By the way, nameless guest, I agree with everything you said in your post of 07 Apr 11 - 02:25 PM


So if I "don't understand" this subject...I guess you must not either. ;-) Hmm?

Yes, it's mostly about dominance...and I personally experienced just the sort of bullying you describe in your lengthy post.

You said: "The aim of bullies - they are almost always a group- is to achieve dominance by lowering the self- esteem of their victims. The usual tools are ridicule (anything will do, the wrong sort of clothes, interests not shared by the group, difference in appearance no matter how slight, physical disability, interest in school or work), social isolation, calumny (allegations of sexual deviation for example), petty harassment and so on. The aim is often to provoke a physical reaction, so that the victim can be portrayed as the aggressor. So the ability to box, or willingness to "stand up like a man", usually only results in the victim being punished and further stigmatised. The victim's neutral peers usually offer no help, perhaps for fear of becoming a target by association. In school, teachers, and in work managers, will often use the situation to bolster their own authority. For children, parents can be the least sympathetic of the lot, especially if teachers have involved themselves.

To admit to having been bullied opens you to insinuations like the one above, that the victim is a coward, or that you are in some way inadequate.

Those who have not experienced this, or experienced it as one of the bystanders, seem to think that it is a matter of size or age. Think of it as part of a struggle for power- those with the most desire to dominate others use any tool available to that end. You yourselves were probably more or less willingly and wittingly, a participant in that process. As a neutral, you are probably still doing it.

Righto. Yes. I agree 100% with all of the above, just as you said it.

I experienced a great deal of ridicule for "the wrong clothes", "interests not shared by the group", "differences in appearance no matter how slight", being a foreigner, and "interest in my schoolwork". I was ridiculed for being "a brain", because I got very good marks. It was 100% clear that I was not going to respond to that ridicule with any form of violence, so they didn't take that route with me...but there was a tall red-haired kid who was constantly harassed and pushed around with the intention of provoking him to violence. And he often lost his temper and fought back, and it did him no good whatsoever, because he wasn't a very good fighter and people were ganging up on him. As you say, bullies generally operate as a group.

It's also not necessarily a case of physical size or age. It's more a case of which group you hang out with, at least in school. If you become part of a group of bullies, then they all support each other when they pick a target. I've seen small kids who got bullied. I've seen big kids who got bullied. The main reason they got bullied was that some group labelled them as "outsiders", therefore a good target.

I was a total outsider, wasn't even from the same country, had no interest in belonging to an in-group whatsoever, and had totally different interests in practically everything from most of the kids in my school.

The fact that I wasn't inclined to fight put me in a weak position...but it also paradoxically kept me from getting beat up. They never beat me up, just stuck to ridicule and verbal stuff.

They were enjoying their dominance. In the case of the red-haired kid, he had an even rougher time than I did, and his tendency to flar up and fight back did him no good at all. I truly pitied that kid. School was just one long hell for him.

Why did they pick on him? Well...the red hair had something to do with it. His facial features may have had something to do with it. (he looked sort of like Charlie Brown...but taller) He carried a BRIEFCASE!!!!! I am not joking when I say that if you carried a briefcase in Junior High and High School you were utterly doomed to be picked on constantly. Only 2 kids I ever knew carried briefcases and they were the most picked on 2 kids in the entire school.

They were perceived as different. So was I. And that's about all it takes to attract bullies.

A new kid will sometimes get picked on too...after the local bullies and their collaborators have spent a short time figuring out whether to accept them or not.

One new kid arrived, and his name was Francis Basset. Both his names were a great excuse for picking on him, and he was new. However, he was also one tough character...looked a lot like a young Steve McQueen, and he virtually never smiled. There was a taut and humorless air about him.

One of the local assholes decided to make a few jokes at Francis' expense shortly after his arrival at the school, and Francis punched him in the stomach. One really fast straight punch. Hard. And that was all it took. They didn't bother him after that. He proved to be good at sports too, which is a big plus in school. So Francis got quietly accepted by the "bad boys" after that.

Frances was not a particularly nice person. Like I say, I hardly ever saw him smile. I got the impression he'd grown up under a hard father, but who knows? At any rate, he was not what I'd call a bully, just someone who stayed in his own space and didn't much want anyone in it either. He could've worked his way up the bully chain, but he didn't seem to really give a damn one way or the other.