Sure, the bullied kid — which generally has low sociability, either from the start or following the ostracization coming along with the bullying, and few if any friends — is going to make bullying "socially unacceptable".
That's a very nice feel-good declaration, but it's about as helpful as "smack yourself in the mouth to help them so the beating is shorter"
Well, you're wrong. I don't want to get all Heinlein on you. But this is the way of the world. If you're cold, you put on a jumper or turn up the heating. If you're hot, you have cold drink or you sit in the shade. If you don't do one of these, the situation remains the same. And if you're threatened, you fight or you run. If you can't run, you fight. And if you have to fight - trust me on this - you have to go all in.
The smart solution to bullying is to make it socially unacceptable
If you have a way for an 8-year-old fat kid to do that, let's hear it. Hell if you have a way for "society" to do that, let's hear it.
When kids realize that there are consequences for bullying, and that they have to stop, they will. (The above goes for physical abuse, mostly. The solution for verbal abuse is "learn to insult them better". They either learn to stop insulting you, or they fall back to physical abuse, in which case, see above.)
That's what my parents did when I was bullied in middle school. They called the other kid's parents, and he stopped. There was one time they did need to threaten the principal with calling the police, and she pleaded with them not do it, promising that the kid was getting psychological help for his issues, and they agreed to conditionally back off (and he never threatened me again).
Bullying is already socially unacceptable -- it's against the law of society. We can solve it the same way we solve every other criminal activity, which is by involving the law enforcement authority.
Edit: Changed "socially acceptable" in the last paragraph to say "socially unacceptable" (was a typo).
If a kid's parents do not care about him, I'd like to suggest that the least of that kid's problems is getting bullied in school.
Truer words have never been spoken. Fighting isn't a first option--it's a last option. But if you were teased in school (like I was), the last thing a bully expects is a kid that will rage on him.
Making bullying "unacceptable" isn't a reality.
Children need a justice system that they can respect, which will only happen if the system respects them back -- treats them like first class citizens with a voice and control over their world. The adult system can't do that, so they probably need one of their own. As their educators, adults need to help them build it.
Children want civility as much as adults do, but as long as they have no control over their world, they will not feel any responsibility for it.
Children aren't mini adults. They're half done adults. There's some scary and important stuff missing.
Not being little monsters should be a part of their education. Instead, they have to grow up and live in the adult world for several years before they actually learn to act like adults.
I can't even begin to list how many things are wrong with this. So fighting is only worth it when you know you're going to win?
The author's point is if you stand up for yourself against a much bigger and stronger bully, you WILL get your ass kicked. But that's fine. Everybody gets their ass kicked once in a while. But the fact that you were not afraid to stand up for yourself gets you respect. The bullies will likely move on onto the easier targets that don't fight back.
I agree with 99% of this article. Except this:
> I’ve got some sets of names I’d name my sons as they’re born. They’re unconventional names – Cosimo Marshall or Aurelius Marshall if the boy’s mother was Italian, Zhuge Marshall if he was Chinese. The boy will likely get teased.
Ya think?? And even though you realize it, you're still planning to do it? I'm sure the kid will be VERY grateful when he grows up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Sue
"The core story of the song was inspired by humorist Jean Shepherd, a close friend of Shel Silverstein, who was often taunted as a child because of his feminine-sounding name."
You might recognize Jean Shepherd as the author of the stories that were turned into the holiday movie A Christmas Story (he also served as narrator in that movie)
Extra Credit: Watch the Scut Farkus beatdown scene again.
Years later, at a party, I got into a fight with a punk (I mean a real punk, with a stupid haircut). He was acting like a twat, bothering people, like they do, and I told him to piss off and he headbutted me in the face, breaking my nose. And actually, while not something you'd want to happen every day, it's not too bad, a lot of blood but it doesn't really hurt. Then I kicked his ass.
Naming your kid a name to MAKE SURE he gets bullied in order for him to grow up tough sounds insane to me... regardless of the great Johnny Cash song
It's bizarre this is even considered, because this whole thread is filled with revenge fantasies about bullies. Why would you think the bully is just going to think "oh yes, zhuge omarion lionhearted is the superior fighter, I concede" like in some corny kung-fu movie? If you hurt a bully, they are just going to plot out how they are going to hurt you worse the next chance they get...
Finally, if violence is truly the answer, why not just go all-out Columbine from the beginning? There's no more bullying when the bully is dead. Then the problem is truly "solved," right?
It doesn't work like that. In practice, the bully will take the path of least resistance and pick on someone else. Which sucks for them, but the hierarchy has now shifted - the original victim has moved up, but the capability/social capital of the new lowest member of the group is still higher than theirs was. It doesn't take many iterations of this cycle before the bully will either meet their match or have a critical mass of the class openly against them.
This happened in my primary school, actually, the bully in this case was a kid who'd been held back from a higher year. Eventually simply no-one would talk to him. Problem solved.
yhe above simple logic and my own personal experience fighting back is what this is based on, not some corny Kung foo movie.
Don't put words into others mouths, its rude and unnecessary.
Re your going columbine troll, the response should be limited to what's required. Snd, obviously, violence is already the supreme authority and final resort in society - that's what police and the military are for.
Bullying isn't about you to the bully. Its about them, and picking on someone. The someone isn't that important, and when you become the someone who is more expensive to screw with, they leave you alone usually.
(And I think this sort of thing as an adult is stupid and a good way to go to jail, but at 10, it works fine).
> Ya think?? And even though you realize it, you're still planning to do it? I'm sure the kid will be VERY grateful when he grows up.
Unconventional names get you teased as a kid, and remembered as an adult. I think it's a good tradeoff.
Summer break came around, and I enrolled in Judo, Boxing and Muay Thai classes. I took an under the table job in construction to pay for the classes. I stole a kayak to get to work. Every single activity in my entire life was focussed on getting better, so I wouldn't get my ass kicked.
I jogged, lifted weights, exercised, trained, etc. I was Rocky. I was the Karate Kid.
When school resumed the next year, the first Wednesday, I got into a fight. I didn't lose. I wouldn't say I "kicked the other guy's ass", but I didn't lose.
After that, i didn't get into nearly as many fights. I was no longer the easy target. And there weren't any other white kids in the class, so much of the violence stopped altogether.
I'm sure you could potentially attribute it to the bullies being a year wiser, or any other number of factors, but from my experience, this argument holds water.
I was getting my ass kicked more frequently in public schools, so my parents moved me to a Christian private school. The school board mandates x hours of physical education per week, but the school was smallish, and didn't have a gym.
Every Wednesday we would hike down to the nearest public rec center. The rec center was a fairly good size, so we had the option of multiple things to do -- volleyball, kickball, whatever, all spread out on separate fields. This meant that the teacher(s) would rotate from one field to the other to keep an eye on things, which invariably meant that any given field was only monitored about a third of the time.
I never believed in team sports, because of this - if we were playing volleyball, for example, and I made a good serve, somebody on the other team wanted to kick my ass. If I made a bad serve, somebody on my team wanted to kick my ass.
I later moved from Hawaii to Tennessee, for my junior and senior years of high school, where, due to my athletic build and coordination, I was sought after by all the coaches for all the sports teams, but I hated sports. I'm over it now.
The smart solution to smoking is to make it socially unacceptable.
The smart solution to binge drinking is to make it socially unacceptable.
The smart solution to football violence is to make it socially unacceptable.
etc etc.
The real smart thing is for every corner of society, from education to prosecution, to realise that there is no blanket golden solution to every problem.
His solution was to make hijabs mandatory for prostitutes at all time. It was one of the most successful mass persuasion tactics he ever used, and if you visit modern day Turkey almost no one wears hijabs.
Edit: Scratch what I said above about modern day turkey, my data is old and unsourced.
I spend a fair bit of time in Istanbul, and I can categorically tell you the hijab made a comeback some time ago. There are two main ways it's worn - one is a classical cultural style and the other is more of a political statement. It's the latter that's coming back in fashion, mainly due to the actions of the current political party in power.
I was a violent person in elementary school and Jr. High. I was made fun of constantly and things occasionally came to blows.
I usually won.
But it didn't help much, really, even if it satisfied me at the time to literally pound-in the heads of kids who'd been making me miserable.
Teasing and bullying only seem like they are about someone seeming weak. They're about a mob mentality. That is what needs to be addressed. I'd say a social atmosphere where non-conformists are fair game is mostly what stimulates bullies. Individual kids fighting back is not really going to be the solution.
Do you think it was just non-conformity? The meanness of children in general? Is this something that all humans have? Or some american dysfunction? Some western dysfunction?
Not true. Bullies tend to pick on people who won't fight back* because they're easy prey. If you demonstrate, even by losing, that you're not willing to take it from them anymore and that you will resist, you are no longer easy prey.
*Obviously this isn't true 100% of the time, but more often than not.
You don't need to be stronger, or a better fighter, you just need to make fighting you painful enough that the pain outweighs the gain. This is one of the key principles of deterrence (even on an international scale) -- you don't need to be strong enough to win the fight, you just have to be strong/vicious enough to inflict enough pain that "not fighting" becomes a better option for your opponent.
Or he'll "pick on you" with a huge stick out of kicking range, or he'll guard his nuts next time he's got you in a headlock.
Which weakens the headlock and leaves something else vulnerable (unless he's got three arms).
See, but that's the crux of the entire issue, and you (nor the OP) have not offered statistics backing this up. Anecdotes are not data, so I don't care if this "worked for me" or whatever.
A bully who gets his ass kicked, or doesn't win soundly enough, could easily escalate the next encounter with a knife or bat or something worse. Or maybe not! I don't know, neither do you or the OP, and so maybe we should not be making authoritative declarations about these things without consulting actual research.
Self-defense isn't the same as aggression, it's an act of self-preservation which is still very much a principle of civilized society. The author of the article failed to make this distinction clear. When you stand up for yourself or a friend you're sending a clear message that says "I'm not going to take this laying down."
"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."
-Barrack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
2. I do not consider it a valid way to solve problems.
The smart solution to bullying is to make it socially unacceptable.
When you're in a confrontational situation where the other party is about to beat you to a bloody pulp you can't take a time-out to establish a social stigma. Furthermore that wouldn't work. Most bullies are deviant by nature so making something socially unacceptable would just make it more alluring.
3. We live in a civilized society, where intelligence can triumph over brute strength.
But hitting back only works if you're stronger than them.
By the former statement it appears that you exclude violence categorically from the realm of "intelligent things to do." Violence, just like any other human interaction, is a language with its own inflections and subtleties. Without training and practice how do you expect to be fluent or successful in getting your point across?
Someone shoves you: throw a chair through a window, flip a few desks, go completely ape-shit. Make it known that you are willing to cause lasting and permanent damage for the slightest offense. Pretty soon no one will want to cause that slightest offense.
This is an intelligent tactic. And will preemptively stop a lot of aggression.
Kids don't take dumps in hallways because it can negatively impact them. They will take dumps in hallways they don't frequent just for kicks.
This is a response to violence. If someone gets violent with you, become excessively violent with them.
I think every party involved would prefer if personal conflicts between two high school kids didn't result in unnecessary property damage. Otherwise, I agree. Going "ape-shit", all in, is what will prove the point that you shouldn't be fucked with.
I'm not sure how getting the administration involved would help the situation, but I suppose it might.
I rarely assume that someone who threatens me with violence cares about my well-being.
You're assuming that if you comply, you won't get your ass kicked. Sometimes, you're going to get your ass kicked regardless so the only question is whether they're going to pay a price for doing so.
Curiously enough, bullies don't like the risk of damage, even if they "win" the fight.
> where intelligence can triumph over brute strength.
"can" is often by the grace of folks who have brute strength.
As if guns grew on trees.
Sometimes the only way an animal will listen is if you speak their language.
I disagree that "The smart solution to bullying is to make it socially unacceptable." A solution is not a smart solution if it cannot be put into practice, and it's not as though there's any real control over what's socially acceptable among children.
If there's a real solution, it's to be found among adults. Children are basically small adults. While there's a bit of a gap in reasoning capacity, the gap is much smaller than people give it credit for: children are smart. So, why do adults not "bully" each other all the time?
There's a strong argument to be made that this is because we've cordoned adults who are likely to instigate violence off into their own social environments (criminal). That's a strong possibility, but it probably doesn't hide a solution to the problem: we don't give children the power to do this, and doing it for them would be a ground ripe for abuse of power. As much as I don't like it, there may be no good solution.
There's also a strong argument to be made that adults don't get into fights simply because they have better things to do. That might be a good place to start: give children more and better choices about what to do.
Probably the strongest argument is that adults have a perfectly good nonviolent way to signal status: money. Children don't have any such thing, so they come up with their own. Counter-intuitive though it seems, giving children a strong status-signaling mechanism other than bullying might be effective.
We first have to understand the world we do live in, before we can reasonably change it to the world we'd like to live in.
And until then?
Bullying is assault. The first time the police gets involved, it will be unpleasant for the bully. The second time, he gets arrested. The next bully to come along might realize he doesn't want a criminal record, and if he doesn't, his parents might. And if they don't stop, they get sent away to juvie.
Why do we assume highschool/middleschool kids are somehow untouchable by the law?
Ever had to actually get the police to follow up on something like that? They'll take your report... but if no one is injured, it often ends there.
The correct way is by intelligence but by being prudent in a Machiavellian sense and knowing when you need to be physical and when you can and should use a civilized argument. But just painting every situation as one of white or black for all time is nice abstractly but it's not practical.
I'm not a violent person. I never have been and never will be. I do not consider it a valid way to solve problems. Reverting to our animal nature is rejecting the progress we have made in our brains overriding unproductive basic survival impulses in favour of smarter solutions.
That's not to say this approach doesn't work. For some people it works perfectly. But hitting back only works if you're stronger than them. Otherwise they'll just kick your ass and things will get worse. And even if it works, all you've done is validate the world view that might makes right.
The world is full of idiots who ruin the lives of others, both at the micro level of domestic abuse and the macro level of dictatorships, because of this principle. It's the law of the jungle, and you know what? We don't live in the fucking jungle any more. We live in a civilized society, where intelligence can triumph over brute strength.
Nobody should know that better than HN, a community of nerds who dream of changing the world one keystroke at a time. I'm disappointed to see how much support there is for this idea.
The smart solution to bullying is to make it socially unacceptable. Kids don't take dumps in the hallways because there's no payoff to doing so. But if you beat up the unpopular kid, you get some credibility. Rob them of that credibility, rob them of their motivation, and you end bullying, without swinging a fist.