Science Forums 2

[enorbet2]

I find it fascinating how this thread has changed and become more serious once it advanced out of the realm of school, which most of us here have left behind never to formally return, and into everyday adult life. It still seems to me that the best we can do starts early but some of bullying is just so deeply encoded, and the simple but usually sad truth is that violence of any kind simply works. There is a fundamental efficiency of it in all Nature, and in Nature nothing is all good or all bad, there are just consequences for programming and choices.

Many years ago my cat had a litter of kittens and shortly after they were weaned one day I filled a saucer of milk and some soft canned cat food and one of the kittens leaped onto the saucer literally spread-eagle covering as much of the saucer as possible, growling incredibly fiercely I though for such a wee babe and frankly although it disgusted me that this adorable little kitten was also so incredibly self-absorbed to not only hog it's food but prevent it's brothers and sisters from eating as well, my mind also was sent off in 50 directions considering "survival of the fittest", whether in the wild such behaviour might actually result in the death of some siblings and the effect of that on the brood fending off predators and successfully hunting with the pack diminished in numbers, but most of all it reminded me that this was not learned behaviour. It to at least some extent is built in, almost certainly in us as well.

I am utterly ashamed and similarly disgusted to discover that in my own county's highest offices there were (are?) men and women elected to office that worked very hard to sidestep our Constitution (in effect bullying all citizens) just so they could justify torture even while knowing that it was rarely even moderately effective. I suppose most of the motivation for this was simple revenge, but that is no excuse in adults, especially adults in powerful office.

It is said that Hitler felt free to pursue what would become the Holocaust because of the success of the Turkish in murdering nearly one million Armenians . He apparently commented when asked how he thought he could possibly get away with it, "Who remembers the Armenians?". It is remarkable that to this day numerous modern governments refuse to acknowledge this "seed of evil" even happened at all, let alone seek any kind of justice.

I'm not trying to turn this thread into a political or even moral one. I'm just trying to explore how deeply and how current such bullying is at all levels of organizations right down to the individual.

One thing on a personal level: I have never picked a fight but I have been in more than a couple. Perhaps because I was and am "bookish" bullies disregarded my athletic build and thought I was easy prey. I was not. Fortunately my Dad had taught me defensive fighting and one of his employees, an ex-boxer, taught me how to flip the odds. I'm of average height and weight, always have been, but I have strong legs and considerable upper body strength from very broad shoulders. I never once lost a one-on-one despite not having the aggressive upper hand. However because I didn't enjoy fighting and would still have rather avoided it, I soon learned how much was attitude.

Having once witnessed a bully confronting a boy who was clearly scared despite being the bigger of the two, who had his right arm around a stack of books and his left hand in his pocket, get sucker punched where it was impossible for him to defend himself and most of the crowd laughed at the victim and respected this lopsided, no mercy bully, I had learned an important lesson. The bully was offended that he wasn't taken seriously as a threat, that his confrontational words would never escalate into violence, that the victim was safe because, after all one would get called to the principal's office.

Just as in the wild animal world physical contests within a species are primarily bluff and bravado, where death is rare, I learned that when confronted with a bully it was safer to assume that he was willing to go to blows but did have some threshold of consequence that he was not prepared to accept as well as the fact that he could save face if he could say the victim was crazy. So when confronted beyond just a shoulder bump, when threats were voiced to me, I simply threw down my books as carelessly as possible, raised my fists, and said "No problem. I'm ready to go to the office, to jail, to the hospital, or even to the cemetery. You?" I never fought again.

I really don't like that I felt pressed into behaving that way but it worked and seemed better than any alternative I could then imagine... a lesser of evils.

I much prefer and am heartily Impressed and influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his non-violent successes both individually and in thwarting the entire British Empire and that gives me great hope. At the same time I realize that for every Gandhi there is Abraham, Martin, John, and Bobby and millions more nameless individuals who have been eliminated from the mix. This is a very serious thread with no simple answers.
All we, who love Peace, can really do is follow such great example as Gandhi and "Be the change we want to see in the World", educate our children as best we can, and hope for evolution.