meritocrat

Why is bullying wrong?

Is it possible to accept it as a part of growing up?

yelyos

How is it different from any other form of assault or derogatory insults?

How is it any different among children than adults? If it is immoral for an person to assault and taunt another person with the purpose of invoking fear and respect, bullying is immoral.

Viti

Many kids who are bullied suffer emotional harm and sometimes they bring guns to school and kill people. Being teased, demeaned, spat on or even physically accosted should not be part of anyone's childhood.

yelyos

Behavior that we would see as "bullying" in children is viewed as immoral if done in an adult context. It is no different among children.

sweep

because the people who do the hitting frown. life is shit. die die die. if you don't know why frowning is wrong then you haven't laughed in my opinion.

I have. I struck back at the second one and realised that it takes two to tango. All you have to do is find a way to deal with the situation whether that might involve befriending the perpetrator or realising it was a lesson about the violence inherent in man, and their love of war

Farren

I had a really cool experience when I was just out of school. I bunked about half my last school year and just scraped through high school despite having a brain the size of a planet .

Anyway, I ended up in the lowest tier of tertiary education available in this country with a whole lot of moronic gits (I remember I was still f'ing around with mystical shit and this one guy was so superstitious he refused to spell his name for me because i was into numerology at the time).

So one day I come out of a class and this big dumb jock trips me up and laughs because, to paraphrase his words, I'm a girly little nerd fag. I get up, look him in the eye and say "smack me". He says "what?". I say "come on, smack me as hard as you can, you big dumb lunk - get it out of your system. You're obviously incapable of intelligent discussion so just smack me and get over it".

He smacks me. Hard. I fall down, get up and say "Do you feel good yet?". "No". "So smack me again. Show everyone how strong you are. How manly. You know you want to". He smacks me again. I get up "Happy yet?". He looks confused.

The biggest guy in the class (not the brightest candle on the cake himself) steps up to the plate "Fuck off doos (a local insult), leave Farren alone". Next thing everyone thinks this guy's an asshole and I'm a local hero for being an absolute wimp and proud of it. That restored my faith in human nature. I mean, I really had quite a snotty attitude, looked down on all these working class stiffs, and they came through for the militant pacifist.

Just a little inspirational story.

Sadly, however, society generally turns on the weakling like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Anyone seen Oliver Stone's Wild Palms? Where the protagonist is talking to his shrink and describing how a bunch of authoritarian suits come into the restaurant and fuck up an innocent customer - and he finds himself subconsciously rooting for the suits, despite the fact that he doesn't have a clue what's going on?

What's wrong with bullying? Its in our nature to root for the bully, and our current level of civilisation has been achieved in part by constantly and actively fighting against the oppression of bullies - against our default human nature. If we relent, we will laps back into barbarism, technology or no technology. This is what makes Bush and his cronies so damn scary.

winstonjen

In Canada last year, there was a case where a young school girl commited suicide, and in her note, she stated that bullying drove her over the edge. They used the note as evidence to charge the 2 bullies with some form of murder or manslaughter, I think. I don't know what came of it, but bullying needs to be dealt with before it becomes a big problem - if they get away with bullying now, they may think they can get away with more serious crimes later in life.

sweep

classic words. well spoken, and well relayed, Farren.

ever heard of P.E. (physical education) Farren? Well, anyway, I have a new one. It's called B.E.

Can you guess what it stands for? And who could instigate this new class?

meritocrat

Why?

I think bullying is natural. And define 'teasing'? A simple verbal insult would not hurt some, as it would be dependent on the personality of the victim.

Majestyk

Sweep and Farren are on the mark.

This is my simple statement on a complex subject:

Bullying and Submission in children are both "immoral". Neither can exist individually without, the other. In children it is to be expected, up to a point. It is part of the learning process. It is the responsibility the adult custodian of the children to ensure that neither behavior is allowed to go "unpunished".