5 ms·
The Bully
- sdoering 14y agoThanks. Sad, sad topic, but probably the best take on the topic I have read. And not only on the recent context. This is a story, that sadly fits so many contexts, that it could be shown day after day after day.
- corresation 14y agoIt simplifies the world in a way that such narrative always does, adding no understanding and doing nothing to make the future better. In the real world we're all bullies (1), and sometimes suicide, self-harm, and hysterical overreaction is the ultimate tactic to bully. It seems entirely irrational, and I'm sure the mere notion of it will outrage some, but humans are prone to irrationality. One of the most dangerous behaviors is to empower suicide -- to make it the ultimate "get back at them" tactic, internet lynch mobs that didn't care at all before suddenly up in arms against the purported aggressors, the narrative of the story simplified and made completely one-sided, where there are only villains and victims. That isn't how the real world works. Despite the ham-fisted Swartz parable in the linked thing, I was not talking about that situation above. However if I might, it was clear years earlier that Aaron wasn't exactly the happiest person in the world. There were things going on there that none of us understand, and presuming that everything would be happy sailing if a prosecutor looked the other way isn't rational. (1)- Some of the most egregious, obnoxious bullying happened in the recent thread recounting the thread about Aaron's situation from a half a year ago. Suddenly everything was seemingly so clear to some, their righteous outrage and vilification so loud. Just embarrassing.
- sdoering 14y agoWhy not sometimes simplify some things? It is a good starting point, and I was not saying, that we should stop there. But there is a special power in stories told good. I was not (or at least, I hope so) empowering suicide, as this would be the last thing on my mind. I read the story as some kind of parable, teaching me something. It got me thinking. It broke through all the layers protecting my brain from all the noise out there. It gripped me and I started thinking, about the times, I was on the receiving- and on the giving-end of the bully-stick. I am far to far away, to judge, if anyone in the linked context qualifies as bully. Really I am. And to be fair, it is ok not to judge here, not knowing of Aarons situation, not knowing the people involved and only having read some 1000 words on the topic. But I can judge myself being bullied and being a bully sometimes. And I was able to identify some situations, in which i was not the good man, I want to be, situations, I was able to revisit in memory, See where I went wrong and what I could do better next time. And speaking an apology to the one on the receiving-end. So what is so bad in this irrational, emotional, but maybe moving story? In my humble opinion, it would only be "bad" not to go the next step after reading it.
- cykod 14y agoThanks, I really appreciate the comment - I wrote it as a parable and only added the context link after my father emailed me in a tiff asking if it was autobiographical and I had secretly been bullied in high-school. The goal was to simplify the discussion and throw some culpability on the reader to make them a little uncomfortable, but as I only usually write about tech stuff this was new ground for me and I had no idea if people would "get" the intent or if it would just feel like a one-sided condemnation.
- seivan 14y agoFeels like an analogy to what Ortiz is did to Aaron.
- dschiptsov 14y agoI suggest that author should write more about HTML5.
- chimpinee 14y agoThere's a kind of emotional economy that nerds don't tune into. To those who aren't strong enough to resist participating in this collective exchange, it seems like the nerd is cheating. And he's perpetually anxious, so he must be in the wrong, right? >everyone - including the teacher - had laughed Yes. 'Socialization' --a purportedly legitimate function of schooling-- exists on the same continuum as teasing and bullying.
- wwwtyro 14y ago> There's a kind of emotional economy that nerds don't tune into. Please expand on this as much as you're willing.
- ditonal 14y agoWell, I'm a nerd but I do agree with the bully. I don't think that the severity of a crime should be judged by a victim's reaction to it. While I see how a suicide might bring notoriety to a problem, I don't think it changes the nature of what was done. It's similar to the Tyler Clementi case, who killed himself because he was being videotaped in gay acts by his roommate. I never thought it was fair that the bully in this case would be held accountable for essentially the entirety of our society's homophobia just because his actions were the final straw. He should have been punished the same that anybody would be for video taping their roommate in a sexual act and publishing it online (which I do recognize as severe bullying and very wrong). I believe that his official charges were along those lines, but it was clear it was being taken more seriously because of the suicide. The other thing I hate is the concept of "The" Bully. It's easy to imagine a sick, hateful person, most importantly someone else, and individual bullies certainly exist, but I think the far more common situation is where the bully is a group of people. I think one way to 'Stop Bullying' is to help people understand when they are bullying, instead of just imagining it's something someone else does. I doubt there that many people that never had an adolescent moment where they 'ganged up' on someone (verbally) to feel like they belonged more in a group, or just to give an outsider or a 'runt' of the group a hard time, because it's such an instinctive thing to do. So much so that it's a huge theme of Lord of the Flies, a book everybody reads in high school, but rarely views within the context of their own life. The most ironic thing about these stop bullying campaigns is so very, very often they reflect the same group bullying mentality they purport to be fighting. All these people 'ganging up' on the prosecutors in this case are example of that. I'm not saying this wasn't a failure of our justice system that should be fixed, only that it at times this is seeming awfully like a witch hunt.
- jyou 14y agoCan not agree with you more.
- dpatru 14y ago> It's similar to the Tyler Clementi case, who killed himself because he was being videotaped in gay acts by his roommate. I never thought it was fair that the bully in this case would be held accountable . . . This is an unfair analogy. Don't compare a college roommate with a US Attorney. First, they don't have the same moral training: the roommate is young and still in school, while the prosecutor has spent years in school studing justice and is near the top of a profession with the primary goal of doing justice. Second, their acts aren't comparable: the roommate acted on a sick, misguided impulse intending to embarrass, while the prosecutor deliberately over the course of many months and spending many thousands of dollars intended to force a kid to admitting to a felony and to agree to spend months in prison. There is a clear bully here and it's not the people protesting Carmen Ortiz's actions.
- zaidf 14y agoI am not a huge fan of the term "bully" in this conversation because it keeps us from having a nuanced conversation. The easiest counterpoint is noting so-called "bully-like" behavior from prosecutors in cases that ended up putting someone genuinely dangerous behind bars or into confessing a crime they committed but wouldn't confess to without the so-called "bullying". So, if we want to talk about this from the perspective of a bully, let's begin by defining what it is and isn't.
- lsc 14y agoI'm not sure the models we use when understanding the behaviour of an individual are useful for understanding the behaviour of a state or another large group with no one individual in control. Groups of people, I think, are fundamentally different entities from individuals.