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Bully Gets In Trouble With School
The Miami Dade school district is moving to pressure Rockstar games over its upcoming game Bully. From the Next Generation article: "Last Thursday, a board committee unanimously approved the resolution. A full board vote is expected this Wednesday. Rockstar issued a written statement to the Herald, which said, 'We all have different opinions about art and entertainment, but everyone agrees that real-life school violence is a serious issue which lacks easy answers.'"
Rockstar couldn't buy publicity like this. What do they care if some school district has a problem with it? The "uproar" is small in comparison to the benefits they will reap from this publicity. The types of people that were going to buy the game are still going to, and in addition now more and more people are hearing about it and potentially will also buy it.
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2. We have a legally enforcable age rating system for games in the UK which seems to work reasonably well and, to some extent, has taken the heat out of the violent games debate over here (San Andreas is rated 18, so Hot Coffee just wasn't an issue). Isn't the problem with introducing a similar age rating regimen in the US the fact that Walmart (and possibly other stores) will refuse to stock adult rated games thus effectively preventing their distribution and making them uneconomic to develop. I may be mistaken as I don't live in the US to find out first hand, but it's always seemed to be this, rather than any point of principle, which causes the game industry to object to so strongly to age rating laws over there. If the retailers would be a little more reasonable maybe this wouldn't be such an issue?
How about, before going all out on a game that enacts it, you take care of the real fucking bullies that abound in your schools? Perhaps if you, ya know, punished them for their bullying, the intensity of such would decrease.
Instead, almost every teacher or other school faculty (except the cliche cool janitor) who sees bullying just turns a blind eye as long as someone's tooth isn't knocked out. Maybe if we actually did something about it, we wouldn't have to worry as much about games like this, or people shooting up schools. I can't say I condone Rockstar's game, but there are more immediate (and local) ways to stem this than to try and pressure them.
Yes, I was bullied in school. Thankfully, I didn't get the worst that could happen, but it was still enough to seriously drive me to a point of doing some shooting of my own. The problem is that the bullies turn out to be jocks, or the son of the mayor, and the principal is afraid of punishing them, because heaven forbid our football team lose another game, but it's a-okay that people fail remedial math.
Our schools are messed up because people have the wrong priorities. They push social achievement (sports, arts, etc.) and defer money to that over intellectual achievement. Not that schools sports or band is a bad thing- but when it's taking away from the real purpose of a school, which is education, then they become a problem.
rant rant rant
...don't think bullying is any worse than carjacking, random street violence, sex with prostitutes, beheading police officers, gang warfare or any of the other stuff that went on in any of the GTA games. That aside, we've had films and comics and tv shows about children inflicting various levels of violence on each other for years - everything from Dennis the Menace, through Lord of the Flies, to Stand By Me. Or take your pick of any film with some jocks-vs-nerds bullying, for that matter.
I got bullied. I don't see how this game has anything to do with that.
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The purpose of blaming Rockstar is to direct attention away from themselves, and it's working. If it wasn't Rockstar, they would be blaming Bush, or Harry Potter, or anything else but themselves for how they are taking our tax dollars and failing our children.
1) How about respecting the right of self-defense of victims of bullying. How about congradulating the victim for beating the hell out of the bully when the bully picks a fight and brings violence instead of the school rather than suspending the victim. Strangely, feminists who scream OMG HE'S BLAMING THE VICTIM!!! whenever someone suggests that a rape victim partially instigated her rape by dressing like a whore in a very bad section of town while drunk at 2AM, are eerily silent about this which is the ultimate "blame the victim" card. Yes, little johnny or susy was violently assaulted by a bully, but the pushed the bully back so that makes them bad too. That's how the schools see it. You get repeatedly punched and kicked in the face, but if you touch the aggressor, you're now suspended for fighting. Fascism, brought to you by America's "education system."
2) Expel the violent and disruptive students.
3) Enforce the rules fairly, even if the parents are insanely rich or part of one of those untouchable, Always Noble Protected Classes Whose Shit Never Stinks Especially In Front of An Oppressor Class(tm).
4) Finally, and I know this will be the most controversial one, how you about show no love to the wannabe thugs who attack the black and hispanic kids who actually want to learn. If the thugs want to keep it real, they can do that on someone else's dime, on the street where they won't harass the minorities who want to be something other than street trash.
The bottom line is fighting back against bullies is not nearly as good an idea as it sounds. In fact, it's a pretty bad idea. The reason the bully picked you out is that you're weak. You can't stand up to him without an equalizer, and depending on what this is, it can mean escalation; and that doesn't necessarily end up in a good place for you.
Fantasizing about standing up to a bully in a physical way is natural and inevitable of course, and harmless: provided you know better, safer and more effective strategies.
I am concerned about bullying and my kids, which takes more shapes than physical punishement by the way. I always tell them to take good care of their friends, because some day they may need them. Bullies are attracted to weakness, and the greatest form of weakness is social isolation. Any three geeks probably can stand up to any one bully. They're also witnesses.
While I think fantasy revenge is benign, I do have mixed feelings about a game in which you fight against bullies though. I think that amoral violence may in fact be less corrupting than self-righteous violence. It may well be that such a game has more appeal to bullies than victims.
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The reason the bully picked you out is that you were perceived as weak. You may not actually be weak. And cunning and deviousness, plus the element of surprise, makes for an excellent equalizer.
I discovered this the time I finally snapped. I waited until the bully was totally unsuspecting, leaning against a car talking to someone. Then I ran up and smashed his head backwards into the metal edge of the car roof. Could have killed him, probably gave him a good headache for the rest of the day. He never bothered me again.
Bullies don't want to go near someone who will randomly and unexpectedly snap and hit back with potentially life-threatening violence. They can't be on their guard 24x7. They'll move on to an easier target.
I was once bullied in high school. Punched in the face, twice, bleeding from a cut lip. I did nothing to my assailant, and instead headed to my class and then to the nurse. I didn't want to be suspended, because I was a good student and didn't feel like making up classwork.
I was suspended for three days, and I didn't fight back. The other kid was suspended for three days, too. I was punished because I was attacked, even though I didn't fight back.
I was supposed to be fined for fighting in school, too. But when the magistrate heard the story and heard that I didn't fight back, he made the bully pay my fine. So, in a way, things worked out.
Bullies are the most sadistic, opportunistic children in schools. They aren't unaware of the effects of their behavior. They enjoy them. It reinforces feelings of importance and supremacy. They grin, laugh, and feel good as they physically and emotionally torture other children. The game will do nothing to convert the minds of such children. They only respond to changes in relative power, which stems from collective enforcement of rules or self-improvement of individuals. The former is more practical than the latter, since physical capability differences are inescapable, which is why government is typically charged with enforcing laws regarding the use of force between people. The problem with schools is that enforcement of rules are constrained by staff apathy and laws. While under some zero tolerance policy a little kid that has nail clippers can be expelled, someone that routinely abuses other children might only obtain an in-school detention unless there are witnesses, in which case both parties are apt to be suspended for a period of time regardless of whether both sides participated in violence. Bullies are essentially left to flourish until such time as they're members of society as a whole, where their previous youthful antics will land then short stays in the penal system or on the receiving end of lawsuits, restraining orders, and so forth.
Wrong.
Take an animal in a cage, and over the course of months or years, torment it and beat it. Eventually, what do you expect the animal will do? It'll lose its mind, and attack anything moving or worse.
Why is it that we as a society expect children to endure constant torture and torment without going completely nuts?
Columbine should have been a wake-up call to show what's wrong with the American education system, and how kids treat each other when there's absolutely no penalties for bad behavior. Instead, the killers were demonized and entirely blamed for the incident, instead of the kids in their school who made their lives such living hell that they decided to end them, but not without taking a few others with them.