Someone with background from from the US military (OK, Ryan McBeth) recently commented something along the lines of:

> everyone is picked on. If you don't get picked on that is reason for concern.

By quoting this, do I mean to encourage bullying? No, as the kid that wasn't included during my first years of school, NO.

But there is a difference between everyone calling each other names vs everyone calling someone names etc.

That’s the thing.

The line is mighty fine between bullying and good natured ribbing, and has a lot to do with group dynamics. Edgy banter can bring a group together, but bullying can do far more damage.

I was in the US military. We all joked, in ways that probably shouldn't have been jokes, that we would "trip" on deployment to the "zone" causing trendily fire accidents for the least like members of our team.

Being US military didn't make it right, we were effectively deciding who we would kill in an effort to make the team more cohesive. That never set right with me, and I still remember the joke (but maybe it's not a joke, joke) to this day.

Don't look to the military as a model of good teamwork. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. One cannot pretend it's the right model to follow.

That's very reminiscent to arguments that western culture is just one of the possible cultures and is no better or worse than culture of pre-technological bushmen.

I agreed with you on the first bit, the second bit kind of ruins it for me.

I'm not really arguing for or against anything. It just seems structurally similar.

Sure, in the way that "exercise benefits me, therefore I should do it" and "murder benefits me, therefore I should do it" are structurally similar.

Sure, to some approximation. Doesn't work for me because one involves unwanted interaction and the other does not. But if you said "chatting up people benefits me therefore I should do it" instead of exercise I'd agree 100% about structural similarity to the statement about murder.