Making people constantly worry that what they're doing could be "bullying", could also be bullying. It doesn't eradicate the core problem, it exacerbates it. S

Making people constantly worry that what they're doing could be "bullying", could also be bullying. It doesn't eradicate the core problem, it exacerbates it. Society is a messy place - and has and always will have roughness where its edges meet. Some entertain an understandable fantasy that a perfect one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, that will make the messiness go away, is to be found in trying to force other people to do something different. Ie, by bullying them. That's not where the solution is found. It's just the same problem repeated back. I've been bullied, and it absolutely does not happen anymore. The bullies didn't change - I did, and I'm much better off for it. To put it another way: I hold the power. When enough people realise that, that's when these problems end. If you look throughout history, nothing else works - it just leads to more bullying back and forth, and eventually, war. Zucker is right, one component of this is not taking ones-self too seriously - the one thing uniting all bullies, all those who commit atrocities, is they take themselves too seriously. They are incapable of accepting the possibility they could be wrong. So high they elevate themselves on a pedestal of self-righteousness in service of some ideal utopian vision that they eventually lose all compassion and ability to empathise. This prevents the realisation of any such vision. If anything, it's laughable. Being able to laugh at ourselves is not just important, its essential. The current state of the world is testament to that. Granted, at the other extreme, where comedy knows no bounds and anything can be called funny - even watching people suffer - is just as bad. And it's a domain entered by those who didn't check themselves at bullying, and went on to atrocity, and progressed to the final stage - sadism - as they push toward an ideal dream of a future perfect, above the reality of the dysfunction that push is creating right in front of them.