Sympathy for the Bullies: Our New Villains

barthel:

I wrote a thing for the Awl about why vilifying bullies is problematic, and how changing social conditions can shift the terms of a debate.  (And the anti-bullying climate really is incredibly widespread – since I’ve started paying attention to it I started noticing things like this and this.)  I’m obviously a bit ambivalent about the whole thing, so I’m certainly happy to hear other people’s thoughts.  I’ve had some backchannel talk since the piece went up, which I’m always happy to receive, but which also makes me a little distressed about it not being part of the public debate – for instance, I’ve heard of one school administrator who’s asked their staff to stop referring to kids as “bullies” unless they’re engaging in actual physical violence because it’s labeling normal ol’ mean kids something with a much harsher connotation that can end up shaping their behavior in the future.  Is that a good idea?  A bad idea?  Depends!  Like I say: shit is complicated.

Sympathy for the bullies? Novel concept, eh?

Bullies are the children of an era that prominently displays tea partiers at the center of public discourse, portraying them as “Real Patriots”. Bullies are the children of an era where media shows the anti gay protests as “normal” and where “God hates fags” appears on TV screens world wide. They are the by product of the Islamophobia sweeping the West like a tsunami of vomit. They are the children of a political tactic that considers it acceptable to treat the “Other” as an invasion, as something that needs to be exterminated (anti immigration vigilantes patrolling borders?), that considers it “political speech” to throw insults at Barack Obama and casting suspicion over his nationality and his religion (as if there was something inherently wrong if he happened to be Muslim). These are the children of the Sarah Palin times, the children of growing tactics of violence to silence discourse.

Bullies, at least the current virulent generation driving peers to suicide and self harm do not exist in a vacuum. They are the true exponent of contemporary social interactions in the adult world around them.