullying policy. I have a lot of experience with bullying, bullying prevention, engaging with the community about bullying, etc. And one of the things that happens quite reliably is, when you try to host a community meeting about bullying prevention, people want to tell their own stories of being bullied, and get too worked up and angry to address any bullying prevention strategies, because bullies are bad and should suffer and don't deserve help, only punishment. It makes it extremely difficult to move forward on creating an environment where bullying is unacceptable, because many people who were victims of bullying as children reject all changes to the school environment that might reduce bullying because it's seen as "coddling" bullies. So in the name of getting justice for their own childhood trauma, they refuse to participate in making their own children safe from the same trauma. It's a really hard hump to get people over.
Also, from five years of dealing with school bullying as an administrator -- while there are SOME situations where there is a kid who's always a bully, and a kid who's always a victim, a lot of school bullying situations involve kids who are both bullies and victims. Refusing to help bullies means you're refusing to help victims of bullying who also are bullying others (maybe as a coping mechanism!). It's also why it's awfully complicated to apply school bullying policies fairly; many bullying interactions involve children who are both acting in ways that meet the definition of bullying, and who are clearly being victimized. It's not as simple a dichotomy as many people would like it to be, where it's easy to identify the bullies and expel them and the problem is over. Kids are complicated and only half-socialized and half-moral, and none of them behave correctly all the time.
Anyway, if you want to be one of the adults who helps protect this generation of children, there's a lot of great anti-bullying advocacy going on and I think schools are really making strides in improving their environments. But you do have to accept that ending bullying means helping bullies, at least sometimes, and an only-punishment mindset means perpetuating the structures that allow and encourage bullying. Because we aren't the children being victimized by other children anymore -- we're adults with the power to protect the next generation. Our childhood traumas are with us, but we can choose to protect and support our children in the ways that we weren't.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:36 AM on February 23, 2018 [35 favorites]
But here's the thing. Most people in this thread are talking as if they are still the children who were the bullies' victims. And that pain is real and the consequences are real. But laptolain is point out that now we are the adults, we are the teachers and principals and coaches and parents and community members who were given a chance to step in and failed us as children. Are we going to be those same adults, who acquiesce to the social order where bullies win, who respond in crisis situations (if at all), and who allow another generation of children to suffer what we suffered? Or are we going to address the root causes of bullying and try to prevent it from happening to our own children? Are we going to make ourselves responsible for their well-being? Because if we are going to be the adults who are better than the adults who blew us off, we have to look at the root causes of bullying.
I spent two years working with experts in the field to craft our bullying policy. I have a lot of experience with bullying, bullying prevention, engaging with the community about bullying, etc. And one of the things that happens quite reliably is, when you try to host a community meeting about bullying prevention, people want to tell their own stories of being bullied, and get too worked up and angry to address any bullying prevention strategies, because bullies are bad and should suffer and don't deserve help, only punishment. It makes it extremely difficult to move forward on creating an environment where bullying is unacceptable, because many people who were victims of bullying as children reject all changes to the school environment that might reduce bullying because it's seen as "coddling" bullies. So in the name of getting justice for their own childhood trauma, they refuse to participate in making their own children safe from the same trauma. It's a really hard hump to get people over.
Also, from five years of dealing with school bullying as an administrator -- while there are SOME situations where there is a kid who's always a bully, and a kid who's always a victim, a lot of school bullying situations involve kids who are both bullies and victims. Refusing to help bullies means you're refusing to help victims of bullying who also are bullying others (maybe as a coping mechanism!). It's also why it's awfully complicated to apply school bullying policies fairly; many bullying interactions involve children who are both acting in ways that meet the definition of bullying, and who are clearly being victimized. It's not as simple a dichotomy as many people would like it to be, where it's easy to identify the bullies and expel them and the problem is over. Kids are complicated and only half-socialized and half-moral, and none of them behave correctly all the time.
Anyway, if you want to be one of the adults who helps protect this generation of children, there's a lot of great anti-bullying advocacy going on and I think schools are really making strides in improving their environments. But you do have to accept that ending bullying means helping bullies, at least sometimes, and an only-punishment mindset means perpetuating the structures that allow and encourage bullying. Because we aren't the children being victimized by other children anymore -- we're adults with the power to protect the next generation. Our childhood traumas are with us, but we can choose to protect and support our children in the ways that we weren't.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:36 AM on February 23, 2018 [35 favorites]
I know that the girl that used to be my best friend but decided to launch a hate campaign against me and make my life hell had problems of her own, but that didn't justify what she did. I don't forgive her, but years ago, I decided to evict her from my brainspace. I was so angry at her for so long because she attacked me at my most vulnerable, in a fragile emotional state (she very publicly sided with my rapist, hence the hate campaign) and that sent me into a downward spiral that eventually led to the darkest time of my life. But I survived. I'm not stronger or better for it, I wish to G-d it had never happened, but I survived. And the anger was so heavy and useless. I couldn't change it. She'll never apologize. So, unless I'm specifically talking about it, like this, or in therapy, she's a non-entity, and my life is better for it. Took almost twenty years to get there though.
posted by Ruki at 10:42 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Ruki at 10:42 AM on February 23, 2018 [8 favorites]
This post and these comments inspired me to look up my childhood bully.
He passed away unexpectedly just two months ago.
It appears, by all accounts, that he found people to love him.
I have no idea how to feel about any of this, either.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
He passed away unexpectedly just two months ago.
It appears, by all accounts, that he found people to love him.
I have no idea how to feel about any of this, either.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
"But you do have to accept that ending bullying means helping bullies, at least sometimes, and an only-punishment mindset means perpetuating the structures that allow and encourage bullying."
I think this is very true, but my beef is with the idea of expecting people to forgive or understand their own bully, which is a huge ask, as opposed to helping bullies in general (which also shouldn't be expected of bullying victims, but the first expectation is much more egregious).
Maybe we can get the same assistance and understanding from reformed bullies or other interested people, but guilt tripping their victims is weird and unfair.
I mean we don't try to use the victims of any other attack in a healing rehabilitation approach out of respect, so it feels wrong that those who were bullied now have to be burdened with the task of feeling bad and even helping other bullies, or even worse, their own bullies.
I don't know, it's a little gross in my opinion. We don't ask those who were sexually assaulted to understand or advocate for their attackers or sexual predators in general. I'm not sure this is very different. A lot of bullying involves invasion of boundaries and sexual humiliation.
posted by Tarumba at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
I think this is very true, but my beef is with the idea of expecting people to forgive or understand their own bully, which is a huge ask, as opposed to helping bullies in general (which also shouldn't be expected of bullying victims, but the first expectation is much more egregious).
Maybe we can get the same assistance and understanding from reformed bullies or other interested people, but guilt tripping their victims is weird and unfair.
I mean we don't try to use the victims of any other attack in a healing rehabilitation approach out of respect, so it feels wrong that those who were bullied now have to be burdened with the task of feeling bad and even helping other bullies, or even worse, their own bullies.
I don't know, it's a little gross in my opinion. We don't ask those who were sexually assaulted to understand or advocate for their attackers or sexual predators in general. I'm not sure this is very different. A lot of bullying involves invasion of boundaries and sexual humiliation.
posted by Tarumba at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
I had the pleasure of seeing a cruel piece of shit from my childhood get a moment on the national stage after failing to understand the difference between anonymous and otherwise comms and getting sacked for abusing a senior public figure. It was pretty joyful.
posted by biffa at 11:16 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by biffa at 11:16 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
But you do have to accept that ending bullying means helping bullies, at least sometimes, and an only-punishment mindset means perpetuating the structures that allow and encourage bullying
Sure. But help the victims first. Way too often I have seen all kinds of attention, help, programmes etc. rolled out to help reform bullies, while the people they've tortured are left to simply deal with it - all while observing the appalling double standard first hand.
posted by Dysk at 11:19 AM on February 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Sure. But help the victims first. Way too often I have seen all kinds of attention, help, programmes etc. rolled out to help reform bullies, while the people they've tortured are left to simply deal with it - all while observing the appalling double standard first hand.
posted by Dysk at 11:19 AM on February 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
Lol, I had plenty of empathy for the kids who bullied me. Didn't stop me from punching them in the face when they got out of control, though. The nice thing about being the quiet kid who doesn't really mess with people is that nobody believes it (or cares) when you fight back as long as it isn't savage. Or didn't back when I was in school.
Seriously, though, even then it was plainly obvious that most of them had a shitty home life and were acting the way they were because they didn't want to show their pain. Also because they are kids. Kids whose brains aren't finished developing enough that they have full control over their behavior. Kids who almost certainly had their poor behavior modeled by the adults in their life.
But hey, once they're in the last year or two of high school they basically look like adults so surely they are the only ones to blame when they act like shitheels. Sorry, no, that isn't how it works despite years of ever decreasing minimum ages to be tried as an adult in criminal court and otherwise letting them rot until such time as we can put them in jail or they fix their own shit.
TBH, we are all worse people than most of the bullies because we systematically fail our children in most every way possible as a society. And then we wonder why so many kids are messed up in the head.
posted by wierdo at 11:19 AM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
Seriously, though, even then it was plainly obvious that most of them had a shitty home life and were acting the way they were because they didn't want to show their pain. Also because they are kids. Kids whose brains aren't finished developing enough that they have full control over their behavior. Kids who almost certainly had their poor behavior modeled by the adults in their life.
But hey, once they're in the last year or two of high school they basically look like adults so surely they are the only ones to blame when they act like shitheels. Sorry, no, that isn't how it works despite years of ever decreasing minimum ages to be tried as an adult in criminal court and otherwise letting them rot until such time as we can put them in jail or they fix their own shit.
TBH, we are all worse people than most of the bullies because we systematically fail our children in most every way possible as a society. And then we wonder why so many kids are messed up in the head.
posted by wierdo at 11:19 AM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
I definitely don't think people need to forgive their own bullies, but I do know from working with the issue for so long that there are a lot of people who can't separate the two ideas -- I think we've seen some of that in this thread -- who reject even talking about how we can help bullies because it feels tantamount to forgiving and helping their own bully. These are hard issues with deep wounds, and it requires adults to confront not just really bad experiences, but formatively bad experiences, and to have compassion for people who are very much like their bullies, even though they're not being asked to forgive their own bullies.
I don't want to guilt trip anyone. Where it is a problem is when you work on anti-bullying in schools and many of the most committed community members and loudest voices in the debate are people who were traumatized by bullying (understandably!) and are not able to view children 40 years younger than they are with compassion because those children are bullies, and they want to ensure that those children bear the punishments that their bullies didn't, even if it means more children will be bullied as a result. Even though it means they themselves are becoming the powerful bully using their status to isolate and socially punish others. Those people, if they want to be effective advocates and change agents who participate in protecting children rather than in victimizing another generation, have got to deal with their shit. I don't presume to dictate how (and I was lucky in that since I was spearheading this, I worked closely with a woman who had decades of experience in helping adults process their childhood bullying experiences, because, yo, working on an anti-bullying initiative brought up some shit for me), but they have to be able to find a way to separate their own trauma from the work.
For me that road ran through compassion, for myself as a child and for the children who bullied me. But that's obviously not the only road. Some of the people on our team did do forgiveness; others did acceptance ("some seriously shitty things happened and I do not have a time machine to change them, so I will accept that I can't change it and not dwell on it or expend energy on being enraged about it."); others did "lock it away and don't think about it so I can focus on the present issue" which is maybe not the healthiest way to cope? but it worked for what they needed.
It's definitely part of why anti-bullying initiatives are slow to get off the ground and hard to sustain. You're asking adults to do very hard things! And not just the team putting together the anti-bullying initiative who are maybe willing to do that work, but also a building full of staff and teachers, and a community full of parents, and a lot of them ARE going to refuse to sign on to bullying reduction because of their own childhood traumas and experiences.
(Also, side note, while I've been talking about bullies, our policies and programs had a lot of victim advocacy and victim support, that just hasn't really been the focus of my comments. But that is also a really important piece of anti-bullying advocacy! Although when you're doing a really GREAT job at it, you're ideally picking up on the signs of trouble before it happens so you have pre-bullies who need and get help, and no victims. That'd be the perfect world.)
(Also, boy do I have stories about adults with some seriously fucked up social dynamics who had A Lot Of Opinions on bullying, generally either that any child who engaged in bullying should be immediately expelled (with apparently no knowledge that their child was a hellion constantly in trouble for bullying), or that forcing children not to bully other was IN ITSELF bullying and obviously unAmerican and we had FOUR MEETINGS IN A ROW where this group of parents came and objected that if throwing a party where they invited all the girls in the class but the one their kids didn't like was bullying, we were denying their First Amendment free association rights and THAT ONE GIRL NEEDED TO KNOW SHE WASN'T LIKED. And I was like "You. Are. Forty. Years. Old. And. This. Is. Why. Your. Children. Suck." But not in my out loud voice.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [20 favorites]
I don't want to guilt trip anyone. Where it is a problem is when you work on anti-bullying in schools and many of the most committed community members and loudest voices in the debate are people who were traumatized by bullying (understandably!) and are not able to view children 40 years younger than they are with compassion because those children are bullies, and they want to ensure that those children bear the punishments that their bullies didn't, even if it means more children will be bullied as a result. Even though it means they themselves are becoming the powerful bully using their status to isolate and socially punish others. Those people, if they want to be effective advocates and change agents who participate in protecting children rather than in victimizing another generation, have got to deal with their shit. I don't presume to dictate how (and I was lucky in that since I was spearheading this, I worked closely with a woman who had decades of experience in helping adults process their childhood bullying experiences, because, yo, working on an anti-bullying initiative brought up some shit for me), but they have to be able to find a way to separate their own trauma from the work.
For me that road ran through compassion, for myself as a child and for the children who bullied me. But that's obviously not the only road. Some of the people on our team did do forgiveness; others did acceptance ("some seriously shitty things happened and I do not have a time machine to change them, so I will accept that I can't change it and not dwell on it or expend energy on being enraged about it."); others did "lock it away and don't think about it so I can focus on the present issue" which is maybe not the healthiest way to cope? but it worked for what they needed.
It's definitely part of why anti-bullying initiatives are slow to get off the ground and hard to sustain. You're asking adults to do very hard things! And not just the team putting together the anti-bullying initiative who are maybe willing to do that work, but also a building full of staff and teachers, and a community full of parents, and a lot of them ARE going to refuse to sign on to bullying reduction because of their own childhood traumas and experiences.
(Also, side note, while I've been talking about bullies, our policies and programs had a lot of victim advocacy and victim support, that just hasn't really been the focus of my comments. But that is also a really important piece of anti-bullying advocacy! Although when you're doing a really GREAT job at it, you're ideally picking up on the signs of trouble before it happens so you have pre-bullies who need and get help, and no victims. That'd be the perfect world.)
(Also, boy do I have stories about adults with some seriously fucked up social dynamics who had A Lot Of Opinions on bullying, generally either that any child who engaged in bullying should be immediately expelled (with apparently no knowledge that their child was a hellion constantly in trouble for bullying), or that forcing children not to bully other was IN ITSELF bullying and obviously unAmerican and we had FOUR MEETINGS IN A ROW where this group of parents came and objected that if throwing a party where they invited all the girls in the class but the one their kids didn't like was bullying, we were denying their First Amendment free association rights and THAT ONE GIRL NEEDED TO KNOW SHE WASN'T LIKED. And I was like "You. Are. Forty. Years. Old. And. This. Is. Why. Your. Children. Suck." But not in my out loud voice.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:31 AM on February 23, 2018 [20 favorites]
"But you do have to accept that ending bullying means helping bullies, at least sometimes, and an only-punishment mindset means perpetuating the structures that allow and encourage bullying."
I think people are skeptical of school policies on bullying largely because there were ample completely useless and wrongheaded policies in place when they were at school that did nothing, i.e. one school of mine was all about sitting you down in a room with your bully to 'talk it out' lololol jesus christ]. These policies and the teachers who failed to even pretend to care didn't prevent those people from having homophobic or racist slurs repeatedly screamed into their faces every day, literally having bones broken, property set on fire, not being able to go from class to class safely, being taunted with their family members deaths or sexual assaults. People rightly do not trust schools to create a working policy, I think.
I am thinking about the relation between 'forgive your bully' and saying 'you only get one dad!' to someone who's dad is a piece of shit, the fact that no one takes DV seriously, that sexual assault vics are asked what they were wearing, and that telling people their friend did it will cause those friends to drop you like a hot potato. I am thinking that we always make sure there are groups of people around who are lower status so we can abuse, exploit and murder them. I am thinking about the fact that bullies bully because the world at large operates on that basis and we actually approve of bullying, our society is based on it.
posted by everydayanewday at 11:46 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think people are skeptical of school policies on bullying largely because there were ample completely useless and wrongheaded policies in place when they were at school that did nothing, i.e. one school of mine was all about sitting you down in a room with your bully to 'talk it out' lololol jesus christ]. These policies and the teachers who failed to even pretend to care didn't prevent those people from having homophobic or racist slurs repeatedly screamed into their faces every day, literally having bones broken, property set on fire, not being able to go from class to class safely, being taunted with their family members deaths or sexual assaults. People rightly do not trust schools to create a working policy, I think.
I am thinking about the relation between 'forgive your bully' and saying 'you only get one dad!' to someone who's dad is a piece of shit, the fact that no one takes DV seriously, that sexual assault vics are asked what they were wearing, and that telling people their friend did it will cause those friends to drop you like a hot potato. I am thinking that we always make sure there are groups of people around who are lower status so we can abuse, exploit and murder them. I am thinking about the fact that bullies bully because the world at large operates on that basis and we actually approve of bullying, our society is based on it.
posted by everydayanewday at 11:46 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: But not in my out loud voice.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:46 AM on February 23, 2018
posted by wenestvedt at 11:46 AM on February 23, 2018
The thing that I, an adult, hate most these days about bullying is that I know it's going to happen to my kids, and it is happening to my kids, but I can't be there to help them.
I want them to tell me when it happens, but because it already happened, I can't stand with them and tell the bully that what (s)he's doing is wrong. I can support my kids after it happens, sure, but in the moment that they most need me, I'm not around.
And that reminds me of all the adults that weren't around when some asshole kid picked on me, and I get, like, HULK MAD -- which isn't particularly helpful, I know.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:51 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I want them to tell me when it happens, but because it already happened, I can't stand with them and tell the bully that what (s)he's doing is wrong. I can support my kids after it happens, sure, but in the moment that they most need me, I'm not around.
And that reminds me of all the adults that weren't around when some asshole kid picked on me, and I get, like, HULK MAD -- which isn't particularly helpful, I know.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:51 AM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
Eyebrows McGee - do you remember that South Park episode dedicated to how we should let children bully each other bc it's their social right to decide who they like as if it's about 'getting on' with each other? *grimace*
posted by everydayanewday at 11:51 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by everydayanewday at 11:51 AM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
This thread, and metafilter more and more lately, really scares me with equating forgiveness with empathy or empathy with kindness or empathy with being complicit. Not just here, but this is a thing I feel like there's more and more of on these present internet years. Eyebrows McGee makes a lot of good points. Look, I'm a bullying and abuse survivor on so many fronts I can write a series of books. I know what people are talking about here. I've felt and feel it. I don't care if you choose to forgive or not, and I don't think one thing is good and one is bad, etc etc. But it's not...I don't know how to express this correctly. It's also a valid choice to have empathy for broken children (I think it's even a valid choice to have empathy for broken adults and STILL hate them), and try to help them, and both anger and a desire to see things be different.
My bullies grew up. I just can't wish a bad life as punishment on someone who is a troubled kid with a little squishy hardly formed brain. I just can't get behind the idea that 99% of kids are tiny cartoon villains without remorse, and if they are, those kids become adults. And I care about those adults too. Not understand, not support, but care about them as humans and don't want them to suffer. And that's me! You don't have to feel that way. But it's how I feel.
posted by colorblock sock at 12:40 PM on February 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
My bullies grew up. I just can't wish a bad life as punishment on someone who is a troubled kid with a little squishy hardly formed brain. I just can't get behind the idea that 99% of kids are tiny cartoon villains without remorse, and if they are, those kids become adults. And I care about those adults too. Not understand, not support, but care about them as humans and don't want them to suffer. And that's me! You don't have to feel that way. But it's how I feel.
posted by colorblock sock at 12:40 PM on February 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
I just don't know why I'm supposed to show this saintly concern about bullies in particular (and I'm not talking about 'little kids' here) bad adult lives? I know plenty of people that've had bad lives, addiction problems, early deaths, suicide, chronic health problems, homelessness, violent partners etc who've never hurt people and some were themselves victims of bullying, so they had it worse? I feel like I'm repeating Frowner's words here but Bad Things don't just come to bullies as some kind of karma. Bad Things come to everyone and anyuerisms and alcoholism don't pick and choose who to afflict. Why should I be particularly concerned about being so enlightened about shitty people, who haven't even asked mine or anyone's forgiveness anyway, when these things happen to everyone?
This is not to mention that a lot of these bullies grew up and didn't change, still at the age of 30 think screaming 'lesbo!' every day at a girl they thought was ugly was hilarious, they have good jobs and nice lives and don't give a shit. They're not 'cartoon villains', they're just common or garden selfish, dismissive, casually abusive people of the most mundane kind and no amount of my empathy is going to change that because the change must come from them?
If the way you deal with your particular targeting is to use empathy that's OK and I'm not here to tell you not to do it. But I think it is never appropriate for victims to be told in not so many words that the morally correct thing for them to do is 'care' for their abusers. I don't celebrate when bad things happen to them, I just don't feel bad for them, you know? And I have no obligation to.
posted by everydayanewday at 1:22 PM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
This is not to mention that a lot of these bullies grew up and didn't change, still at the age of 30 think screaming 'lesbo!' every day at a girl they thought was ugly was hilarious, they have good jobs and nice lives and don't give a shit. They're not 'cartoon villains', they're just common or garden selfish, dismissive, casually abusive people of the most mundane kind and no amount of my empathy is going to change that because the change must come from them?
If the way you deal with your particular targeting is to use empathy that's OK and I'm not here to tell you not to do it. But I think it is never appropriate for victims to be told in not so many words that the morally correct thing for them to do is 'care' for their abusers. I don't celebrate when bad things happen to them, I just don't feel bad for them, you know? And I have no obligation to.
posted by everydayanewday at 1:22 PM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
" It's also a valid choice to have empathy for broken children..."
That assumption is why people are pushing back, though. It's not only the poor dear broken children who bully. In many cases its just a bored kid, or maybe you're right and it's someone a who is abused but that's not a justification. Even worse in the context of everyone in this thread talking about how in many cases nobody thought of the dear broken children who were on the receiving end of the bullying.
Part of being empathetic is understanding that everyone, including victims of bullying who aren't you, has a right to their feelings and can deal with their trauma in their own way. You're setting two completely different standards of behavior for those who committed the bullying and those who suffered it.
If anything, empathy for most of us is possible in certain conditions and cannot be forced. I think saying "you should feel empathy toward your bullies and you're a bad person if you don't, think of the children!" is manipulative and similar to demanding that trauma survivors "get over it" on the same arbitrary time line you did.
"I just can't get behind the idea that 99% of kids are tiny cartoon villains without remorse"
Nobody has said that.
"And that's me! You don't have to feel that way. But it's how I feel"
Yet you imply that people failing to feel empathetic is "scary" so clearly it's not "just you". You think others should feel the same way. I would argue that it's not scary, it's great that people aren't further bullied to feel a specific way about their attackers.
I am sensitive to that dynamic because my mother was a cruel narcissist, and the whole "just be empathetic" thing drives me bananas. If it weren't for online forums like metafilter, I would not have recognized the gaslighting and the guilt tripping in my own life. Like sure things are more open and confrontational ever since people gained a voice, but isn't that a good thing?
posted by Tarumba at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
That assumption is why people are pushing back, though. It's not only the poor dear broken children who bully. In many cases its just a bored kid, or maybe you're right and it's someone a who is abused but that's not a justification. Even worse in the context of everyone in this thread talking about how in many cases nobody thought of the dear broken children who were on the receiving end of the bullying.
Part of being empathetic is understanding that everyone, including victims of bullying who aren't you, has a right to their feelings and can deal with their trauma in their own way. You're setting two completely different standards of behavior for those who committed the bullying and those who suffered it.
If anything, empathy for most of us is possible in certain conditions and cannot be forced. I think saying "you should feel empathy toward your bullies and you're a bad person if you don't, think of the children!" is manipulative and similar to demanding that trauma survivors "get over it" on the same arbitrary time line you did.
"I just can't get behind the idea that 99% of kids are tiny cartoon villains without remorse"
Nobody has said that.
"And that's me! You don't have to feel that way. But it's how I feel"
Yet you imply that people failing to feel empathetic is "scary" so clearly it's not "just you". You think others should feel the same way. I would argue that it's not scary, it's great that people aren't further bullied to feel a specific way about their attackers.
I am sensitive to that dynamic because my mother was a cruel narcissist, and the whole "just be empathetic" thing drives me bananas. If it weren't for online forums like metafilter, I would not have recognized the gaslighting and the guilt tripping in my own life. Like sure things are more open and confrontational ever since people gained a voice, but isn't that a good thing?
posted by Tarumba at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2018 [5 favorites]
I also am wary of the 'use your empathy' crowd because that is how we as a society humanise mass shooters like Dylan Roof when other demographics are demonised for their own murders. We as a society are very selective about where our empathy goes.
posted by everydayanewday at 1:25 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by everydayanewday at 1:25 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Note that bullying does not happen only in the context of "the bully" and "the victim." My bullies attacked me in front of entire classrooms full of my peers.
posted by rhizome at 1:38 PM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 1:38 PM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I had several bullying stories from my school years; I was recipient of a lot of it.
I've said before that my parents took me out of the L.A. Public Schools and put me into a Private School at great expense in order to get me away from bullies. I just ended up dealing with a higher socio-economic class of bully.
I honestly have blocked all memories of my Public School bullies, but my Private School bullies were a widely mixed group. There was one in my first year there who was the only Latinx boy in the class, reportedly a 'special scholarship' student who the teachers took way too much pity on, and I ended up punished for being bullied by him because of it. There were Celebrities' kids in the school, including the son of a "Golden Age TV Legend" who bullied me. The Legend father later wrote a book on his failures as a father; I was not named, but my bullying was in it - the son had died of a drug overdose. Then there was one serious jock who went on to attend the same High School as I did. He was a 'top prospect' for a future Quarterback until one practice scrimmage where he was hit from both sides, "fell oddly" and broke his back, just below his neck. He came back to the school after a year of physical therapy in an electric wheelchair and was the quietest kid in class from then on; but then, his injury made it hard for him to speak. I was torn between pity and righteous "you deserve this" for him. Then, another high school bully was killed in an accident (falling out of a hotel balcony, probably drinking) and the school organized an outing to his funeral. Four of us who were his victims went as a group and as we passed his coffin, it was obvious he had landed on his face and his nose was reconstructed into something almost unrecognizable. Sitting together during the service, we whispered comments about his nose and made great effort not to laugh. But I came to the conclusion that my bullies too often suffered an extreme karma and I felt extreme guilt that it took years to overcome.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've said before that my parents took me out of the L.A. Public Schools and put me into a Private School at great expense in order to get me away from bullies. I just ended up dealing with a higher socio-economic class of bully.
I honestly have blocked all memories of my Public School bullies, but my Private School bullies were a widely mixed group. There was one in my first year there who was the only Latinx boy in the class, reportedly a 'special scholarship' student who the teachers took way too much pity on, and I ended up punished for being bullied by him because of it. There were Celebrities' kids in the school, including the son of a "Golden Age TV Legend" who bullied me. The Legend father later wrote a book on his failures as a father; I was not named, but my bullying was in it - the son had died of a drug overdose. Then there was one serious jock who went on to attend the same High School as I did. He was a 'top prospect' for a future Quarterback until one practice scrimmage where he was hit from both sides, "fell oddly" and broke his back, just below his neck. He came back to the school after a year of physical therapy in an electric wheelchair and was the quietest kid in class from then on; but then, his injury made it hard for him to speak. I was torn between pity and righteous "you deserve this" for him. Then, another high school bully was killed in an accident (falling out of a hotel balcony, probably drinking) and the school organized an outing to his funeral. Four of us who were his victims went as a group and as we passed his coffin, it was obvious he had landed on his face and his nose was reconstructed into something almost unrecognizable. Sitting together during the service, we whispered comments about his nose and made great effort not to laugh. But I came to the conclusion that my bullies too often suffered an extreme karma and I felt extreme guilt that it took years to overcome.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
Let me be clear: I'm an abuse survivor. I'm not saying one thing is morally correct and one thing is not morally correct. I don't believe that and if I failed to make that more explicit I apologize. I'm not pro-school shooters. People are responding to things I disclaimed or didn't even say, so I'm stepping out of this.
posted by colorblock sock at 2:00 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by colorblock sock at 2:00 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was stalked for a period of years. Every night, I had to walk home afraid. I had to worry if I would be able to study safely. My life was threatened multiple times.
Because of some particular privileges I have, the police took me seriously when I finally reported it (many, many victims/survivors do not have this experience). The person who was stalking me ultimately did not end up going to prison, but he was subject to a no-contact order with me and Aggressively Monitored by the state as a condition of him not going to prison.
At the time I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen to him. I was lucky - I didn't have to decide. The state employs people (the judge, lawyers for both sides) to figure out the best way to protect me and to protect society from people like the person who hurt me. Do they always succeed? No, definitely not. Often to terrible effect. But I was lucky. I felt justice was served. Because I wasn't burdened with the task of having to punish/absolve/rehabilitate my stalker and because he faced consequences for what he did, I'm now able to say I was satisfied. I don't wish him ill. He had serious mental illness(es) that partly informed his actions and the court's decision. My hope is that he is in a better place now and has stopped hurting others. It was helpful, to me, to see that I wasn't alone - to have Society, embodied in the court, agree that what was done to me was wrong and measures would be taken to try to keep it from happening again to me or anyone else.
I would never tell someone in a similar position to the one I was/am in how they should feel about what happened, whether "justice" was "served" or not. One reason for that is "someone in a similar position" is me. I was bullied and abused by people inside and outside my school and family and what I learned was that no one was coming to help, no one thought it was wrong, and no one would do anything to protect me or anyone else. The solution, such as it was, was to play dead and hope they got bored sooner rather than later. For those people, who hurt me over and over and should have known better or at least tried to have known better, I've got a dark heart full of hate and I rather doubt I'll ever be in the mood to give it up.
And finally, if you think sexual harassment/assault victims aren't pressured to forgive their trespassers, well, it's a nice thought, but it just ain't so.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 3:55 PM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
Because of some particular privileges I have, the police took me seriously when I finally reported it (many, many victims/survivors do not have this experience). The person who was stalking me ultimately did not end up going to prison, but he was subject to a no-contact order with me and Aggressively Monitored by the state as a condition of him not going to prison.
At the time I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen to him. I was lucky - I didn't have to decide. The state employs people (the judge, lawyers for both sides) to figure out the best way to protect me and to protect society from people like the person who hurt me. Do they always succeed? No, definitely not. Often to terrible effect. But I was lucky. I felt justice was served. Because I wasn't burdened with the task of having to punish/absolve/rehabilitate my stalker and because he faced consequences for what he did, I'm now able to say I was satisfied. I don't wish him ill. He had serious mental illness(es) that partly informed his actions and the court's decision. My hope is that he is in a better place now and has stopped hurting others. It was helpful, to me, to see that I wasn't alone - to have Society, embodied in the court, agree that what was done to me was wrong and measures would be taken to try to keep it from happening again to me or anyone else.
I would never tell someone in a similar position to the one I was/am in how they should feel about what happened, whether "justice" was "served" or not. One reason for that is "someone in a similar position" is me. I was bullied and abused by people inside and outside my school and family and what I learned was that no one was coming to help, no one thought it was wrong, and no one would do anything to protect me or anyone else. The solution, such as it was, was to play dead and hope they got bored sooner rather than later. For those people, who hurt me over and over and should have known better or at least tried to have known better, I've got a dark heart full of hate and I rather doubt I'll ever be in the mood to give it up.
And finally, if you think sexual harassment/assault victims aren't pressured to forgive their trespassers, well, it's a nice thought, but it just ain't so.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 3:55 PM on February 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
I mean we don't try to use the victims of any other attack in a healing rehabilitation approach out of respect,
We don't?
posted by XtinaS at 4:53 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
We don't?
posted by XtinaS at 4:53 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Pragmatically, one reason to make sure bullies get the rehabilitation/resources necessary to make them stop bullying (or at least become better, healthier people) is that.... I think there's a propensity for child bullies to become adult bullies, who go on to raise kids that have bullying tendencies too.
I was just talking with a friend whose child is a victim of bullying - the bully's parents are clearly the enabling, narcissistic type with pretty unhealthy values that are being (whether consciously or otherwise) passed to the kid. Kinda makes you wonder how much of a bully the parent may have been (or still is?).
posted by aielen at 5:13 PM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was just talking with a friend whose child is a victim of bullying - the bully's parents are clearly the enabling, narcissistic type with pretty unhealthy values that are being (whether consciously or otherwise) passed to the kid. Kinda makes you wonder how much of a bully the parent may have been (or still is?).
posted by aielen at 5:13 PM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's some very interesting data on bullying out there. Regarding teachers/authority not intervening, that's an accurate observation. There was also a study I read a few years ago, damned if I can find it, that highlighted the sophistication of bullying; that bullying typically occured when an authority/teacher was not present or looking - teachers literally weren't seeing most instances and thus were underestimating the scale.
Who are more likely to be bullies, rich or poor kids? - tl;dr there's not much in it, poor kids have the marginal edge. As victims, however, they are way over-represented.
posted by smoke at 5:36 PM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
Who are more likely to be bullies, rich or poor kids? - tl;dr there's not much in it, poor kids have the marginal edge. As victims, however, they are way over-represented.
posted by smoke at 5:36 PM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
I also am wary of the 'use your empathy' crowd because that is how we as a society humanise mass shooters like Dylan Roof when other demographics are demonised for their own murders. We as a society are very selective about where our empathy goes.
There's an uncomfortable relationship, I think, between acts that are viewed as a target for "restorative justice" and those that are minimized in the eyes of society. Rape is the obvious example here, but bullying seems to be another (even if the concept isn't being called out by name).
Do I think that intervening to stop bullying requires compassion towards child bullies? Probably. But it doesn't require retroactive compassion towards adults who were once bullies, and it definitely doesn't require some sort of guilt trip for people whose bullies (through no actions of their own) lived horrible lives. Adults who were once bullies as children don't need intervention -- what they need to do is own up to their prior actions.
Regardless, neither I nor my bullies are harmed by the fact that - when I think of their names at all - I don't bear them goodwill. I'm not obsessed with them by any means, though the article prompted me to google a few names. But I don't think of them fondly, and I don't think that that's somehow doing anyone any harm.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 6:10 PM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
There's an uncomfortable relationship, I think, between acts that are viewed as a target for "restorative justice" and those that are minimized in the eyes of society. Rape is the obvious example here, but bullying seems to be another (even if the concept isn't being called out by name).
Do I think that intervening to stop bullying requires compassion towards child bullies? Probably. But it doesn't require retroactive compassion towards adults who were once bullies, and it definitely doesn't require some sort of guilt trip for people whose bullies (through no actions of their own) lived horrible lives. Adults who were once bullies as children don't need intervention -- what they need to do is own up to their prior actions.
Regardless, neither I nor my bullies are harmed by the fact that - when I think of their names at all - I don't bear them goodwill. I'm not obsessed with them by any means, though the article prompted me to google a few names. But I don't think of them fondly, and I don't think that that's somehow doing anyone any harm.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 6:10 PM on February 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
A therapist once told me that most primates, when they find a fellow primate who doesn’t have a pack, or who is off or weird for some reason, they murder it.
This explains everything to me. Anything even slightly different, we want to kill it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:49 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
This explains everything to me. Anything even slightly different, we want to kill it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:49 PM on February 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
"I think there's a propensity for child bullies to become adult bullies, who go on to raise kids that have bullying tendencies too. "
Definitely -- the specialists we consulted shared a lot of information about health outcomes. Victims have a higher risk of suicide, higher rates of depression and anxiety, lower academic achievement, higher drop-out rates, etc. A very, very small number of victims opt to violently retaliate in an extreme fashion (school shooters were often victims of bullying).
But bullies also have poor outcomes -- they're more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol; they're more likely to have criminal citations for minor violence (like fist-fights in bars), vandalism, and destruction of property; they're more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, and to do so earlier than peers; they're more likely to drive recklessly or get DUIs; and, yes, they're more likely to be domestic abusers.
Speaking to my experience on the school board (and not to any conversation in this thread), I was often made really uneasy by the number of adults who would get up at public meetings and demand we "just expel the bullies" (plus kids who were misbehaving, underachieving, special ed, etc. -- lots of adults really dislike children who aren't perfect), because it's like environmentalists say, you shouldn't talk about throwing trash away, because there is no away. We shouldn't talk about removing problem children from the school as a way of solving/removing problems, because there is no away. Those kids are still in the community, and by choosing to deal with a bully by punishing and expelling them, we're simply deferring payment on their problems and allowing the payments to rack up interest. A child bully who is punished, and possibly expelled, rather than receiving help and interventions, grows up to become a domestic abuser, a drunk driver who kills people, a criminal who's incarcerated on the public dime after hurting many more people.
So yeah, to a certain degree, intervening with child bullies and trying to help them is a purely pragmatic decision: helping them early can prevent them from becoming full-grown adult bullies who can do a lot more damage.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:08 PM on February 23, 2018 [12 favorites]
Definitely -- the specialists we consulted shared a lot of information about health outcomes. Victims have a higher risk of suicide, higher rates of depression and anxiety, lower academic achievement, higher drop-out rates, etc. A very, very small number of victims opt to violently retaliate in an extreme fashion (school shooters were often victims of bullying).
But bullies also have poor outcomes -- they're more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol; they're more likely to have criminal citations for minor violence (like fist-fights in bars), vandalism, and destruction of property; they're more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, and to do so earlier than peers; they're more likely to drive recklessly or get DUIs; and, yes, they're more likely to be domestic abusers.
Speaking to my experience on the school board (and not to any conversation in this thread), I was often made really uneasy by the number of adults who would get up at public meetings and demand we "just expel the bullies" (plus kids who were misbehaving, underachieving, special ed, etc. -- lots of adults really dislike children who aren't perfect), because it's like environmentalists say, you shouldn't talk about throwing trash away, because there is no away. We shouldn't talk about removing problem children from the school as a way of solving/removing problems, because there is no away. Those kids are still in the community, and by choosing to deal with a bully by punishing and expelling them, we're simply deferring payment on their problems and allowing the payments to rack up interest. A child bully who is punished, and possibly expelled, rather than receiving help and interventions, grows up to become a domestic abuser, a drunk driver who kills people, a criminal who's incarcerated on the public dime after hurting many more people.
So yeah, to a certain degree, intervening with child bullies and trying to help them is a purely pragmatic decision: helping them early can prevent them from becoming full-grown adult bullies who can do a lot more damage.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:08 PM on February 23, 2018 [12 favorites]
it wasn't the classic bully-victim dynamic, it was like a WAR
Thanks millipede for sharing this. My experience in middle school was the same. We were definitely the victims, but my response to being victimized was to hurl that anger back at them in a way that was totally unproductive and vicious, as well as being exhausting and potentially traumatic for everyone involved. Bad times.
posted by mammal at 11:08 PM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Thanks millipede for sharing this. My experience in middle school was the same. We were definitely the victims, but my response to being victimized was to hurl that anger back at them in a way that was totally unproductive and vicious, as well as being exhausting and potentially traumatic for everyone involved. Bad times.
posted by mammal at 11:08 PM on February 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
A child bully who is punished, and possibly expelled, rather than receiving help and interventions,
Why not both? That would be ideal - get them help, but do it somewhere away from all their victims.
posted by Dysk at 1:58 AM on February 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Why not both? That would be ideal - get them help, but do it somewhere away from all their victims.
posted by Dysk at 1:58 AM on February 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Seriously. There’s no way to intervene empathetically to change the outcome for bullies without teaching their victims that the bullies are still more important, and will be prioritized over the trauma and pain they inflicted.
Mediation and empathetic interventions and all that may be more appropriate for the majority of cases where a child is both a bully and a victim. But for cases where there is a sustained terror campaign? No. There is no way to keep the perpetrators in school that doesn’t also teach their victims that the victims don’t matter. Because they still have to go to school with the people who terrorized them, knowing that their abuser has official support, knowing that everyone cares more about what happens to the bully than what has already happened to the victim. That is, itself, retraumatizing, and it comes with official sanction.
So be clear about what you’re saying. You’re saying that to give these perpetrators a better outcome, it is acceptable to retraumatize their victims.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:55 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Mediation and empathetic interventions and all that may be more appropriate for the majority of cases where a child is both a bully and a victim. But for cases where there is a sustained terror campaign? No. There is no way to keep the perpetrators in school that doesn’t also teach their victims that the victims don’t matter. Because they still have to go to school with the people who terrorized them, knowing that their abuser has official support, knowing that everyone cares more about what happens to the bully than what has already happened to the victim. That is, itself, retraumatizing, and it comes with official sanction.
So be clear about what you’re saying. You’re saying that to give these perpetrators a better outcome, it is acceptable to retraumatize their victims.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:55 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
I spent years hating mine.
What a fucking waste of time.
Yeah, he hurt me. But he was a complete dipshit in every other way as well; I cannot imagine him ever being both gainfully and happily employed.
posted by flabdablet at 6:17 AM on February 24, 2018
What a fucking waste of time.
Yeah, he hurt me. But he was a complete dipshit in every other way as well; I cannot imagine him ever being both gainfully and happily employed.
posted by flabdablet at 6:17 AM on February 24, 2018
We shouldn't talk about removing problem children from the school as a way of solving/removing problems, because there is no away. Those kids are still in the community, and by choosing to deal with a bully by punishing and expelling them, we're simply deferring payment on their problems and allowing the payments to rack up interest. A child bully who is punished, and possibly expelled, rather than receiving help and interventions, grows up to become a domestic abuser, a drunk driver who kills people, a criminal who's incarcerated on the public dime after hurting many more people.
Why not both? That would be ideal - get them help, but do it somewhere away from all their victims.
. There is no way to keep the perpetrators in school that doesn’t also teach their victims that the victims don’t matter. Because they still have to go to school with the people who terrorized them, knowing that their abuser has official support, knowing that everyone cares more about what happens to the bully than what has already happened to the victim.
On the one hand: I agree that a bully is likely to turn into a future criminal, a domestic abuser, drunk driver, etc. Very likely. I don't know if we can save someone who's on that track, but if it's possible to intervene, sure. BUT seriously, you can't teach a bully and a victim to live together in the spirit of peace and harmony so that nobody has to deal with removal. The bully wants that person annihilated. If you're going to intervene, great, but don't have this happen while bully and victim have to stay together every day like usual. "The community" is NOT a snuggly wuggly family that will lift you up and bring you all together. Sometimes communities are indifferent, or go all Salem on its members. And I think it's horrible to not have any punishment because "poor bully is abused at home." Is it a great precedent to teach kids or adults that oh, you can do anything you want to anyone you want and get away with it? Look at how the adult world is going with that.
I'm pretty sure other school solutions exist that don't involve making the bully and victim(s) continue to live in the same environment every day. There's home schooling, tutoring, there's continuation schools. And if a bully can't go to any school without finding someone new to abuse for their own enjoyment, then maybe they shouldn't be learning among other children if they can't stop.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:17 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Why not both? That would be ideal - get them help, but do it somewhere away from all their victims.
. There is no way to keep the perpetrators in school that doesn’t also teach their victims that the victims don’t matter. Because they still have to go to school with the people who terrorized them, knowing that their abuser has official support, knowing that everyone cares more about what happens to the bully than what has already happened to the victim.
On the one hand: I agree that a bully is likely to turn into a future criminal, a domestic abuser, drunk driver, etc. Very likely. I don't know if we can save someone who's on that track, but if it's possible to intervene, sure. BUT seriously, you can't teach a bully and a victim to live together in the spirit of peace and harmony so that nobody has to deal with removal. The bully wants that person annihilated. If you're going to intervene, great, but don't have this happen while bully and victim have to stay together every day like usual. "The community" is NOT a snuggly wuggly family that will lift you up and bring you all together. Sometimes communities are indifferent, or go all Salem on its members. And I think it's horrible to not have any punishment because "poor bully is abused at home." Is it a great precedent to teach kids or adults that oh, you can do anything you want to anyone you want and get away with it? Look at how the adult world is going with that.
I'm pretty sure other school solutions exist that don't involve making the bully and victim(s) continue to live in the same environment every day. There's home schooling, tutoring, there's continuation schools. And if a bully can't go to any school without finding someone new to abuse for their own enjoyment, then maybe they shouldn't be learning among other children if they can't stop.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:17 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Wow, guys, you're reading a lot into this. I never suggested keeping the bully in a position to revictimize their victims. I merely suggested not throwing them out of school and pretending the problem is solved!
Most districts -- all districts, in my state -- have an option for students whose behavior problems are too severe for their normal school environment. This might be because of a behavioral disorder, but it can also be for children who are a danger to their classmates or who harass and bully their classmates. Instead of expelling them and leaving them to solve their own problems (they won't) and allowing them to return to school between 6 and 24 months later (it's the law) with more intractable problems and renewed access to their victims, you can place them in a supportive classroom in their home school (if their home school has one), which would generally be a small classroom for children with behavioral or emotional problems. You can transfer them to a "supportive school" for children with behavioral and emotional problems, or children who cannot safely be in a normal classroom (because they harass and bully other students). (Not safely for THEM, safely for OTHERS.) My state has one of these serving each county, called a "safe school," and it serves student populations who are risking expulsion for violence, bullying, harassment, etc. Some districts (larger districts, or wealthier ones) may have a local safe school and only use the county one in extreme situations. Safe schools are generally able to provide fairly substantial therapeutic services and supportive services to try to get children back on track.
In the case of "minor" bullying, which doesn't warrant a transfer to a safe school, the bully will be removed from contact with victims, and it is always the victims' choice about how that will happen. The most common method is to put the children in separate classes, which generally means the victim gets to stay, and the bully is forced to move. (However, if the victim prefers to switch because they feel their classroom atmosphere has been poisoned, the victim will be allowed choice of placement.) If the victim prefers to transfer to a different school in the district, the district will generally pay transportation for that to happen.
School bullies are still children, and they still have a legal right to a free appropriate public education, and they still have Constitutional due process rights pertaining to any and all school punishments. Expelled children can only be kept out of school for 24 months maximum, by law. Students with special ed accommodations (many bullies have special ed accommodations) can only be expelled in very limited circumstances, and for very restricted periods of time.
Again, I haven't been talking a lot about victim services, because this thread has been about bullies, but as I emphasized, talking about how to help bullies doesn't mean NOT helping victims. And it doesn't mean prioritizing bullies.
I don't think it's appropriate to give up on any child, and I definitely don't think it's appropriate to use our power as adults to ensure "bad" children suffer. That's not really any different than the adults who shrugged at bullying and said "boys will be boys" or "toughen up." It's the same cruelty aimed in a different direction -- the idea that some children are disposable and don't deserve our help. There are hundreds of possible options for helping bullies learn not to be bullies without revictimizing victims, but unfortunately many adults reject them, and attempt to block school districts from reducing bullying and improving the lives of victims and bullies both because it's very important to them that children they view as bad (or "weak" or "undesirable") suffer for being bad. I will always fight against any system that treats any child as disposable.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:01 AM on February 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Most districts -- all districts, in my state -- have an option for students whose behavior problems are too severe for their normal school environment. This might be because of a behavioral disorder, but it can also be for children who are a danger to their classmates or who harass and bully their classmates. Instead of expelling them and leaving them to solve their own problems (they won't) and allowing them to return to school between 6 and 24 months later (it's the law) with more intractable problems and renewed access to their victims, you can place them in a supportive classroom in their home school (if their home school has one), which would generally be a small classroom for children with behavioral or emotional problems. You can transfer them to a "supportive school" for children with behavioral and emotional problems, or children who cannot safely be in a normal classroom (because they harass and bully other students). (Not safely for THEM, safely for OTHERS.) My state has one of these serving each county, called a "safe school," and it serves student populations who are risking expulsion for violence, bullying, harassment, etc. Some districts (larger districts, or wealthier ones) may have a local safe school and only use the county one in extreme situations. Safe schools are generally able to provide fairly substantial therapeutic services and supportive services to try to get children back on track.
In the case of "minor" bullying, which doesn't warrant a transfer to a safe school, the bully will be removed from contact with victims, and it is always the victims' choice about how that will happen. The most common method is to put the children in separate classes, which generally means the victim gets to stay, and the bully is forced to move. (However, if the victim prefers to switch because they feel their classroom atmosphere has been poisoned, the victim will be allowed choice of placement.) If the victim prefers to transfer to a different school in the district, the district will generally pay transportation for that to happen.
School bullies are still children, and they still have a legal right to a free appropriate public education, and they still have Constitutional due process rights pertaining to any and all school punishments. Expelled children can only be kept out of school for 24 months maximum, by law. Students with special ed accommodations (many bullies have special ed accommodations) can only be expelled in very limited circumstances, and for very restricted periods of time.
Again, I haven't been talking a lot about victim services, because this thread has been about bullies, but as I emphasized, talking about how to help bullies doesn't mean NOT helping victims. And it doesn't mean prioritizing bullies.
I don't think it's appropriate to give up on any child, and I definitely don't think it's appropriate to use our power as adults to ensure "bad" children suffer. That's not really any different than the adults who shrugged at bullying and said "boys will be boys" or "toughen up." It's the same cruelty aimed in a different direction -- the idea that some children are disposable and don't deserve our help. There are hundreds of possible options for helping bullies learn not to be bullies without revictimizing victims, but unfortunately many adults reject them, and attempt to block school districts from reducing bullying and improving the lives of victims and bullies both because it's very important to them that children they view as bad (or "weak" or "undesirable") suffer for being bad. I will always fight against any system that treats any child as disposable.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:01 AM on February 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
A thing that does strike me: the most aggressive punishments for bullies will be used against poor kids and kids of color, and poor or POC kids will be blamed more aggressively for bullying. Poor kids and kids of color will have fewer alternatives if they're kicked out or severely punished, and punishment will derail their lives more. It seems like unless one could build a Machine Of Perfect Justice, what will happen with really aggressive punishment is that it will be used to create another hierarchy, where rich white kids once again get away with things that destroy other people.
Not that this is a reason not to have consequences for bullying, but it's worth considering when we think about how things would work.
Also, when I consider my own experiences, they varied. Some of the technically scariest were not in fact the worst, and some of the worst were the good old "offenses that the law cannot touch" because they were really people being incredibly shitty to me in ways that were not, technically, against the rules. Like, "fair" punishment for doing something dangerous would be worse than "fair" punishment for the merely shitty, but the non-dangerous stuff was more damaging.
I do honestly worry about all this stuff ending up prioritizing and valuing bullies, though. Bullies are often charismatic, their victims are often weird/fat/badly dressed/non-prepossessing/etc, and there's a lot more interest and status for teachers and therapists in "fixing" the bright, charismatic mean kid than in helping the ugly little weirdo. (Again, this is something that my teacher training program explicitly warned us about, as a thing we'd be at risk of doing.)
posted by Frowner at 9:15 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Not that this is a reason not to have consequences for bullying, but it's worth considering when we think about how things would work.
Also, when I consider my own experiences, they varied. Some of the technically scariest were not in fact the worst, and some of the worst were the good old "offenses that the law cannot touch" because they were really people being incredibly shitty to me in ways that were not, technically, against the rules. Like, "fair" punishment for doing something dangerous would be worse than "fair" punishment for the merely shitty, but the non-dangerous stuff was more damaging.
I do honestly worry about all this stuff ending up prioritizing and valuing bullies, though. Bullies are often charismatic, their victims are often weird/fat/badly dressed/non-prepossessing/etc, and there's a lot more interest and status for teachers and therapists in "fixing" the bright, charismatic mean kid than in helping the ugly little weirdo. (Again, this is something that my teacher training program explicitly warned us about, as a thing we'd be at risk of doing.)
posted by Frowner at 9:15 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
"If you're going to intervene, great, but don't have this happen while bully and victim have to stay together every day like usual. "The community" is NOT a snuggly wuggly family that will lift you up and bring you all together. Sometimes communities are indifferent, or go all Salem on its members."
When I say that the kids are still in the community, I mean they're still physically present, not that they're part of our kumbaya circle. And now that they're expelled, they're free to run a lot more wild with a lot less supervising adults. I have a bunch of examples from over the years, but allow me to jump straight to my most horrifying example to illustrate. Kid got expelled from a junior high, for bullying other students. Kid blames his victims for telling on him. (As it happens, they didn't -- teachers intervened.) Kid lies in wait outside the school, just off school property, until he sees his victims walking home. He leaps out of the bushes brandishing an air gun, forces the two kids down on their knees, and puts the gun to their foreheads each in turn, execution style, and fires it. FORTUNATELY it's an air gun and there's no permanent physical damage but HOLY FUCKIN' COW are those poor kids permanently traumatized (and had to go to the ER and so forth). Bully is now in jail, which is absolutely the appropriate place for him (and I hardly ever say that about juvenile offenders), but he's not likely to come out of jail LESS fucked up or LESS angry.
Another thing that was pretty common about five years ago, that I saw in several districts not my own, was an expelled student using social media to continue the bullying and eventually staging an ambush of their preferred victim in order to have a fist-fight and posting the footage to YouTube. Sometimes their parents took the video and helped with the social media bullying campaign, because some people are really fucked up and there's a super-clear reason they're raising bullies.
So my point in saying they're "still in the community" is that even when they're expelled, they are still physically present in proximity to their former classmates, only now they have a lot more free time and a lot less adult supervision. Children with behavioral problems (including bullying) don't tend to have fewer problems when they are removed from a structured school environment. Their problems tend to escalate and get a lot scarier and more intense. Sometimes that's turned in a self-destructive direction, but sometimes it's turned outward at the rest of the community. THAT'S my concern with cutting children loose in the community (the physical community, not the emotional one!). And those are why programs like safe schools are really important, because that kid with the air gun needed to be removed from his school like whoa, but he needed to be somewhere with MORE structure and MORE supervision and MORE specialized services for kids with serious emotional problems and MORE consequences for misbehavior, not let loose to roam around with an air gun and revictimize other children.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:19 AM on February 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
When I say that the kids are still in the community, I mean they're still physically present, not that they're part of our kumbaya circle. And now that they're expelled, they're free to run a lot more wild with a lot less supervising adults. I have a bunch of examples from over the years, but allow me to jump straight to my most horrifying example to illustrate. Kid got expelled from a junior high, for bullying other students. Kid blames his victims for telling on him. (As it happens, they didn't -- teachers intervened.) Kid lies in wait outside the school, just off school property, until he sees his victims walking home. He leaps out of the bushes brandishing an air gun, forces the two kids down on their knees, and puts the gun to their foreheads each in turn, execution style, and fires it. FORTUNATELY it's an air gun and there's no permanent physical damage but HOLY FUCKIN' COW are those poor kids permanently traumatized (and had to go to the ER and so forth). Bully is now in jail, which is absolutely the appropriate place for him (and I hardly ever say that about juvenile offenders), but he's not likely to come out of jail LESS fucked up or LESS angry.
Another thing that was pretty common about five years ago, that I saw in several districts not my own, was an expelled student using social media to continue the bullying and eventually staging an ambush of their preferred victim in order to have a fist-fight and posting the footage to YouTube. Sometimes their parents took the video and helped with the social media bullying campaign, because some people are really fucked up and there's a super-clear reason they're raising bullies.
So my point in saying they're "still in the community" is that even when they're expelled, they are still physically present in proximity to their former classmates, only now they have a lot more free time and a lot less adult supervision. Children with behavioral problems (including bullying) don't tend to have fewer problems when they are removed from a structured school environment. Their problems tend to escalate and get a lot scarier and more intense. Sometimes that's turned in a self-destructive direction, but sometimes it's turned outward at the rest of the community. THAT'S my concern with cutting children loose in the community (the physical community, not the emotional one!). And those are why programs like safe schools are really important, because that kid with the air gun needed to be removed from his school like whoa, but he needed to be somewhere with MORE structure and MORE supervision and MORE specialized services for kids with serious emotional problems and MORE consequences for misbehavior, not let loose to roam around with an air gun and revictimize other children.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:19 AM on February 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
" the most aggressive punishments for bullies will be used against poor kids and kids of color, and poor or POC kids will be blamed more aggressively for bullying."
Statistically, this is absolutely true, and rich white kids tend to continue to get away with bullying (and, in situations where the hammer is dropped, they tend to sue the school district to reverse the expulsion), while black children are punished and expelled for bullying (including minor bullying, and including things that are NOT bullying but just "existing while black in proximity to a racist") at astonishing rates. Like a standard ratio is a diverse district is 4 to 1. It's appalling.
If you live in a diverse district, you should ask your district to break out expulsion statistics by race, and ask them to break out administrative punishments for bullying (this can including suspension, expulsion, possibly even detentions or demerits -- anything your district uses on its "permanent record") by race. They may already do it -- a lot of districts are aware of the problem and trying to combat it -- but a lot of districts give zero shits.
And, yeah, you end up with a situation where wealthy white bullies operate with impunity while poor or POC children are punished for bullying that may or may not actually be bullying, and even when they are bullies, they're being punished for things that other children are tacitly permitted to do for YEARS. It's bad fuckin' news and it ends up with the rich white bully's victims having no recourse and no escape, and the district will smugly brag about how aggressive they are on stopping bullying so obviously there's no problem!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:33 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Statistically, this is absolutely true, and rich white kids tend to continue to get away with bullying (and, in situations where the hammer is dropped, they tend to sue the school district to reverse the expulsion), while black children are punished and expelled for bullying (including minor bullying, and including things that are NOT bullying but just "existing while black in proximity to a racist") at astonishing rates. Like a standard ratio is a diverse district is 4 to 1. It's appalling.
If you live in a diverse district, you should ask your district to break out expulsion statistics by race, and ask them to break out administrative punishments for bullying (this can including suspension, expulsion, possibly even detentions or demerits -- anything your district uses on its "permanent record") by race. They may already do it -- a lot of districts are aware of the problem and trying to combat it -- but a lot of districts give zero shits.
And, yeah, you end up with a situation where wealthy white bullies operate with impunity while poor or POC children are punished for bullying that may or may not actually be bullying, and even when they are bullies, they're being punished for things that other children are tacitly permitted to do for YEARS. It's bad fuckin' news and it ends up with the rich white bully's victims having no recourse and no escape, and the district will smugly brag about how aggressive they are on stopping bullying so obviously there's no problem!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:33 AM on February 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Most districts -- all districts, in my state -- have an option for students whose behavior problems are too severe for their normal school environment.
My bully was in Honors classes with me. As a whole, we were rarely punished for anything, being the golden children of the school.
I think the hardest part about coming up with a comprehensive anti-bullying plan for schools is that bullies, like all people, contain multitudes. Kid Ruki was involved in a situation last year where her ex-boyfriend threatened to, among other things, kill and flay her best friend. He has a history of psychiatric problems and a weapons collection. Kid Ruki was instrumental in getting him suspended. She has since changed schools, but HE is back at school, and quelle surprise, he's still bullying the best friend. My bully was a rich girl who was just mean. Should the two be treated the same way? Of course not. And with limited resources, the school should prioritize handling the one who is a clear and present danger, even though my bully caused me lasting psychological damage.
In the US at least, the way we're gutting our schools, it's not like we're going to have a class on how to be a decent human being.
posted by Ruki at 10:04 AM on February 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
My bully was in Honors classes with me. As a whole, we were rarely punished for anything, being the golden children of the school.
I think the hardest part about coming up with a comprehensive anti-bullying plan for schools is that bullies, like all people, contain multitudes. Kid Ruki was involved in a situation last year where her ex-boyfriend threatened to, among other things, kill and flay her best friend. He has a history of psychiatric problems and a weapons collection. Kid Ruki was instrumental in getting him suspended. She has since changed schools, but HE is back at school, and quelle surprise, he's still bullying the best friend. My bully was a rich girl who was just mean. Should the two be treated the same way? Of course not. And with limited resources, the school should prioritize handling the one who is a clear and present danger, even though my bully caused me lasting psychological damage.
In the US at least, the way we're gutting our schools, it's not like we're going to have a class on how to be a decent human being.
posted by Ruki at 10:04 AM on February 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I have another perspective on bullies. I was bullied a lot. Sometimes I fought back and sometimes I didn’t. My parents took a very poor, useless and stupid approach. They thought I was doing something to provoke the bullies. I was nearly high -school age befor they stopped that shit. That and my own new approach. We moved a lot. I spent way too much time being the ‘new kid’. I began when I was in a new school to watch for who was the bully. 3-7 days after starting the new school I attacked. I was small and usually was outsized but it was a sneak attack and carried out in as dirty as was necessary to guarantee success. Success was basically taking a bully down a peg. If they sniveled and cried that was just gravy, but a simple being made to feel stupid and bested was good enough.
Domestic violence and sexual assault and bullying are on a spectrum.
Bullying,sexual harassment and later on domestic violence and even rape, even the rape of children or even animals are taken with so little seriousness that I believe and have believed for some time that this violence serves a larger sociological purpose.
If half of society is forced to live in fear, a Hell of a lot simply can’t get done.
Think about it, women afraid to go places for fear of possibly being raped forgo so much.
Women’s economic, social and political lives all stunted by the simple ruse of allowing low ranking males and females to beat on and rape women and children.
The low ranking males and females in turn do not rebel against their low rank and diminished social rank. I believe this even applies to kids from rich ‘good’ families. These kids hold low ranks in their own circle but do not dare start in on other rich or socially favored kids, even those who share a lower ranking.
Schools do little which is effective, same goes for courts and judges because it is instinct to preserve the social order at all costs. It is after all what puts bread and meat on their tables.
So I do not forgive anyone who bullied or abused me along the way, nor the teachers, judges or psychologists, or religious leaders or cops who were more hinderance than help along the way. They all benefit from and uphold a harmful social order.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:03 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Domestic violence and sexual assault and bullying are on a spectrum.
Bullying,sexual harassment and later on domestic violence and even rape, even the rape of children or even animals are taken with so little seriousness that I believe and have believed for some time that this violence serves a larger sociological purpose.
If half of society is forced to live in fear, a Hell of a lot simply can’t get done.
Think about it, women afraid to go places for fear of possibly being raped forgo so much.
Women’s economic, social and political lives all stunted by the simple ruse of allowing low ranking males and females to beat on and rape women and children.
The low ranking males and females in turn do not rebel against their low rank and diminished social rank. I believe this even applies to kids from rich ‘good’ families. These kids hold low ranks in their own circle but do not dare start in on other rich or socially favored kids, even those who share a lower ranking.
Schools do little which is effective, same goes for courts and judges because it is instinct to preserve the social order at all costs. It is after all what puts bread and meat on their tables.
So I do not forgive anyone who bullied or abused me along the way, nor the teachers, judges or psychologists, or religious leaders or cops who were more hinderance than help along the way. They all benefit from and uphold a harmful social order.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:03 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
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The bullies who made the biggest impression on me seem to have done well in life; they're credentialed professionals. They were also white boys from relatively affluent families, so there you are.
I do remember that when I was in high school, I learned that my very first bully had been arrested for grave robbery. The story was that she had been hanging out with some cod-Satanists who decided to dig up a body to get hold of a skull. Of course, I was tickled pink by all this, because I was seventeen. It took me years to realize how nasty my reaction had been. I had a whole future in front of me, and that girl couldn't even get bail. I don't wish her ill anymore; I'm sure she succeeded in many ways that I haven't, in ways I haven't had to. But then, I'm a pushover and an idiot, and I'm sure she'd tell me so.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:47 PM on February 22, 2018 [9 favorites]