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I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back. I would g

by dijit 2y ago

I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back. I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection. But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course. This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
That sucks, sorry that happened to you. How did you stand your ground?
- dijit 2y ago
  One of them ripped a necklace off of me, then spat on me. I should add that this was after the day before when they had caught me walking home and pushed me into the local pond (during winter) and that the necklace was given to me by my great grandfather that had died very recently (and the bully knew that). In hindsight, I shouldn't have been wearing it. So I punched him in the face, he reeled a little and his friends went to work on me before a teacher stepped in- as they were the other side of the play-ground and needed to close the distance. Unfortunately all they'd seen was me hitting the bully. So, expelled.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    Got it, thanks for sharing. Overly harsh consequences are only fair if detection of the responsible/initiating party is foolproof.
    - taneq 2y ago
      Ironically, overly harsh consequences are often imposed because detection is lacking. If you can't reliably detect infringing behaviour to impose a fair consequence, you have to ramp up the severity of the consequence imposed when you do detect an infringement in order to maintain deterrence.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        Maybe the creep towards surveillance everywhere will help with this? Get a bit of AI in there and school bullying is solved. A sarcastic suggestion.
        Buttons840 2y ago
        Surveillance will come one way or another I think. When it does, the best we can do is ensure it is used for the benefit of all. It's easy to imagine a school with cameras in every hall, and when it benefits those in power, the "tapes are pulled", but when it might help a pleb, it's too much of a hassle to pull the tapes.
Loughla 2y ago
I was also expelled for fighting back. This was how I learned that documentation is important in life. When I got the paperwork saying I was out, my parents sent back all the correspondence with the school, the dates the bully bothered me, and the responses (or lack thereof) from the school. I was reinstated and the bully went to another district. Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. It's genuinely terrifying. I don't wonder why many teens are anxious. Everything they do is documented.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. I don't get it. Anything a bully can do to you over social media, they can also do to you without using the internet at all. Anything they needed to be near you to do, they still need to be near you to do.
  - nicksergeant 2y ago
    There's twice as much surface area. Bullies can now do their thing 24/7 from behind the screen _and_ still physically torment.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      Again, whatever they can do from behind a screen now, they could also do in your absence before.
      - ab5tract 2y ago
        No, they couldn’t. Just a single obvious example: What tools did they have to broadcast photoshopped images of you to all of your peers?
        2y ago
chollida1 2y ago
Wow, expelled seems very harsh. I know when i was a kid we would get suspended for a few days if we had a fight. Banning a kid from that school for life seem pretty harsh.
- j45 2y ago
  Suspension or expulsion of the victim is far too common.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  It seems understandable if you assume that getting the principle to admit she would defend herself involved (borderline) bullying her to the point she backed down on it. She then removed the problem parent from the school's roster the only way available.
BurningFrog 2y ago
I've come to think zero tolerance policies are universally bad. Some tolerance and considering circumstances is actually the sensible way to handle most anything. But that sounds like being "soft on crime", and the PR side is usually more important than the actual problem.
- plasticchris 2y ago
  The real problem is that school personnel don’t want to deal with the parents of the actual problem kids, so they get away with it even under zero tolerance.
  - amatecha 2y ago
    ^ this. Every time the school staff have to deal with THOSE parents, yet again, is a huge stressor and they will try to avoid it if they can, but the parents of the "generally-good-except-this-once" kids will generally be totally reasonable and easy to deal with, even if injustice is occurring.
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    How hard is it to just expel them? They seem to expel victims with ease...
- martin-t 2y ago
  That's because the narrative in the last decades has shifted towards tools, not actions and intentions being good or bad. In the past, it was normal and encouraged to use any tools available to you to defend yourself. Psychological abuse is still abuse and you have the right to defend yourself, the most natural, available and effective immediate defensive tool being violence. In recent years, violence has become a massive taboo. It's a tool that is universally labelled as bad no matter the circumstances. Instead, everyone is encouraged to portray a "good victim" by demonstrating helplessness and waiting/hoping for people in positions of power to help.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
[flagged]
- Terr_ 2y ago
  "Justice is expensive and uncomfortable, let's just use collective punishment on everyone in the immediate area."
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    That is what happens when teachers and the school can get sued for any mistake. Avoid all mistakes. (Even if it mean not trying)
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea, you don't have to fight back in order to be punished under "zero tolerance." You just have to be involved, including as the victim. Kids get punished all the time for rolling up into a ball while the aggressor beats them.
- rlpb 2y ago
  The flaw is that the bully can pick their moment and thus avoid being observed. The victim doesn’t get to choose the moment and means by which they have to defend themselves. And the school will enforce zero tolerance only against what their staff witnessed, not the original bullying that is (from their perspective) only alleged. The key rule about fighting back that is never taught is: don’t get caught.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Puts 2y ago
Unpopular opinion, but most people who get bullied are a little "off", a little weird in some way that affects their likability. And this also affects the adults where even they judge the kid being bullied harder. For example if you are autistic and lack verbal skills, that's going to be seen as you lacking social skills. And obviously if someone got hit, who's most probable to have started it? Maybe the kid that "lacks social skills".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- joe5150 2y ago
  This is an incredibly popular opinion! Unless the "unpopular" part is that this is somehow fine or justifiable.
  - Puts 2y ago
    Well I think there are a lot of people out there who define bullying as "when a random person in a group is selected to be harassed". And if you ask them what they think about it they would say "It's horrible and totally unacceptable". But "disciplining" someone that is acting weird on the other hand is the right thing to do, that is not "bullying" to them. But for the person that becomes the subject of this it becomes, "you sit wrong", "you talk wrong", "you eat wrong", "your sense of humor is wrong" until it feels like you can't do anything right. Some people even think they can fix your "wrong" behavior by hitting you, and then it becomes physical bullying. A lot of people wanna believe that bullying is like the fist scenario because that is easier than actually having to start accepting people the way they are - even if they are a little "weird".
    - dijit 2y ago
      I couldn't possibly disagree more. Once you're boxed in as a bullied person, you will continue to be bullied. They're not "educating" you, and it's a little sick to suggest it.
j45 2y ago
You’re right - it’s far too common, and serves an objective of ultimately turning young people away from education, while not getting to learn what was possible for them and isn’t heir lives. Maybe it’s a feature of industrial education - enable creation of compliant adults where bullying is disproportionately allowed by tolerating it, and also build bullies to manage future compliant adults. Bullying is everywhere including in the ranks of teachers and leadership in a school. Those who play the game of bureaucracy (bureaucracy must survive at any costs) must concede to enabling a system of too often failing upwards while standing on the capable folks. Too many schools abdicate their responsibility and hide behind doing their job and turn it into a daycare of expecting children to figure it out on their own. Bullying too often is toxic parenting coming to school. Standing up for one’s self in the right circumstance, especially when the leaders, institutions and experts in our lives, especially as children intentionally traumatizes children that the world is like this, and because it doesn’t bother teachers or affect them it will only get so much attention.
anonymousiam 2y ago
Defending yourself is always the right move. When one of my sons was being bullied in elementary school, I taught him how to fight and encouraged him to do so. The bullying ended, but he was suspended. I confronted his principal and got her to admit that she would defend herself if someone was pummeling her. She didn't like this, and subsequently expelled my son, who later won honors awards after transferring to a different school.
- martin-t 2y ago
  I absolutely agree with you but I can't avoid noticing an extremely common, yet pervasive irony. The rules of the school no doubt forbid physical violence and expect children to use a process set up by the system to defend themselves against bullying / being wronged. That system failed and because you rightfully saw your son's right to self defense more important than following the rules, you encouraged him to defend himself outsides the confines of the system and its rules. Later both you and your son were bullied / wronged by the principal. The rules of the state you live in ("laws") no doubt forbid physical violence / being wronged. That system failed...
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    In the end his son got awarded. And learnt to stand up for him self. Seems double win on his side.
    - martin-t 2y ago
      That was the outcome in this case but in general it can be very damaging for someone to lose most of their social circle. The principal's goal was to save face at the expense of harming the son. The fact that he came out on top is irrelevant to the morality of the principal's behavior. The principal is in a position of power which cannot be held accountable within the confines of the system. Such positions are ripe for abuse and in fact attract people who want to abuse power. As a society, we should design rule systems in such a way that each position can be held accountable.
rgrieselhuber 2y ago
If you look at institutions that are more concerned with punishing the type of people who will fight back than the bullies themselves, the motivations behind these sorts of policies make a lot more sense.
martin-t 2y ago
> "nobody sees the first hit" This perpetuates the myth that "real" bullying is physical and that psychological abuse is not bullying. Most of the bullying i've seen was psychological and partially material (usually taking things from the target or damaging them). The only instances where i've seen physical bullying were in low grades where the children had not yet developed the mental capacity for creative verbal abuse or in higher grades where bullying was left unchecked for so long that the aggressors felt confident they could get away with it.
- sriram_malhar 2y ago
  I have a feeling that OP didn't mean a physical hit. 'First provocation' is more like it.
newsclues 2y ago
A grade school tried to punish me for stopping someone from hitting me by grabbing their wrist. I said, to punish a nonviolent intervention would only incentivize future reactions would be violent, they had to think about their policy, because as I put it, “if grabbing their wrist for self defence was going to be punished the same as me punching them in the face” I’d settle for brutal violence in the hopes to persuade others not to hit me. Children vs principals with masters degrees in a logic debate and the kids win. Sad
throw16180339 2y ago
I'm grateful that I graduated well before zero tolerance policies. I was frequently bullied in childhood. The only thing that actually helped was hurting the bully enough that they'd pick another target. I rarely got in trouble for this, but I would certainly have been expelled these days.
trod1234 2y ago
> I would guess its a combination of "nobody sees the first hit". No, it is done that way by purposeful intent, though you wouldn't recognize it as such without having studied and having a certain level of exposure to how torture works in reality (really dark stuff). Bullying is a combination of physical and mental coercion. During Mao, the Chinese government discovered a number of ways to torture people to the point where they adopt false ideologies (effectively breaking them) for thought reform purposes. These techniques are often embedded today in the structures used by teachers and they have predictable results. If the exposure is ongoing, people break, either through disassociation (helplessness/suicide), or psychosis seeking annihilation externally (albeit a semi-lucid psychosis capable of planning). This is torture for thought reform, and Active shooters seem to fall into the latter bucket quite prominently. Unfortunately, Technology has made the ephemeral steps needed to do this (previously physically), possible (remotely). Joost Meerloo, and Robert Lifton wrote about these structures and observations professionally covering the developments of the subject matter from WW2 through the Korean Conflict (1944-1960). They are well established experts. Academia has a long problematic history of supporting things related to marxism. The most common telltale sign is that of circular structures (hegelian dialectic, or the abuse of the contrast principle). These are used to create convincing lies/deceits, critical theory (cultural-marxism/ i.e. the woke), originated from Marxists/Communists/Socialists (whose structure is almost objectively identical). There are people in these systems who in action promote communism, while claiming otherwise. Whether they are lying, or are just delusional its hard to say but as I mentioned the telltale sign is circular structures. The first thing you need for rationalism is a common shared definition (what is called identity in philosophy). Then you can hold accountability following a system of logic. Without it, there is no accountability, and you can just as easily claim the exact opposite of the situation (Falsely), with no way to prove otherwise. If you want an introduction to this not mired in a quagmire of deceit, I'd suggest Mises on Socialism (circa 1930s), it provides a rational introduction to the objective structure of such, without needing a lot of discernment to combat deceitful circular narratives inevitably found in other material. Getting back to bullying, and torture, the gist is, all that is needed to coerce is components of isolation, lack of agency (on the part of the subject), and increasing cognitive dissonance. Its only then a matter of time and exposure, and certain structures allow meeting this criteria simultaneously for multiple different groups at once. One such structure is called the hot potato, where a student is called out in front of class to answer a question. Usually fact questions are mixed in with thought reform opinions, and the student is not informed to mount a reliable defense. The subject when called is anxious or nervous, disapproval of their peers may result in bullying, lack of opportunity, or social stigma. This is determined and reflected by the approval or disapproval of the teacher in answering the question or correcting the question. Any disagreement is a reflection of disapproval. The more disagreement, the more disapproval. There are always those seeking approval in the peer group, where disapproval results in those members bullying and harassment, or shunning, to seek approval, albeit arbitrarily with no explicit direction. This almost always happens outside class. This structure induces both subject and peer group to participate in the dynamics, and in truth both are victims, since the harassment/needs of the peer group require them to act in ways that are consistent with the teachers approval (consistency principle). It doesn't matter if the teacher condemns such behavior verbally. The idea of a struggle session (Maoist), is that you make life intolerable arbitrarily until you meet some unstated arbitrary measure. The subject is gaslit to believe its their fault, if only you would confess or agree (which invokes consistency). Sometimes there is no measure and its unending. The route of effect is the same way we develop our identity and culture through communication within a community. Reflected Appraisal. As you are isolated, those you see most you begin to trust, they inadvertently affect you more until full conformity and adoption. You generally must be in a vulnerable state either naturally (developmentally), or induced (through torture), to adopt behaviors in this way. The latter is effectively involuntary hypnotic suggestion which is induced. These structures distort reflected appraisal, and use other sophisticated psychological biases to indoctrinate for purpose (avoiding critical thought/perception). Unless you know what to look for, you don't even notice it being used against you to manipulate you. It is not of the flesh but over flesh. The seen and unseen. Tolkien often took inspiration from the bible, and Amazon's Rings of power are masterfully done in the way it depicts this subject matter. If you've ever seen the movie Focus, what is described with choosing the player and number for the gambling con is truthful, and you can do far more than just that narrow example. Much of the foundational subject matter for these things was originally taught in a classical education (pre-prussian model of education), under Rhetoric. Science has allowed us to further probe what was known back then, effectively breaking perception, which reminds me of the Tower of Babel story. If you would like a crash course in the blind spots, Robert Cialdini wrote a book, though he refers to them as levers of influence, unfortunately he doesn't touch on reflected appraisal in depth. The book is called Influence. Its been recognized in the US by members of the state department. Many of these structural elements have been repackaged so as to obscure the fact that these originated from torture. The Octalysis framework for game development for example hits most of these indirectly (albeit perfectly), but this is not an isolated example. Variations of the same structures are everywhere from business process, to CSR doom loops, basically anywhere you want to impose cost to coerce people against a specific behavior; these are used. These situations and outcomes are by design, they are subtle and malign evil people often pretend, or rather believe that they are good. Know an evil person by the willful blindness they show to the consequences of their action, know an evil act by the destructive outcome that follows. Know sloth by its more modern name, complacency (also the banality of evil), which turns towards radical evil. If you would understand how these things happen, a thorough study of corruption, systems (and failures of such), history, and ruin are needed. Few get this education with modern curricula. Classical Curricula follow the greeks, (Trivium/Quadrivium). The rise and fall of the Roman Republic to Imperial Rome is also quite illustrative, and Social Contract Theory is a must (to understand what changes have caused civilized society to fail). The latter include Locke, Kant, Rosseau, Thomas Paine, and a few others.
joe_the_user 2y ago
I was bullied in elementary school and middle school. I fought back and generally if not always, beat the main person who harassed me. I mean, I remember in 7th grade one kid used to harass me daily for not taking a shower after gym (which I didn't 'cause the showers involved more bullying). I eventually (2/3rds of the way through the year) picked him up by the heels and slammed his head again the gym locker as hard as I could, let him fall head-first to the cement floor afterwards. He didn't bother me again ... But ... it didn't change anything overall, it didn't stop either me being in the harassed group or harassment at the school. In fifth grade, however, one teacher confronting the bullying did change the entire tenor of things for that year and the next (then I moved and graduated). Which is to say, all the posters here hot to recommend fighting back as some kind of solution. Stop, just don't. Schools need systems for stopping bullying and those system are social changes. "What about the fight-backers" is someone's cowboy trip.
- mouse_ 2y ago
  Nobody really teaches you the rules but... You're not supposed to grab them by their heels and swing their head into a locker. You're supposed to pop them in the mouth. Anecdotally, I popped my bully in the mouth and stopped getting harassed.
77pt77 2y ago
> I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" This is an excuse. Not a reason. Based only on people's status and the way they look, certain affordances are made. The bullies are effectively permitted to bully. The bullied prevented from fighting back. The zero tolerance is the excuse (not reason) used to implement that. This is trivially tested by reversing the roles. If the bullied becomes the bully, the punishment is not reversed.
47282847 2y ago
Total agree. It’s the growing problem of actively exploited code of conduct schemes. See the topic of “reactive abuse“. The original abusers win, since they are the experts in violence and know how to leave no evidence. The victims who use violence usually as last resort in defense lose. Then society loses again because some of the prior victims will turn their frustration against this injustice into further violence. School mismanagement of bullying (and of course first and foremost bad parenting) breeds narcissists and psychopaths. Who then work their way into positions of control and power to continue to implement the same literally insane principles of punishment and force them onto others to make others suffer the same hell they suffer, out of a deep seated and misdirected desire for revenge. Restorative justice would be key to break this cycle, but of course narcissists know to prevent this from happening.
CalRobert 2y ago
It's really bizarre that we implicitly teach people that it's OK to hurt people, but not OK to defend yourself. I told my daughter's teacher that we fully intend to support her if she needs to fight back physically and the teacher seemed really surprised (mind you, she's a star student and not someone they think of as "trouble"). Of course, if people hurt her, it means the school failed in the first place.
valval 2y ago
I think this is a silly attribute of our western societies in general. Disallowing physical violence in response to emotional violence is hypocritical. The latter can be way worse, yet the former serves as a straightforward remedy. I believe in the “talk shit, get hit” sentiment. It’s easy to spot people who have never been hit in their entire life.

by dijit 2y ago

loloquwowndueo 2y ago

That sucks, sorry that happened to you. How did you stand your ground?

dijit 2y ago
One of them ripped a necklace off of me, then spat on me. I should add that this was after the day before when they had caught me walking home and pushed me into the local pond (during winter) and that the necklace was given to me by my great grandfather that had died very recently (and the bully knew that). In hindsight, I shouldn't have been wearing it. So I punched him in the face, he reeled a little and his friends went to work on me before a teacher stepped in- as they were the other side of the play-ground and needed to close the distance. Unfortunately all they'd seen was me hitting the bully. So, expelled.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Got it, thanks for sharing. Overly harsh consequences are only fair if detection of the responsible/initiating party is foolproof.
  - taneq 2y ago
    Ironically, overly harsh consequences are often imposed because detection is lacking. If you can't reliably detect infringing behaviour to impose a fair consequence, you have to ramp up the severity of the consequence imposed when you do detect an infringement in order to maintain deterrence.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      Maybe the creep towards surveillance everywhere will help with this? Get a bit of AI in there and school bullying is solved. A sarcastic suggestion.
      - Buttons840 2y ago
        Surveillance will come one way or another I think. When it does, the best we can do is ensure it is used for the benefit of all. It's easy to imagine a school with cameras in every hall, and when it benefits those in power, the "tapes are pulled", but when it might help a pleb, it's too much of a hassle to pull the tapes.

Loughla 2y ago

I was also expelled for fighting back. This was how I learned that documentation is important in life. When I got the paperwork saying I was out, my parents sent back all the correspondence with the school, the dates the bully bothered me, and the responses (or lack thereof) from the school. I was reinstated and the bully went to another district. Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. It's genuinely terrifying. I don't wonder why many teens are anxious. Everything they do is documented.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. I don't get it. Anything a bully can do to you over social media, they can also do to you without using the internet at all. Anything they needed to be near you to do, they still need to be near you to do.
- nicksergeant 2y ago
  There's twice as much surface area. Bullies can now do their thing 24/7 from behind the screen _and_ still physically torment.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    Again, whatever they can do from behind a screen now, they could also do in your absence before.
    - ab5tract 2y ago
      No, they couldn’t. Just a single obvious example: What tools did they have to broadcast photoshopped images of you to all of your peers?
      - 2y ago

chollida1 2y ago

Wow, expelled seems very harsh. I know when i was a kid we would get suspended for a few days if we had a fight. Banning a kid from that school for life seem pretty harsh.

j45 2y ago
Suspension or expulsion of the victim is far too common.
NikkiA 2y ago
It seems understandable if you assume that getting the principle to admit she would defend herself involved (borderline) bullying her to the point she backed down on it. She then removed the problem parent from the school's roster the only way available.

BurningFrog 2y ago

I've come to think zero tolerance policies are universally bad. Some tolerance and considering circumstances is actually the sensible way to handle most anything. But that sounds like being "soft on crime", and the PR side is usually more important than the actual problem.

plasticchris 2y ago
The real problem is that school personnel don’t want to deal with the parents of the actual problem kids, so they get away with it even under zero tolerance.
- amatecha 2y ago
  ^ this. Every time the school staff have to deal with THOSE parents, yet again, is a huge stressor and they will try to avoid it if they can, but the parents of the "generally-good-except-this-once" kids will generally be totally reasonable and easy to deal with, even if injustice is occurring.
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  How hard is it to just expel them? They seem to expel victims with ease...
martin-t 2y ago
That's because the narrative in the last decades has shifted towards tools, not actions and intentions being good or bad. In the past, it was normal and encouraged to use any tools available to you to defend yourself. Psychological abuse is still abuse and you have the right to defend yourself, the most natural, available and effective immediate defensive tool being violence. In recent years, violence has become a massive taboo. It's a tool that is universally labelled as bad no matter the circumstances. Instead, everyone is encouraged to portray a "good victim" by demonstrating helplessness and waiting/hoping for people in positions of power to help.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

[flagged]

Terr_ 2y ago
"Justice is expensive and uncomfortable, let's just use collective punishment on everyone in the immediate area."
- stoperaticless 2y ago
  That is what happens when teachers and the school can get sued for any mistake. Avoid all mistakes. (Even if it mean not trying)
ryandrake 2y ago
Yea, you don't have to fight back in order to be punished under "zero tolerance." You just have to be involved, including as the victim. Kids get punished all the time for rolling up into a ball while the aggressor beats them.
rlpb 2y ago
The flaw is that the bully can pick their moment and thus avoid being observed. The victim doesn’t get to choose the moment and means by which they have to defend themselves. And the school will enforce zero tolerance only against what their staff witnessed, not the original bullying that is (from their perspective) only alleged. The key rule about fighting back that is never taught is: don’t get caught.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Puts 2y ago

Unpopular opinion, but most people who get bullied are a little "off", a little weird in some way that affects their likability. And this also affects the adults where even they judge the kid being bullied harder. For example if you are autistic and lack verbal skills, that's going to be seen as you lacking social skills. And obviously if someone got hit, who's most probable to have started it? Maybe the kid that "lacks social skills".

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
joe5150 2y ago
This is an incredibly popular opinion! Unless the "unpopular" part is that this is somehow fine or justifiable.
- Puts 2y ago
  Well I think there are a lot of people out there who define bullying as "when a random person in a group is selected to be harassed". And if you ask them what they think about it they would say "It's horrible and totally unacceptable". But "disciplining" someone that is acting weird on the other hand is the right thing to do, that is not "bullying" to them. But for the person that becomes the subject of this it becomes, "you sit wrong", "you talk wrong", "you eat wrong", "your sense of humor is wrong" until it feels like you can't do anything right. Some people even think they can fix your "wrong" behavior by hitting you, and then it becomes physical bullying. A lot of people wanna believe that bullying is like the fist scenario because that is easier than actually having to start accepting people the way they are - even if they are a little "weird".
  - dijit 2y ago
    I couldn't possibly disagree more. Once you're boxed in as a bullied person, you will continue to be bullied. They're not "educating" you, and it's a little sick to suggest it.

j45 2y ago

You’re right - it’s far too common, and serves an objective of ultimately turning young people away from education, while not getting to learn what was possible for them and isn’t heir lives. Maybe it’s a feature of industrial education - enable creation of compliant adults where bullying is disproportionately allowed by tolerating it, and also build bullies to manage future compliant adults. Bullying is everywhere including in the ranks of teachers and leadership in a school. Those who play the game of bureaucracy (bureaucracy must survive at any costs) must concede to enabling a system of too often failing upwards while standing on the capable folks. Too many schools abdicate their responsibility and hide behind doing their job and turn it into a daycare of expecting children to figure it out on their own. Bullying too often is toxic parenting coming to school. Standing up for one’s self in the right circumstance, especially when the leaders, institutions and experts in our lives, especially as children intentionally traumatizes children that the world is like this, and because it doesn’t bother teachers or affect them it will only get so much attention.

anonymousiam 2y ago

Defending yourself is always the right move. When one of my sons was being bullied in elementary school, I taught him how to fight and encouraged him to do so. The bullying ended, but he was suspended. I confronted his principal and got her to admit that she would defend herself if someone was pummeling her. She didn't like this, and subsequently expelled my son, who later won honors awards after transferring to a different school.

martin-t 2y ago
I absolutely agree with you but I can't avoid noticing an extremely common, yet pervasive irony. The rules of the school no doubt forbid physical violence and expect children to use a process set up by the system to defend themselves against bullying / being wronged. That system failed and because you rightfully saw your son's right to self defense more important than following the rules, you encouraged him to defend himself outsides the confines of the system and its rules. Later both you and your son were bullied / wronged by the principal. The rules of the state you live in ("laws") no doubt forbid physical violence / being wronged. That system failed...
- stoperaticless 2y ago
  In the end his son got awarded. And learnt to stand up for him self. Seems double win on his side.
  - martin-t 2y ago
    That was the outcome in this case but in general it can be very damaging for someone to lose most of their social circle. The principal's goal was to save face at the expense of harming the son. The fact that he came out on top is irrelevant to the morality of the principal's behavior. The principal is in a position of power which cannot be held accountable within the confines of the system. Such positions are ripe for abuse and in fact attract people who want to abuse power. As a society, we should design rule systems in such a way that each position can be held accountable.

rgrieselhuber 2y ago

If you look at institutions that are more concerned with punishing the type of people who will fight back than the bullies themselves, the motivations behind these sorts of policies make a lot more sense.

martin-t 2y ago

> "nobody sees the first hit" This perpetuates the myth that "real" bullying is physical and that psychological abuse is not bullying. Most of the bullying i've seen was psychological and partially material (usually taking things from the target or damaging them). The only instances where i've seen physical bullying were in low grades where the children had not yet developed the mental capacity for creative verbal abuse or in higher grades where bullying was left unchecked for so long that the aggressors felt confident they could get away with it.

sriram_malhar 2y ago
I have a feeling that OP didn't mean a physical hit. 'First provocation' is more like it.

newsclues 2y ago

A grade school tried to punish me for stopping someone from hitting me by grabbing their wrist. I said, to punish a nonviolent intervention would only incentivize future reactions would be violent, they had to think about their policy, because as I put it, “if grabbing their wrist for self defence was going to be punished the same as me punching them in the face” I’d settle for brutal violence in the hopes to persuade others not to hit me. Children vs principals with masters degrees in a logic debate and the kids win. Sad

throw16180339 2y ago

I'm grateful that I graduated well before zero tolerance policies. I was frequently bullied in childhood. The only thing that actually helped was hurting the bully enough that they'd pick another target. I rarely got in trouble for this, but I would certainly have been expelled these days.

trod1234 2y ago

> I would guess its a combination of "nobody sees the first hit". No, it is done that way by purposeful intent, though you wouldn't recognize it as such without having studied and having a certain level of exposure to how torture works in reality (really dark stuff). Bullying is a combination of physical and mental coercion. During Mao, the Chinese government discovered a number of ways to torture people to the point where they adopt false ideologies (effectively breaking them) for thought reform purposes. These techniques are often embedded today in the structures used by teachers and they have predictable results. If the exposure is ongoing, people break, either through disassociation (helplessness/suicide), or psychosis seeking annihilation externally (albeit a semi-lucid psychosis capable of planning). This is torture for thought reform, and Active shooters seem to fall into the latter bucket quite prominently. Unfortunately, Technology has made the ephemeral steps needed to do this (previously physically), possible (remotely). Joost Meerloo, and Robert Lifton wrote about these structures and observations professionally covering the developments of the subject matter from WW2 through the Korean Conflict (1944-1960). They are well established experts. Academia has a long problematic history of supporting things related to marxism. The most common telltale sign is that of circular structures (hegelian dialectic, or the abuse of the contrast principle). These are used to create convincing lies/deceits, critical theory (cultural-marxism/ i.e. the woke), originated from Marxists/Communists/Socialists (whose structure is almost objectively identical). There are people in these systems who in action promote communism, while claiming otherwise. Whether they are lying, or are just delusional its hard to say but as I mentioned the telltale sign is circular structures. The first thing you need for rationalism is a common shared definition (what is called identity in philosophy). Then you can hold accountability following a system of logic. Without it, there is no accountability, and you can just as easily claim the exact opposite of the situation (Falsely), with no way to prove otherwise. If you want an introduction to this not mired in a quagmire of deceit, I'd suggest Mises on Socialism (circa 1930s), it provides a rational introduction to the objective structure of such, without needing a lot of discernment to combat deceitful circular narratives inevitably found in other material. Getting back to bullying, and torture, the gist is, all that is needed to coerce is components of isolation, lack of agency (on the part of the subject), and increasing cognitive dissonance. Its only then a matter of time and exposure, and certain structures allow meeting this criteria simultaneously for multiple different groups at once. One such structure is called the hot potato, where a student is called out in front of class to answer a question. Usually fact questions are mixed in with thought reform opinions, and the student is not informed to mount a reliable defense. The subject when called is anxious or nervous, disapproval of their peers may result in bullying, lack of opportunity, or social stigma. This is determined and reflected by the approval or disapproval of the teacher in answering the question or correcting the question. Any disagreement is a reflection of disapproval. The more disagreement, the more disapproval. There are always those seeking approval in the peer group, where disapproval results in those members bullying and harassment, or shunning, to seek approval, albeit arbitrarily with no explicit direction. This almost always happens outside class. This structure induces both subject and peer group to participate in the dynamics, and in truth both are victims, since the harassment/needs of the peer group require them to act in ways that are consistent with the teachers approval (consistency principle). It doesn't matter if the teacher condemns such behavior verbally. The idea of a struggle session (Maoist), is that you make life intolerable arbitrarily until you meet some unstated arbitrary measure. The subject is gaslit to believe its their fault, if only you would confess or agree (which invokes consistency). Sometimes there is no measure and its unending. The route of effect is the same way we develop our identity and culture through communication within a community. Reflected Appraisal. As you are isolated, those you see most you begin to trust, they inadvertently affect you more until full conformity and adoption. You generally must be in a vulnerable state either naturally (developmentally), or induced (through torture), to adopt behaviors in this way. The latter is effectively involuntary hypnotic suggestion which is induced. These structures distort reflected appraisal, and use other sophisticated psychological biases to indoctrinate for purpose (avoiding critical thought/perception). Unless you know what to look for, you don't even notice it being used against you to manipulate you. It is not of the flesh but over flesh. The seen and unseen. Tolkien often took inspiration from the bible, and Amazon's Rings of power are masterfully done in the way it depicts this subject matter. If you've ever seen the movie Focus, what is described with choosing the player and number for the gambling con is truthful, and you can do far more than just that narrow example. Much of the foundational subject matter for these things was originally taught in a classical education (pre-prussian model of education), under Rhetoric. Science has allowed us to further probe what was known back then, effectively breaking perception, which reminds me of the Tower of Babel story. If you would like a crash course in the blind spots, Robert Cialdini wrote a book, though he refers to them as levers of influence, unfortunately he doesn't touch on reflected appraisal in depth. The book is called Influence. Its been recognized in the US by members of the state department. Many of these structural elements have been repackaged so as to obscure the fact that these originated from torture. The Octalysis framework for game development for example hits most of these indirectly (albeit perfectly), but this is not an isolated example. Variations of the same structures are everywhere from business process, to CSR doom loops, basically anywhere you want to impose cost to coerce people against a specific behavior; these are used. These situations and outcomes are by design, they are subtle and malign evil people often pretend, or rather believe that they are good. Know an evil person by the willful blindness they show to the consequences of their action, know an evil act by the destructive outcome that follows. Know sloth by its more modern name, complacency (also the banality of evil), which turns towards radical evil. If you would understand how these things happen, a thorough study of corruption, systems (and failures of such), history, and ruin are needed. Few get this education with modern curricula. Classical Curricula follow the greeks, (Trivium/Quadrivium). The rise and fall of the Roman Republic to Imperial Rome is also quite illustrative, and Social Contract Theory is a must (to understand what changes have caused civilized society to fail). The latter include Locke, Kant, Rosseau, Thomas Paine, and a few others.

joe_the_user 2y ago

I was bullied in elementary school and middle school. I fought back and generally if not always, beat the main person who harassed me. I mean, I remember in 7th grade one kid used to harass me daily for not taking a shower after gym (which I didn't 'cause the showers involved more bullying). I eventually (2/3rds of the way through the year) picked him up by the heels and slammed his head again the gym locker as hard as I could, let him fall head-first to the cement floor afterwards. He didn't bother me again ... But ... it didn't change anything overall, it didn't stop either me being in the harassed group or harassment at the school. In fifth grade, however, one teacher confronting the bullying did change the entire tenor of things for that year and the next (then I moved and graduated). Which is to say, all the posters here hot to recommend fighting back as some kind of solution. Stop, just don't. Schools need systems for stopping bullying and those system are social changes. "What about the fight-backers" is someone's cowboy trip.

mouse_ 2y ago
Nobody really teaches you the rules but... You're not supposed to grab them by their heels and swing their head into a locker. You're supposed to pop them in the mouth. Anecdotally, I popped my bully in the mouth and stopped getting harassed.

77pt77 2y ago

> I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" This is an excuse. Not a reason. Based only on people's status and the way they look, certain affordances are made. The bullies are effectively permitted to bully. The bullied prevented from fighting back. The zero tolerance is the excuse (not reason) used to implement that. This is trivially tested by reversing the roles. If the bullied becomes the bully, the punishment is not reversed.

47282847 2y ago

Total agree. It’s the growing problem of actively exploited code of conduct schemes. See the topic of “reactive abuse“. The original abusers win, since they are the experts in violence and know how to leave no evidence. The victims who use violence usually as last resort in defense lose. Then society loses again because some of the prior victims will turn their frustration against this injustice into further violence. School mismanagement of bullying (and of course first and foremost bad parenting) breeds narcissists and psychopaths. Who then work their way into positions of control and power to continue to implement the same literally insane principles of punishment and force them onto others to make others suffer the same hell they suffer, out of a deep seated and misdirected desire for revenge. Restorative justice would be key to break this cycle, but of course narcissists know to prevent this from happening.

CalRobert 2y ago

It's really bizarre that we implicitly teach people that it's OK to hurt people, but not OK to defend yourself. I told my daughter's teacher that we fully intend to support her if she needs to fight back physically and the teacher seemed really surprised (mind you, she's a star student and not someone they think of as "trouble"). Of course, if people hurt her, it means the school failed in the first place.

valval 2y ago

I think this is a silly attribute of our western societies in general. Disallowing physical violence in response to emotional violence is hypocritical. The latter can be way worse, yet the former serves as a straightforward remedy. I believe in the “talk shit, get hit” sentiment. It’s easy to spot people who have never been hit in their entire life.