Bullying is defined as the use of superior strength or influence to intimidate someone — typically to force them to do something. It starts from a young age while we chisel away our younglings into a given version of homo-sapiens in order for them to be able to survive. In fact, all mammals exhibit similar behavior.
Someone would argue that there is a difference between bullying and guiding someone towards proper behavior. I beg to differ. An adult human being dwarfs a child both in power and influence. Children are not only able to recognize power within their environment but also exert it on other children. Violence can be said to come from physical or emotional harm so really, anything can be considered coercive under specific circumstances.
The nurture vs nature debate here is rather silly. Whether we like it or not, life doesn’t care about humanly created concepts such as social norms. It only cares about survival of the most adoptable to ecosystemic changes. Our species exists because it bullied many others. In the past we had our way by spilling blood. Today less so. You see, we have upgraded our ways to slow death that comes from concepts such as social isolation and financial manipulation. The latter could be argued to be awful ways to die since the demise is rather slow and painful. Surely much worse than a bullet painlessly traveling through your head.
Every aspect of our world is dominated by bullying. We might not witness the CEO coercing the employee directly but the dynamic is pretty evident. And no, we can’t do anything about this because we all crave power and we all more or less approve it even if we superficially deny it in savoir-vivre chats among friends.
We crave power and influence when we write a post. We crave power and influence when we try to approach a woman that is also desired from others. We crave power and influence when we go to school, study something and try to beat everyone else by “changing the world”. Power is a mean to itself.
Every single dictator was a humanitarian visionary. Every single one wanted to create a world based on his liking. We have yet to be honest with ourselves and admit that “better” is just subject for interpretation. What is "better" for the spider is not necessarily for the fly that is caught on its web.
We are constantly being found in dynamics of power and there is no hippy-happy way to decipher the narrative. The system is not like this because the 1% wishes it to be so. It is like this because deep down, the vast majority (the dreaded 99%), craves to be the 1%.
We aspire to the 1% that goes by the name of Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Shakira, Hawkins because these people define in their way the life for the rest. The create our gadgets and the way we create meaning in our life by using their toys of creation. Sure, there is no zero sum game but life can be pretty shitty in a world when we compare ourselves with what is potentially “better”. Humans are up and foremost emotional beings. It defines us as a species. Having 15% of the population on earth living in relative luxury while the rest struggle daily with food, water and shelter is bullying with just a few extra painful steps in between.
School is nothing more but a micro-version of society. Someone took your launch and called you fat — so you report it to the principal and it goes away. You grow up and someone steals your pension through a rigged social security system. Now what? Where do you report it? Where do you turn and whine about it?
Bullying might suck when we are young. Psychologists might argue that it creates “trauma”. I would argue “So what?”. The world is not a happy place with unicorns and rainbows. We are all by-products of trauma. If you have parents then congratulations. You have issues. We all do. So let's put the drama on the side.
If children learn that the world is a “fair” place then they will have a much harder time when they grow up. Actually, this is exactly the problem today and why our society has manifested into entitlement. People get traumatized way too easy. If any problem emerges, we just pop a pill without even bothering to deal with the situation. We are getting bullied by the ones above us in the pyramid but instead of whining to the principal and our parents, we desensitize ourselves since there is no shoulder to cry to.
Accepting that bullying is inevitable allows us to deal with the harshness of life. Denying its existence puts us in a perpetual cycle of whining and complaining. We are all bullies. The only problem is that we are too busy paying attention to the foot stepping on our neck, ignoring the fact that we are also stepping on someone else's neck.
thanks for sharing. bullying is horrible
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I enjoyed your article Yes every where we turn we are being bullied if we want to be so called victims. As I look at the beliefs of the death cult. They believe that their god would sacrifice his own son to save their asses. You must love this god although you must fear him. Because if you f with him hey he offed his son for you. THink if a Mob boss off his own son so you could live. If that's not bullying what is. This attitude is perpetrated even by those whom claim to be non believers
well said.
True. I wish I could something against it...
This comment has received a 0.12 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @shehryar.
That is so well put life is no easy, but we still try to keep our children happy and feel safe they will soon enough find out that we are the only ones who really care the rest of the world just cares for themselves.
Very nice post. Well constructed and written. There is no reason to bully anyone! Thanks for your post.
Did you see the movie "split"? The impure were the ones that had never suffered oppression or violence. That, the violence, was necessary to grow and evolve as superhumans thanks to our resilience condition.
Its all about figuring out where in the food chain we fit in. Kids and other animals tend to use physical aggression to figure out where they are in the pecking order.
As humans, it's nice to think that we have the possibility of transcending aggression to prove our worth or our place in the social hierarchy. Growing up is learning to contribute and being valued for what we give rather than who's bigger/stronger or who has more big/strong friends.
As someone who was bullied a lot as a child, it breaks my heart seeing young children in the position I was in all those years ago. Accepting bullying as a social norm or as an inevitable event is horrible, and I truly hope that somehow, sometime, we'll figure out a solution. Yes, children need to learn that life is not all sunshine and rainbows, but bullying is not something to be encouraged.
read the post
Am I a bully - I don't think so. My goal in life is to be supportive, encouraging and honest. I did grow up 'being bullied' but my reaction was not to complain to anyone about it. I just grit my teeth and moved on. I remember thinking that if I took my problems to my parents they would step in for sure and that would only make things worse. And, of course, in time I would forgive that bully and want to go back to being 'friends' and then my parents would be upset with me - so as I said, I just moved on. I'm now 69 years of age and have come to realize, our world is filled with struggles and strife and I'm always hoping I can help. If that's being a bully!!!!
You are a westerner? Then most likely you are a bully. The country which you live in, whether you vote or not, has power over lesser countries. Your taxes, which you have to pay them, are used for political leverage and buying arms that are going to be used in order to coerce people.
Do you directly bully people? Absolutely not. Do you do it with extra steps? Yes.
We are all indirectly contributing. Like wars, police brutality
... we are paying taxes that funds all of it....sucks yes. But we are all technically a part of it
Very interesting points you have here. As a new mother I am constantly worry about the future of my child because I know life is tough. I would like to prepare him for challenges such as bulling. We need to educate against bulling but at the same time also prepare our children for this situations. As you said, life is not full of unicorns.
Your article has an interesting perspective on bullying in that it presumes that we are all contributors to bullying of some form. This is a very broad view and probably holds true in many cases.
I know of a couple of Jain's who do not pay taxes, do not squash insects, do not eat meat or fish, do not kill plants for food (they only harvest what allows the plant to keep living) and do not harm or attempt to influence others in any way. These people are rather rare, but wouldn't it be great if more followed their example? What if everyone did?
It is better to have Jainism than kill others in the name of religion.
Absolutely agree!
They are indeed rare but I don't think everyone would be able to live like that. Nature is a pretty violent place and when things get tough people change faces. Perhaps this would be feasible if the human population was smaller.
I have to agree with you there.
Not sure if the size of a population would impact their thinking though. It just might be possible that we are ultimately destined to all think like that so that we can pass on to the next life in a non-physical form.
*lunch (you wrote launch - as in rocker launch)
You have just been visited by your friendly grammar-nazi bully.
I don't necessarily think we should tolerate bullying but we should learn our kids that conflict is okay. You can't like/please everyone and not everyone can like/please you. It's important to learn our kids that that is okay and if they ever get in such a situation that they should be able to stand up for themselves, preferably without violence.
Well said :)
Most people fail to understand that part of bullying is simply other people having their own way over us. We get lost in semantics. 20 years ago bullying was taking some other child's launch money and beating them up.
Today bullying is writing "bad things" on chat rooms. Anyone can see how this evolves...We are all becoming way too sensitive.
The same happens in every other field of life - lack of moderation. I hope it will not end like in the calhoun's experiment
I hope many have read about the Stanford Prison experiment. I couldn't help myself thinking about it when I read this blog. I wonder how much of our own bullying happens based on the situation - where our state of mind is aggravated and is at a trigger point from the various biases we have formed on the receiver and the situationr?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
pasted from wiki.
The experiment's results favor situational attribution of behavior over dispositional attribution (a result caused by internal characteristics). It seemed that the situation, rather than their individual personalities, caused the participants' behavior. Using this interpretation, the results are compatible with those of the Milgram experiment, where random participants complied with orders to administer seemingly dangerous and potentially lethal electric shocks to a shill.[17]
Exactly. Thing is, most people don't realize that we are puppets of situations with direct and indirect effects.
nice post thanks for sharing .
My favorite part of this post is "We are all by-products of trauma. If you have parents the congratulations. You have issues."
Unfortunately this is true, so the question is what to do about it?
I worked through my shit to get an empowered grasp on life. I used to be so scared that I literally failed speech class because I couldn't give a speech due to debilitating terror. I literally passed out.
Now I have 3 children and built a whole world for them to thrive. Its possible that the life I have created for them is so good that they will have a hard time in the "real world" but I think not. I feel I am also addressing that with them and quite excited to see the extraordinary levels of thrival they achieve.
As always a very intelligent and perceptive post. Nothing I wasn't aware of but U may just be my favorite article author on Steemit.
Cheers
Love your comment! <3 @quinneaker
Thank you for that @awarenessraiser
I appreciate you taking the time to communicate that and I also quite like our name!
I hope you will check out my profile and see some of the posts I have written about my family life as I feel it is actually the most profound aspect of my success I have to share.
Hope to see you around~*~
Yes! Also, cheers to friendship! :D
Yes!
I am grateful for all beneficial relationships. Even ones that only exist online.
glad you enjoy my stuff man. I don't think there is anything to do about this situation since children judge parents based on a given social paradigm.
There is no question that you are a master of observation and also of deduction. I am also quite sure that I will blow peoples minds and prove New Paradigm potential with what I have going on with my family.
We shall see. I observe my own results with the most critical eye of all~*~
The conclusion of your article, I find to be very true in so my ways. It is something I have noticed with almost all individuals in society. Another thing is; being made to feel less valuable by someone, we tend to find someone else to make feel less about themselves, in order to feel better about ourselves. It is like; instead of coming together to fight against bully; we become what we do not like and fight against ourselves. Humans are such complex and interesting animals.
Btw i found your via a post you made 11 months ago. I've been doing some research on " the flag war" which took place around that time. ;-)
An acquaintance, when she was in high school, had a dwarf-girl as a classmate. A few of the classmates from their class, and students from other classes, use to insult or mock this girl. In those occassions, most of their classmates would step in to defend this girl, even some of the boys recurring to their fists. And they would marginalize all the kids who were mean to this girl. In the end they stopped and they came to respect her just like she was, besides she had an amazing personality; the support of his friends made her feel confident enough to stand up for herself too, and she wouldn't belittle in front of anyone.
Yeah, I was rather pretty "infamous" back then. Still until today. Not many people enjoy my attitude.
Thanks for the wonderful post. . upvoted
love your post thanks!
I like
With Great Power Comes Great ResponsibilitySome people simply does not know how to use their 'power' to make good things :)they all try and all fail because power is a means to itself. we are produce good...for some is considered bad. it is a matter of perspective.
This is so true. Yes instead of spilling blood it now goes slow through the process of death through taxes.
Trying to make a cause to say "life should be fair" is a waste of time and as you said just makes people deny the unfairness when it abounds and everyone has issues
Thing is, very few people are able to accept this reality of life.
I mean if ive learned anything from counseling for my own ptsd is "radical acceptance"
Accepting reality is difficult and life is painful.
good post.
Bullying is a subject of utmost importance in this 21st century society. Nice post.
Great post! With the rise of social medias, bullying is getting worse. We just have to create ways to minimize the impacts.
A great and very REAL article! thank you for sharing.
I would like to share mine with you... I hope you like it too :)
“You will never amount to anything” they said. – Well, I may not have achieved everything I want as yet, but I am still alive –and had you asked me 20 years ago if I would be able to see myself where I would stand now, the answer would most definitely have been NO. In fact, I don’t think I saw much for myself at all, in terms of “future prospects” – it was just not something that I thought about, sadly.
https://steemit.com/life/@jaynie/you-in-the-sky-with-diamonds-rock-your-world-20
I fully scroll down your post :P
But i like you last pic of follow :D
In an unenlightened world where heartlessness prevails then bullying is the norm. A healed, balanced and evolved group ends bullying swiftly.
well done...following
Bullying is a shit. I hate those who're doing it
Great Post
thank you.
I completely agree with you. I was bullied when I was in high school because I was not as rich as my classmates and it was a horrible experience. I cried to my parents like every night because of it. My cousins, who were less fortunate than me, used to visit my family every summer and I remember acting like a I was a big shot for studying in a good high school and ordered them around the house. I don't know where I got that authority but I felt more privileged than my cousins so I thought it was ok, without even thinking how I felt when others bullied me in school. Of course, now that I am an adult, I treat my cousins well. But my point is, we tend to only focus on our own suffering without considering whether we are already causing pain to others. Thus, we have to accept that we are all bullies.
Everyone is bullied, you just have to learn to accept it, and try to outwit the bully, or if that fails take it out on someone else.
If you call inculcating the right moral in people bullying, then I think bullying is ok. People don't accept change easily, reason sometimes, some reasonable amount of force is applied. That is ok to me and other well-meaning humans.
Thanks, good post, good formatting and very informativ, upvote 100%
When I saw the anthropological insight of your narration, I felt sociologically motivated. Thanks @kyriacos
I help all my friends who are Victims of bullying it is very ugly to see how in 2017 still use force.
Well, yeah. At least where I live... where I've studied too, I've seen a lot of childrens and teenagers getting bullied by other people that believe they are superior than others in everyway, when in reality they are actually just as bad as scum.
The sad thing is, that half the people I met that are bullies, didn't even knew what they where doing. They didn't even understand why they did it.
Guess it is inevitable after all.
Bullying is never a good thing and it comes in various forms. Unfortunately, some people tolerate bullying, when in fact it should be stopped. :( Hopefully, adults will become role models to the younger generation to be equal and not to bully anyone. Thanks for your wonderful post. :)
It would seem from the comments that few actually read the post....
yeap, as always...
So true - and so many children and adults are suffering in silence from bullying - very nice post
I agree that bullying is inevitable, however I am a strong believer of :
It is not because bullying is inevitable that it is ok , it always needs to be fought. Nobody should feel they are worth less than someone else
Thanks for sharing. Upvoting and resteeming
Bullying comes in different qualities it is not always the same. It is one thing to bully someone out of naiveness and other thing to do it out of jealously.
The motives really matter. Also not every aggression towards you should be considered bullying in my opinion.
It really comes down to what you are going to define as bullying. I don't agree that your boss saying you should concentrate more because you are not productive is bullying. Everything you experience in society is not something imposed on you. You said it yourself, the vast majority chooses to chase behnd the 1% You always can leave your job, your abusing spoose, or that idol you tend to compare with yourself and makes you miserable.
Don't get me wrong I can see bullying's existence but not its inevitability.
I also strongly agree that nowdays everyone gets traumatized way too easily.
Nice post, I am extremely tired I hope the comment is readable
does it really matter at the end if they effect is the same?
Why? In what way?
You can always choose your bully in other words but you cannot escape from it completely due to the nature of our economic system.
In my opinion the motives matter when you try to come in terms with you being the victim and in order to think what to do to get yourself out of the situation. Our economic system depends on fear, I agree with you on that.
from that perspective it matters yes.
We all have authoritarian figures in our life. What distinguishes a guide from a bully is the latter imposes his will while the former comes along side. Bullying may be rampant, but it is not inevitable.
Everyone imposes their will one way or another. "trauma" is relative
Bullying means very annoying ya how to avoid from the Bullying?
I feel I am very layman of this thing but we as human beings should avoid bullying so we feel comfortable in every step that we live.
Okay thank you very interesting article....
Thanks for sharing! recently a teen died in London because of bullying , he was allergic to diary, bullies allegedly give him cheese and he died after two weeks due to severe reaction :(
:/
I don't like bullies, but at the same time Imagine the world without a bully, it would be great but some people became who they are today because they experience being bullied. Thanks for sharing.