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On bullying at school, and reunions

Mark Chu-Carroll has a heartfelt rant against how he was treated as a “geek” at school, which resonates with me. I was a geek, but I managed to avoid being attacked daily (mostly) by becoming a “head” or “hippy” (it was the 1970s, okay?). As such I fit into a clear category, and was more or less left alone. It was accidental, although I did try to be everyone’s friend as a way to pre-empt being everyone’s punching bag. The downside was that I used drugs, lost any academic capacity, and was eventually thrown out of school before final year graduation. As a result I don’t even get asked to the reunions, which is a pity because while the bastard teachers who told my folks I was stupid were alive, I should like to have rubbed their arrogant noses in the fact that I did a BA with honors and a graduate diploma in computing while working full-time and without any support. These days I would like my childhood friends to know I got as far as a PhD. C’est la guerre

But as always this raises a less personal topic: status among school kids.

Why do children beat up other children who are different? What do they get from it? Is it really true that underneath a bully is a frightened little child who will fold when stood up to?

What world would anyone who asked such stupid questions come from? 1950s TV? Is the sky black and white there?

Children are frigging apes, and I mean that literally. One thing that all mammals, but especially primates, do when young is practise their social dominance behaviour in play, with mock fights, and challenge and threat behaviours, mimicking the adults they see around them. By the time young primates get to adolescence, there is already a dominance hierarchy among them, and let me tell you, those with the higher status are very far from being frightened. They have elevated testosterone levels already, and this merely magnifies throughout adolescence.

Those who are unable to gain dominance by physical means are the victims of continuous vicarious displays of the high status individuals’ threats to advertise their standing and head off possible viable threats. If I beat up the geek, then the other jocks might think I am not worth fighting, because of my aggressiveness. Moreover, beating up on non-troop interlopers is a bonding experience, reinforcing allegiances that are useful in the broader social competition.

Why anyone would think that bullies are pathological types is beyond me. They are the norm. Those of us who establish status late in life are forced to endure being treated as cannon fodder for status display. Personally, I’d rather we all just literally waved our dicks, but that doesn’t correlate with the properties that matter in human social dominance, which are, basically, size, strength and wealth.

16 Comments

  1. Brian Brian

    Yep, if you can beat the shit out of a bully, bit of an if, you get to be the bully, and he’ll be scared and laughed at. In primary school, it usually only takes a lucky punch. At least that was my experience.

  2. KiwiInOz KiwiInOz

    I was never a geek, but did get bullied. I remember punching one big guy, with all my might, in the stomach. He laughed at me (it was very ineffectual). He’s now a farm labourer and smaller than me, and I am reasonably proficient at a rather lethal martial art.

    • John John

      Craig, you are bigger than most trees.

  3. PB PB

    “Why anyone would think that bullies are pathological types is beyond me. They are the norm. ”

    If 99% of people engage in a pathological behavior, it’s STILL a pathological behavior – unless we want to say that “pathology” is decided by mere majority vote. I’m sure Alabama whites in the 1950s wouldn’t call their treatment of blacks racist. Ditto for mainstream 1980s society’s treatment of gays and lesbians homophobic. Therefore, if mainstream society behaves pathologically toward the weak and defenseless, then it IS objectively pathological, no matter the prevailing culture’s say so.

    At the risk of overdoing it, consider this: If everyone in the world except you thought they were the Archangel Gabriel, what right would you have to consider the rest of humanity insane? Think about it.

    • John John

      Pathology is basically defined as some trait or process that is not within the normal range. I know that is not the same thing as “right” or “wrong”; but it is “normal” if it falls within the normal distribution, moral worth notwithstanding.

  4. I was a geek, but I managed to avoid being attacked daily (mostly) by becoming a “head” or “hippy” (it was the 1970s, okay?). As such I fit into a clear category, and was more or less left alone. …The downside was that I used drugs, lost any academic capacity, and was eventually thrown out of school before final year graduation.

    Have you been reading my autobiography again? And how did you get hold of the manuscript?

    It’s something I haven’t thought about in years but I used to say that becoming a freak (hippy) saved my life because it gave me a socially acceptable identity. I got expelled one year before my A-Levels! I too sometimes wonder what the headmaster who expelled me would think of the fact that I am now an established historian of science, if only a minor one.

  5. Jeb Jeb

    Punk rock was my bag, got me out of trouble.
    I was told to avoid university at all costs. So did not go until later in life.

    I must confess Ive always been fascinated by the large amount of time and energy wasted in status displays and maintaining group conformity.

    Major reason for taking an intrest in ethnology.
    The subject I have an intrest in started by looking at kids wrestling games in the Western Isles of Scotland. The loser of such matches is given an intresting name and story to explain his position, which is also used in adult narrative.

  6. I had been singled out by a particularly nasty bully in high school. I won’t give details, but I hated school for about 2 years in high school

    At our twentieth reunion, he bought me a beer and apologized. It was a very good day for me.

  7. Despite being a socially inept geek, I seem to have survived high school with no more than mild harassment AND even had a few friends, a couple of whom I have kept in touch with (eg: the one I married….who as it happens, was also a socially inept geek). Recently, a few more of my old crowd (I mean the ones I actually hung with, not just random people who maybe knew me a little bit) have friended me on FB. I wouldn’t mind having a beer with them, though I wouldn’t travel any great distance to do it (we’re now rather scattered across North America).

  8. Wes Wes

    I’ve always been a geek, but I didn’t get pushed around much in high school. Most of the popular kids just left me alone to do my own thing. Even though I was skinny and dorky looking, I was somewhat tall (I’m around 6’2″ today, and was almost 6′ when I was 15), so that might have helped. I was in high school in the 90’s, so I mixed in with the punk rock, grunge, and hard core crowds. Ripped jeans, patches, long hair, stoned all the time, shit like that. We just avoided the jocks and preps, and they let us do our own thing. The only kid in high school who gave me any real shit was a kid named Rusty, who was about 5’4″ and had little man syndrome. One of my buddies beat the shit out of him in chemistry class once, and from that point on he was very friendly to us. 🙂

  9. Wes Wes

    Money quote from Mark Chu-Carroll’s thread:

    Re #407:

    You know what’s really funny? That you don’t even see that “Your son is well on his way to ending up like you: a 40 year old virgin.” makes no sense.

    Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll

    😀

  10. Jeb Jeb

    I always thought it was after school sort of 18 to 25 when violence was at its worst.

    Town I grew up in was very violent, you just develop a sense of how to deal with it and avoid it or you don’t and get in lots of fights.

    As death or serious injury were common, getting involved in violence was the dumb option.

  11. heygrrrl heygrrrl

    I couldn’t agree more with your analysis. As the mom of a boy who was recently in the same position, I apologize for the idiot adults who ran your school, and I want to congratulate you on your achievements.
    It’s too bad the elementary school systems fail the very kids — the smart ones — they could most benefit. I’ve posted an excerpt of your essay on my web site, with a link to your site.
    In an effort to educate adults about bullying, I’ve created a web site with news, research and resources. I’m hoping it will help make a dent in this problem — my way of trying to reduce the torment that so many kids endure because of bullying.

    http://heygrrrl.wordpress.com

    http://heygrrrl.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/blog-essay-on-bullying-at-school-and-reunions/

  12. Omri Omri

    In pre-literate villages, children form a hierarchy by age. In modern society, they are grouped together by age, so they form hierarchies by aggression and violence. That is why an integral part of education is getting this over and done with early. If it still goes on in high school, that is a sure sign of a sick society. Which suburban New Jersey happens to be.

  13. Bullying doesn’t just happen in boardrooms and playgrounds and schools, it happens everywhere in the animal kingdom. But just because something is “normal” doesn’t make it “healthy”. It’s a parent’s responsibility to prepare their child for everything the world is going to throw at them- not to expect other people to solve their problems for them. There’s a program for parents and children called The Total Bully Solution that deals with the source of the problem and provides practical stratagies to put an end to virtually any bullying situation. All I can say is that it worked for us.

  14. ray ray

    Thanks for this wonderful article.Now a days people take inspiration to bully from various cartoon characters. When one hears the term “bully”, one may begin to think of television characters like “Butch” from The Little Rascals, “Mad Dog” or “Sweet Daddy” from Good Times, or Mafia gangsters like “Scarface”. The aforementioned characters are very indicative of the different kinds of bullies that are in our society. As often stated, art imitates life. Most people, as they watched these characters on television, were able to identify with them whether directly or indirectly. There may have been characters that reminded viewers of themselves or that reminded them of some other person whose path they may have crossed in their life time. It is probably safe to assume that everyone has bullied some other person or has been bullies by another person. There are many reasons that people become bullies or intimidators of others. So many people in this society are not good communicators or do not possess the adequate compassion or concern for the understanding of other people. This lack of compassion and misunderstanding translates into various types of bullying – verbal, emotional and physical.

    The following link consists of paper which describes how to handle bully

    Link: http://en.oboulo.com/a-discussion-concerning-bullying-in-everyday-life-63365.html

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