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Study Shows Standing Up To Bullies Is Good For You
It will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever talked to my grandpa, but a recent study has shown that standing up to a bully is good for you. Although being bullied can be stressful and lead to depression, children who returned hostility were found more likely to develop healthy social and emotional skills. From the article: "In a study of American children aged 11 and 12, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, compared those who stood up to aggressors with those who did not. Children who returned hostility with hostility appeared to be the most mature, the researchers found. Boys who stood up to bullies and schoolyard enemies were judged more socially competent by their teachers. Girls who did the same were more popular and more admired by teachers and peers, the researchers found."
until it isn't.
That only those of good mental and emotional health have the strength to stand up to bullies?
Emotions! In your brain!
The problem is schools try their hardest to reduce attacks against bullies. For some reason the natural process of growing up has been demonized. Guess what? Kids fight. Guess what? They go home with a bloody nose and are made all the stronger because of it. These studies only confirm what everyone already knows that the natural process of growing up is just that: natural and beneficial.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
When you've got it, everyone knows it; you're better at everything because you believe in yourself.
When you don't, you're living in your own shadow.
I was bullied for a long time. I was raised Catholic and I thought that fighting back would be immoral. Then one day my dad told me "You know, son, sometimes you just have to smack 'em." It was like I had been wearing a blindfold. I went to school the next day, waited for that prick to mess with me, and I knocked the crap out of him. He was on the ground for a few minutes. No teachers saw it, and it was a shot to the solar plexus, so it left no marks. I haven't been bullied since. It taught me to not let people push me around, and that's a valuable lesson to learn.
Humans always admire those who stand up to injustice, especially if they succeed. Look at the founding fathers of the US, Civil War "heroes", etc. It makes no difference if you are 8 fighting the school bully or if you are 28 fighting against tyranny, or if you are 78 and fighting injustice in the legal system.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
If you don't stand up to a bully, you'll only look like an attractive target to other bullies, and other non-bullies who might feel inclined to bully you because they know you won't respond.
There's not just physical bullying either. Look at just about any teenage girl today. They're the most vile, fire-breathing, hostile creatures that walk the face of the Earth today, and they won't think twice about emotionally bullying a peer to the point of suicide.
Failing to stand up just means you get bullied more, with sometimes fatal results.
But then there would be no slashdot commenters..
How about killing the bullies? Before they have a chance to reproduce, of course. Clean up the gene pool! No bullies allowed!
-kgj
Sure, until the bully shivs you in the neck. You're dying words with be "...it was good for me...".
I prefer to take the same route and as beta male dogs; I pee on myself to show submission.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Once again we mix correlation with causuation. It's not like if a timid person will stand up a bully and become socially sucessfull. Non timid and socially healthy people usually stands up. The arrows that represents cause is pointing to the wrong direction
-- dnl
Well the subject makes it clear what I was told....
However it was until I decided to smash one guys head with a huge book, and kick another where it hurt while wearing steel toe caps that I got the reputation for being a "bit crazy and mad" that they stopped.
Yes, hit them back. It works and they don't expect it. Just make sure your ready and know how to defend yourself else you'll end up getting hurt even more.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Study fails the acid test. What's an Adult bully? A mugger/robber/assailant. Is standing up to robbers/assailants/masked figures making demands or taunting @, good for you? The answer should be sometimes. Sometimes it is essential, sometimes it is suicidal. Sometimes it is just smart, that would be when the bully is bluffing, and you are the one with the gun.
Back to children... Its good for you, only if the bully's response to you standing up is something other than engaging you in a fight you can't win, knocking you down on your feet, beating you to a pulp, until ribs are broken, give you black eyes, knock out all your teeth, and stomp groin until it is guaranteed child will not have children later in life.
Maybe study should show standing up to bullies can sometimes be good for them, as long as child knows when to surrender, or makes sure they are actually physically capable of mounting a reasonable defense / in the superior position to physically resist bully / make it not fun for bully to mess with them.
The problem with that, as I'm sure many others here can attest to, is were one to stand up to bullies, many schools somehow managed to punish the bullied student worse than the bully, who often gets off scot free, no matter what.
I hope things are somewhat better now, with all the anti-bullying programs and stuff, than when I went to school in the '90s and early 2000s.
It is somewhat of a consolation in a perverse way to find out what most former bullies do now that we're all adults. A great many can hardly hold down a minimum wage job, and blow all their money on alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. In theory, I wish them the best. But, yeah...
Boys who stood up to bullies and schoolyard enemies were judged more socially competent by their teachers. Girls who did the same were more popular and more admired by teachers and peers, the researchers found
And no, I did not RTFA. I got as far as the picture of some movie characters and decided that TFA was crap. Turns out, I could have made that call if the summary had told me who published TFA.
Oh well. There's 30 seconds of my life that I'll never get back.
Some children that have no deficit of mental or emotional strength are taught by their parents that retaliation is wrong, that the meek are blessed, and that they should "turn the other cheek" as Jesus taught. This is reinforced by teachers who punish both students involved in a fight if either one defends himself against the other.
It is a testament to the children's stoicism that they can accomplish this. Unfortunately for them, it looks like doing so may negatively impact their mental and emotional development (yeah correlation is not causation and all that...that's why I said "MAY").
This happened to me. My parents were evangelical nuts. They set me up to go be a victim in public schools, which I was. I have no idea what psychological ramifications that may have for me today...but I DO know that when I started training in martial arts in high school, the bullying stopped, and I never had to hit anyone (which actually kind of disappointed me, because I had a lot of anger I wanted to unleash on the next unsuspecting bully).
Chicks dig scars. Probably triggers a paleolithic reaction that infers you'll protect the young-uhns from predators..
No they don't. There is a significant number of people, probably even a majority, who think that people who stand up to injustice just don't know their place. That they are "uppity." Maybe they just don't consider the injustice serious enough to warrant a conflict or they think social order is more important than righting a wrong or, and I see this one a lot, they think the person who is speaking truth to power is going to get squashed in response and that they are fools for even trying. I think the last is a projection of their own cowardice - at the very least they could be cheering the guy on, but instead they feel like they have to denigrate him as a way to justify their own inaction.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Looking up former high school bullies on www.classmates.com can also be a cathartic experience. It's amazing how those kids turned out as adults. The correlation, at least in my experience, is too good to be coincidental (or perhaps it's a self fulfilling prophecy). In either case it's rather karmic to see the behavioral traits that led to bullying in junior and senior high school also led to dead end jobs, too many children to support on their unskilled salary, and multiple marriages.
I suppose the flip side of this, though, is that they seem to raise more kids that may likely turn out to be bullies; assuming that's a cycle that repeats itself.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
On the contrary, most children would murder someone if they had the chance.
Why do you think child soldiers are so popular? Because you want a soldier who can barely lift a rifle? or because you want someone who murders without compassion or feeling?
Children are NOT nice.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
While I am somewhere in between socially adept and not, I can safely say that I have had my run-ins with bullies. Some I stood up to and others I did not. On one occasion, I got the crap beat out of me. This particular bully later on causing severe permanent injury to another kid.
The point is, it's risky to say "this is more healthy" when it could potentially lead to severe injury or even death. These days, depending on where you live, bullies carry guns and other weapons, travel in gangs and don't take well to humiliation even if you win the first time around.
I always backed down / ran away from bullies as I thought that was the right thing to do. Got the crap beat out of me every day for 12 years because they knew I wouldn't hit back. Now that I have a 2yr old of my own, I'll be teaching him that if anyone punches him in the shoulder and laughs his response should be to punch them square in the face. I'll deal with the teachers when I get called in. If they can't control their class room my kid will defend himself.
I was thinking the same thing. I would say that the common cause is self-respect. It's what makes your peers and teachers admire you, and it's also what makes you stand up for yourself when bullied. It's much more plausible than the hypothesis that standing up to bullies is what wins you admiration.
We would have known this a lot sooner, but previous experiments always ended with the test subjects getting their asses beat and unwilling to say more for fear of further reprisal.
Humans always admire those who stand up to injustice, especially if they succeed. Look at the founding fathers of the US, Civil War "heroes", etc. It makes no difference if you are 8 fighting the school bully or if you are 28 fighting against tyranny, or if you are 78 and fighting injustice in the legal system.
Humans *always* admire those who stand up to injustice? Except those who are inflicting the injustice. Americans despise Terrorists, but who are they, except those that practice asymmetrical resistance to their own perceived injustice? What are "activist judges"? Aren't they despised by half the country that wants to continue to persecute homosexuals? Same on the other side of the fence. Most on the left hate Sara Palin, even though those on the right consider her to be fighting against the injustice of big government and social programs.
postmodernsideshow.com
In related research, researchers have found that 11- and 12-year olds who master calculus develop better math skills than those who do not.
I think you're both wrong. It's a might makes right world. Whoever wins the fight often are right in many people's eyes.
There are exceptions but between 2 guys, that's how it is with many people.
I always felt that bullying was an iterated prisoner's dilemma situation. It's well-known that the optimum strategy for the iterated prisoner's dilemma is cooperate first, then tit-for-tat thereafter. In this context, "tit-for-tat" would mean fighting back.
Obviously those that chose to stand up for themselves in terms of being bullied at a young age, are different, than those that did not. This study is nonsense. There's a core difference in personalities between the two types, so it's natural for the results to be different years later in terms of social maturity. While our environment is a strong influence as far as our inner being is concerned, we are all born with a core set of personalities and social demeanor that only change moderately based on experience. All this tells is is that those that "had it in them" to stand up for themselves in their childhood, continue to "have it in them" later in life. Some people, regardless if they are harmed or not, do not have it in them to "return hostility" in childhood or adult life. All this proves is that the two personality types have continued down the road of maturity with their core emotions/personalities intact, as expected.
"True refinement seeks simplicity."
I wasn't bullied much during school, but when I was, I returned fire 10-fold.
I was smart enough to know my physical limits, run, and fight another day.
During one bullying episode I wasn't able to win, setting the kid's backpack on fire at a bus stop got his attention. I told him next time it would be him. That crap stopped right away.
Another episode warranted stealing a bully's bike and throwing it off of a bridge onto a 6 lane highway at night.
Finally, I helped a friend return the favor to a bully by smashing his car windows, slashing his tires, and then paying a tow truck to tow his vehicle to a garage REALLY far away.
Since bullies typically don't pick a fair fight, they don't deserve a fair fight.
I was born in a Christian pacifist household. I was taught to not back down to the bully, but, also, not to fight back. It is amazing how much fun it is to see the expression of befuddlement on the bully's face when you don't back down the day after he punched you and you did nothing back. Now I never ran into the bullies who just beat the crap out of you, all of the one's I ran into would hit/punch/kick you and wait for you to fight back, they never knew what to do when I just kept on doing what I had been before they came up to me.
Of course it also helped that right around the time in my school that the bullies were just getting into their stride we boys discovered arm wrestling. I am just as strong left handed as right handed (and I am right handed). I learned a trick that made everybody think I was stronger than I was, I would challenge people to arm wrestle left handed. All of the other kids were significantly weaker with their left hand than with their right hand. As a result I never lost arm wrestling left handed (the only left handers in my school were in a different grouping and we never crossed paths during the school day). This made the other kids think I was much stronger than I was.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Isn't slashdot where all the bullied nerds hang out? Especially the ones who never stood up for themselves? Because if they stood up for themselves they would not be nerds. In spite of the movies (revenge of the nerds). I mean, come on. Slashdotters can't even stand up to their moms. If they did (stand up), they would hit their heads on ceiling pipes in their mom's basement.
Sometimes, if you stand up to a bully, you discover they are scaredicats.
wake up and hold your nose
I was a smallish kid for 9th grade (I skipped a grade so everyone else was 1-2 years older). I had to put up with the usual upper-class bullying (dorks out for laughs instead of psychotic), but nothing too serious.
Then the new kid showed up. I was 5'6" at the time, he was 6'5". And he zeroed in on me like a laser. I put up with it for a few months. Then the day came when we were out playing soccer at PE and he "missed" the ball whenever I had it and would kick me in the leg. The next day I could barely stand, and probably had a fracture of some kind. Standing felt like someone stabbing me with a knife.
I talked to my principal about it. I should mention that I went to a small Christian private school. The principal listened to my story, and then told me the next time it happened, beat the hell out of the kid and the principal wouldn't do anything (God bless you Roger).
Sure enough, within 2 days the psycho caught me in the hall and started trying to choke me. I kicked him in the family jewels as hard as I could, he fell over flat. I proceeded to spend the next two minutes kicking him in the family jewels, the chest, the head, everywhere i could swing a foot or arm. This ended only when the girls in the next classroom came rushing out to ask why I was beating up on Goliath, and they ended up pulling me off of him.
The kid didn't come back to school for a few days, and ended up transferring out a few weeks later. No one else ever messed with me again.
I don't like fighting, and greatly prefer to reason with people. But some people are psychotic sociopaths. The only suffering they can understand is their own. I'm always happy to give bullies a lesson using their own language.
What I remember (growing up in the 80's) is very much in line with what was said here. Defending yourself against a bully results in getting the same punishment as a bully.
In fact, I remember getting 5 days in-school-suspension for not doing much more than getting punched by a bully. He was in my face chest bumping me trying to provoke a fight. I raised my arm as a bar between us to try to get him out of my face. There was no shove, nothing but what would be a very gentle push to try to preserve my personal space. This was construed by faculty as assaulting him first.
Most bullies are manipulators, and they know how the system works. They will attempt to provoke you in a way that can make their assault seem like they are the ones defending themselves.
When growing up (as a slightly awkward, brainy, geeky kid), I found the only way to deal with bullies at a school was never to fight them, but to never back down. Get back up in their face, show them that you aren't afraid of them and aren't afraid to fight, but that you aren't stupid enough to play their game and throw the first punch and let them work the system to get you in more hot water than themselves.
Bullshit. You definitely never went trough the country, actually asking that statistically significant amount of people, did you?
No. Of course not.
Because you just pulled that one out of your ass.
What you describe is called “crab mentality” by the way. People who think that when they can’t have it, so can’t you. Those are usually the worst of the cattle people. But they definitely are not the majority.
A good example for the US is: Those who love the US Army & co are those who like people that actually stand up and do shit. (Even when soldiers are blind followers by definition. They still at least are supposed follow the one who stands up.) From my experience, most people in the US love the Army.
(Here in Germany, that’s very different for example. People in uniforms are hated. Guess why... [which still is a problem in the German army].
And Germans are often said to just walk by and stare when someone is beaten up. Because of that.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Physical health, beefy musculature, and stature also help...
It could also be that people who are bullied and don't stand up (because they are unable_ become harmed by the repeated experience.
We're looking for juicy steak, and we will select the best, but only after all the beef has passed through this meat grinder. If it's no good for making hamburger then how could it possibly make a good steak?
...
I think the most important experience a child gets out of this is that they learn to solve their problems themselves, without adult help. If a child grows up relying on an adult to solve their problems for them, they will rely on external assistance when they have problems in their adult life. If the child steps up and resists the bully themselves, they will learn to rely in themselves in their adult life.
The way the child deals with the bully doesn't necessarily need to be violent. More often than not, bullies pick on those who provide the least resistance and are the easiest targets. If their victim starts resisting, they become too much trouble to bother with and the bully will abandon them as a potential target.
There are limits, of course. If a bully is too dangerous or resistance may end up with the child getting hurt badly (as opposed to just a mild beating), then an adult should be brought in to assist. But for the most part the child will be able to handle it themselves.
..that they are "standing up to aggression".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
No one actually hates Sarah, her story is way too sad - a provincial beauty queen and sports commentator, brought to international spotlight, exposed as the illiterate wanna-be politician as she is and then nudged to leave her office - abandon her only accomplishment in life, to run around and sell her body at the extremist speaking engagements. You can't hate that - you can disagree with her world view and you can feel very sorry that such a person actually exists, but hate ... nah, she just made that up. No one actually hates her.
in my highschool, bullies had knives or pistols. if they didnt have those, they had friends who did not hesistate to jump in afterwards. you should run away, unless you think you can survive the immediate conflict or - more importantly - its escalation later. thats just frikkin reality. ~~~ now, at work: i DO NOT suffer bullies gladly. i dont care if they are on the executive team or not. they get what they get. if im fired, or let go - im okay with that. its never happened so far...
She is like a two legged puppy trying to run a marathon. You can't hate that, but you can hate watching that.
Your analysis is spot on. I've seen this many times both as a child and an adult. And I've experienced it myself. The group will observe the fight (physical or otherwise) begin and start sizing up who the winner will be. Most will start siding with the projected winner. A few will tentatively stand on principle either siding with the projected loser or staying neutral but then as it becomes clearer and clearer who the winner will be they will all eventually line up with the winner.
I went through this very thing in adult life where a small group of people were abusing their power and I resisted. I kept pointing out to them that they were violating the law and behaving as bullies and that if they kept it up they would end up in court. I didn't take action for a very long time, years, because who wants to litigate against people you have to deal with on a daily basis? In hindsight that continuing reluctance to escalate was a mistake. But eventually I did launch an action against them.
One day the ring leader comes to talk to me and after trying and failing to scare me he asked what I would do if I lost (because I could lose everything I owned) and I told him "Then I guess I'll lose and start over - it's a matter of principle to me." Whooosh... the guy (who was quite a weasel) just couldn't understand that anyone would do that. They kept it up, perjured themselves, and took every opportunity, frequently illegal, to pressure me into quitting. Eventually they lost, settling out of court. My health suffered significantly, and probably permanently, and financially my costs were only partly covered (the lawyers for both sides did quite well). Somehow they have twisted this around in their minds that I'm somehow the wrong one, a bully (roflmao) etc. etc. That's despite the fact that when the bill came and they whined their own lawyer told them "Well you did something wrong and now you're paying the price."
Their anger is almost palpable. My take on it is that even though I had appealed to them on a regular basis, individually and as a group, to solve the problem without further conflict, that the facts showed they had repeatedly behaved atrociously and illegally, they are unwilling to think of themselves like that so some mental gymnastics occur so that they can believe they were in the right and I was just... evil? I just did what I thought my Dad would have done. As for the group they are continuing on with their old ways - just not trying to do it to me again. So far.
Standing up to bullies doesn't make them stop bullying, it just makes them pick an easier target.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
This posting *screams* JonKatz
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Another blanket generalisation based on spurious research. After the age of about fifteen the world's a lot darker and less simplistic than when you're eight. The bullies I knew were psychopaths. One, at the end of his teen years, ended up beating up an 80-year-old, hospitalising him then robbing his flat after taking his key. Another one who made my life miserable locked a teacher out of his own class during a lesson and then taunted the guy through the glass of the window. If the adults in charge could not control them, then I'm not sure what a scrawny geek like myself was supposed to do, despite studying martial arts for three years. At no point did I fight back against these guys, despite being spat at, abused and punched for - quite literally - years. I don't believe it would have worked particularly well when the guys were certifiably crazy, dangerously violent and went on to enjoy prison sentences. I would probably have been hospitalised after the first attempt, and then a second time (with his gang helping) after the guy was expelled for GBH and blamed me for his 'misfortune'. Sociopaths aren't really all that clear on the whole cause-effect thing. There were plenty of other mean kids who seemed to make up a sizeable chunk of pubescent youth. These 'bullies' were never really a problem. Nor were any kids an issue at the ages when 'fighting back' actually has some effect. To say 'bullying is natural - watch puppies', or that 'being bullied is just part of growing up' is ridiculous. Not all kids are bullied: only those who stand out. To suggest that reacting violently to being bullied is a necessary part of the maturing process presumably means that all the beautiful kids who never suffered from bullying are somehow under-developed. Back to causality: I loathe conflict to this day, and have still have difficulty dealing with it. I don't think beating up a bully or two would have helped here, and most importantly - nor is violence in my nature. Despite not being violent myself - and suffering from mild Asperger's - I went on to run a successful company and managed to retire at 38 without ever having to beat someone up just because we have an atavistic fixation with physical force. Those who avoid physical confrontation are not 'weak', 'losers' or 'more likely to do well' - whatever that's supposed to mean. Let's try and let go of the neanderthal trappings and reinforce acting like a civilised, technologically advanced species rather than wishing we could all be Christian Slater in 'Heathers'.
I think you and the parent might live in different countries. What he's saying sounds like it describes the culture of many places other than the USA (such as Mexico, where corruption is accepted and commonplace).
The USA has a culture (which is dying out) of independence and justice that isn't found in many other places.
And yet we have a legal system that at least makes a good-faith effort to determine the truth and impose penalties appropriately. We have a legal principle that it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to unjustly punish an innocent man. But school authorities routinely punish the victim because "It's too HAAAAARD" to do the right thing.
Sure, it is not always possible to determine the truth, and mistakes will be made. But that is very different from punishing the innocent as a matter of policy. The fundamental assumption behind "zero tolerance" policies is "nobody is innocent" -- a point of view that the entire history of our entire legal system repudiates, and whose chief advocates in the present day are school administrators and terrorists
Beware false dichotomies, too.
It seems likely to me that both of these things are involved in substantial degrees. Self-confidence promotes standing up for one's self, and standing up for one's self promotes self-confidence.
Children who returned hostility with hostility appeared to be the most mature
Nothing says mature like beating the crap out of someone
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
Standing up for yourself lets you know that you have your own power and authority. If someone takes advantage of you, and you let them, you will begin to feel that they are justified in their actions and internalize their treatment. If you stand up for yourself, even if it means you get the crap beaten out of you, you take the important step of rejecting that view of yourself.
Taking it further, when people believe that they need someone else to defend them it also reinforces an inappropriate view of helplessness. Sure, it's great if someone will step in and help you. But in the real world, people are often too busy or to concerned with their own business to step in and stand up for someone who's oppressed. That's why I always get upset when teachers get angry at students for standing up for themselves, or advise them not to. If you don't learn to do it from a young age, what hope is there for you later on when there is not teacher to "protect" you?
Then there's the laughable idea that the government can protect you from exploitation by you employer, or by other criminal elements more traditionally accepted as such (white collar criminals, murders, rapists, extortionists, polluters, regular old thieves, etc...), or from your abusive spouse. People always criticize libertarians (I am not a libertarian) for their view that you can take care of your self. While they are wrong about that, and you do need other people for sure, there will still be times when you will be all alone left to fend for yourself. If you find yourself in that situation (and you surely will) and you don't know how to stand up for yourself in the face of certain destruction, there is no hope for you.
This article is good. Hopefully now people will stop saying that we shouldn't stand up for ourselves.
My Dad tells me that when he was in school he had gotten into a fight. A teacher stopped the fight and took him and the other guy to the gym and put boxing gloves on them. They were then allowed to duke it out with supervision. After It was finished, they were good friends. The problem was solved.
Now, in more "enlightened" times, we would never do this. Instead, we make sure the kids can't resolve conflicts until one day someone flips out and does the murdering. We even go on to suggest how this should happen by having mock attack "lock downs".
I'm glad someone is starting to see reason.
Looking at the matter with an oversimplistic view is potentially harmful.
But, as many folk aren't interested in thinking harder, I'll endorse the basic idea that standing up for yourself helps. Note that bullying is a dynamic that requires victims to complete it. It should probably be referred to as the Bully/Victim Dynamic to help people remember this fact. If you don't stand up for yourself, bullies will target you.
If you look into what makes bullies feel like they have to dominate others, you will gain a much deeper understanding of bullying.
Again, I highly recommend this article for anyone interested in understanding bullying better.
Now, the source quoted in this /. article is appallingly fourth-hand and diluted. Here are some other sources:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article7133986.ece
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18mind.html?pagewanted=print
And here's an abstract for the actual study (which took a while to track down): Mutual antipathies during early adolescence: More than just rejection
In relation to having "healthy social and emotional skills", this study from a while back came to mind.
In 1969, Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block embarked on a study of childhood personality, asking nursery school teachers to rate children's temperaments. They weren't even thinking about political orientation.
Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.
This may go some way to explaining why nobody from the conservative ranks in the US has stood up to their own bullies, going so far as to apologize to them when they say something out of line.
It also explains why the bullies themselves also seem easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable too.
I know that this will either be marked as Insightful or Troll-bait. I also know that will be because of someone's opinion. But facts are cold, hard things.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
From reading the responses, it looks like most people encountered "physical bullies." The big brutes who would push you down to steal your lunch money or beat you up behind the school if you didn't do as they said.
I had psychological bullies. They never threatened to beat me up. Though non-violent, I was a big guy and they rightly figured out that I would easily beat them up if I decided to fight back. Instead, they would follow me around making fun of me, blocking my entrance to class, etc. All of these actions didn't threaten me with physical harm, but it was relentless torment. Day in and day out. If I tried to avoid them, they'd follow me and tease me more. It wasn't a question of *if* they would torment me on a given day but *how much* would they torment me.
Needless to say, it took it's toll. If I fought back, well they never laid a hand on me so I'd be the bad guy and would have been punished as such. (Or at least, that's what I was afraid of at the time.) I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to about it so I bottled my feelings up and came close to being extremely violent over it.
My salvation came when I opened up to a friend of mine who happened to be on speaking terms with the bullies. They thought of their activities as "just harmless fun" and didn't think it was anything that was really hurting me. They stopped, but it took me years to recover.
Countering a physical bully is one thing: You fight back and suddenly you aren't this easy target anymore. Countering a psychological bully is another matter entirely. Fighting just makes you seem like the aggressor since the school has no proof of the bullying happening (or chooses to turn a blind eye until it gets violent).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Most bullies will definitely step off once you show them you fight back.
Unless they are behind a keyboard here on /. calling someone a fanboy, idiot, loser, clueless or some other level of hate for using, buying, or merely commenting positively about some thing or other.
If little Victor Victim was allowed to scrap it up in the 2nd grade with Bobby Bully, while they are equally matched, then maybe Victor won't try to take Bobby out with an AK47 in the 9th grade? Perhaps both would learn the lesson back when they are 7?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Did you expect them to sit down, think about what they'd been doing and conclude with "well, I guess I'm the evil one here?
No one ever thinks they're evil. Some will realise and accept that what they did was wrong. But evil? No, never.
There is a significant number of people, probably even a majority, who think that people who stand up to injustice just don't know their place. That they are "uppity."
This happens a lot to people who stand up to injustice in an uppity manner. They aren't aware of what the people around them are feeling, they can only see themselves as the center of the universe, etc, and then they try to change things but do it in such an annoying way that no one wants to go along with them. Then they give up and just say that everyone is sheep or something, when really it's just a matter of not knowing how to work politically (ie work with people).
Qxe4
Man, what a terrible, terrible example - supporting the US army is supporting standing up to injustice? That's EXACTLY the kind of falling in line with the strong over the weak I was talking about. Support the whistle-blowers in the military - those are the weak who speak truth to power and frequently get squashed for it, despite all the PR about not obeying unlawful orders. The regular troops? They are just the means of corporate american bullying of the rest of the world. They are the most powerful force of violence in the whole world bar none, in no way are they the weak standing up to bullies stronger than themselves.
Maybe I did pull it out of my ass, but you've just demonstrated the precise mindset that enables people to support bullies over the bullied and still feel like they are the good guys.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
However you can if somebody starts a fight with you
END IT RIGHT THERE
Im sure that somewhere in the Art Of War there is a few notes on 1 on 1 combat
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Sadly our schools punish those who are attacked or baited with fighting words if they fight back. We need to encourage our kids to break a nose or knock out a tooth if they are hounded or pushed around and we need to insist that our schools back up those that have been wronged.
Wait, wait wait. Since when are the social criteria for maturity "judged more socially competent by their teachers" and "more popular and more admired by teachers and peers"?
why there are bullies in school, who are let to bully in the first place ? do we just let anyone beat up anyone that freely in adult life ? why arent there laws to prevent the same thing in the schoolyard ? because they are children, their actions do not have consequences ?
Read radical news here
Compare with Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, in a district with a zero-tolerance policy for violence, which has had success telling kids and their parents that returning physical violence is wrong.
Phoebe Prince.
If you have the means then you have a duty to f*ck the bully up. There is not much more that needs to be said on this subject.
I didn't say they should think of themselves as "evil" I said they believed they were right and I was something else, with the suggestion that "something else" might be "evil" (in fact I'm reasonably sure at least a couple of people think that).
I do think that when the lawyer they have hired tells them they were wrong that they should seriously consider that they were... wrong. None of them seem willing to do that, which was my final point.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
I would rather not... ...have a bully who has "channeled his aggression into martial arts", and ended up still a bully.
-- Terry
Can you give an example of what it would mean to "stand up to injustice in an uppity manner"?
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
What utter bollocks.
Non-violent means work better then violent means. The British didn't let Gandhi do his thing, they couldn't stop Gandhi without turning him into a martyr. Imprison him and protests will continue, he will gain more supporters. Kill him and he becomes a martyr, he will gain a lot more supporters.
Gandhi succeeded because he had the support of the people, not because of the British. All successful revolutions occur because the people supported it.
The Government of India turned out for the better, it took them half the time of China to reach the same (and in many ways superior) industrial capabilities. Compare this to violent revolutions that provided us with governments like, China, Soviet Russia, Iran, Burma, Taliban, most of whom are totalitarian and dirt poor.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
My parents were extremely religious Christians. They also understood how the social dynamics of public school worked. I was encouraged to defend myself. I remember one occasion where a bully attempted to goad my into a fight by pushing me as I walked home from the bus stop. I didn't hit him, I pushed him back. Well we ended up spending about five fruitless minutes taking turns pushing each other. After the other kids realized they neither of us would throw the first punch, they all went home. When the audience was gone, he lost interest and left. I happened to mention it to my parents during dinner and they didn't understand why I didn't interpret his push as an assault. I remember my step-father's words to this day "If he pushes you again, push him back. With your fist." The next day I went to school ready for him. He ignored me and I never had another problem from him. The fact that I carried that new found confidence with me must have been enough to convince him to steer clear of me.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Any time you go in with an attitude of "You're wrong and I'm right" it gets dangerous, for one. If you are self-righteous, it's just annoying. Instead of trying to accuse the person and show how wrong they are, go in with the attitude of, "this needs to change.....and furthermore I don't care if I end up looking wrong as long as it gets changed." Then it's not about the people, you aren't trying to smash anyone down, you're just trying to correct the injustice.
Also, keep a sense of perspective. If you are upset because someone else got a corner office when you felt it was your turn, then expect a lot of people rolling their eyes when you confront that injustice. Even though it may be a perfectly legitimate injustice, a lot of people just aren't going to care.
Qxe4
Well, I was in 12 different schools (my parents travelled a *lot*, great fun) and it was the same every time:
a) Get introduced to the class by the teacher.
b) Have the class bully with his 2-3 friends threaten you.
c) Better obey him.
Except that c) never worked for me. Thus I found that this class-bully is typically chicken if he's alone, and will only act like sh*t if he's with his friends.
Thus walk up to him and hit him hard. If you're quick enough, you can beat him up quite a bit before his friends can stop you.
Then you get beaten up, of course.
But the next day, you walk up to him and do it again. After a very short time, they will actually start to leave you alone, and you can spend the rest of your time in school in peace and quiet, meeting the other people, enjoying yourself.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
So if someone knowingly misappropriates funds the onus is on you to not accuse them or you are being "uppity"?
You know there are times when it is best to be conciliatory but in my experience it is generally the case that when someone does something wrong they know they are doing something wrong. It's not usually a grey issue it's black and white - they are doing something wrong, they know it is wrong or delude themselves beyond a reasonable degree in order to believe it isn't. And then they do it anyhow. I think it would be a better world if such people were just confronted with that. Not mollycoddled, not have their "feelings" be a paramount concern - just be told face to face "you're a liar/cheat/sneak/thief/whatever" and then maybe the incidence of such behaviour in the general population would decline over time.
It became popular some time back to say "let's not play the blame game." Well on some occasions that may be the best approach but imho it has been take way too far... let's play the blame game a lot more. But let's call it what it really is "the accountability for your actions" game.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Always something isnt it, should turn the other cheek, then should stand up for yourself, then you are equally to blame, then the bullies are
to be held accountable for the outcome of that situation, however we cant because they are products of their parents so the parents.....etc.
It will never cease to amaze me how much different information sounds when coming from multiple sources, can we
at least agree on one source, so as to then establish that as proper etiquette in schools today?
You have religion, which is now a factor...you have race which will always be present, you have language barriers, you have mentally ...
face it, you can't bunch this into one variable....you have factors, and other elements that affect the situation. Stand up to your bully
and cause waves, then you will get eyed as a trouble maker if you stand up too often for yourself, or a whiner that things are not
ok, and you want to change them.....
Counselor>the other kids have no problems, why do you have all the problems, you might be bringing it upon yourself
Student>i read that if you stand up for yourself, you are doing something better for yourself
Counselor>you can't believe everything you read...
There's a right way to do things, and a wrong way. If you know about someone who misappropriates funds, and go around and tell everyone in the office that he's such a jerk, and then go into his office and tell him what a jerk he is, then yeah, you're being uppity. Just get the job done quietly.
Qxe4
An interesting definition of "uppity".
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
But I'm right. :)
(and yes, I'm perfectly aware that what I did right there is a clear example of being uppity)
Qxe4
I'm certainly willing to believe that you think you are right. :)
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
An interesting definition of "uppity".
That's always the way it is with the people who apply the term.
The word defines the user more than the person it is applied to.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You probably should have just beaten the crap out of them. It's too bad our legal system doesn't recognize that it's sometimes the right thing to do.
check out the following books:
The No Asshole Rule (on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275189483&sr=8-1
and The Bully At Work http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Work-What-Reclaim-Dignity/dp/1402224265/ref=pd_sim_b_1
It was brutally driven home to me that the worst thing I could do was "stand up" to bullies. As I recall from elementary school, bullies came in packs. Their modus operandi was that one or two of them would shove me and kick me a bit. If I resisted in any way, they'd call out, and four or five kids would run in, knock me down, and then the group would encircle me and keep kicking me while I tried to protect my face.
The school would not try to protect me; instead, they blamed me. The school "yard duty" teacher would usually ignore the beatings, and would insult me if I asked them for help. The only way I could find to defend myself was to avoid the bullies and stay in the library during recess -- at least I found librarians and school bus drivers sympathetic. A few times, the school administration called me in, and asked, all sympathy, what it was I was doing to provoke other children into attacking me. The bullies were never disciplined, as far as I know.
My parents took the position that I was being beaten up because I was a coward, and therefore deserved to be beaten.
I'm really glad my stepsons go to a school where they actually intervene in incipient bullying long before violence appears.