More food for thought on bullying

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“Why I Don’t Feel Bad about Bullying”

I don't get it. Is that meant to be a joke or sarcasm? It is hideous whatever it is. Made me feel sick. I have never been bullied or been a bully though. But I stayed away from girls after a certain age and just always did my own thing.

It seems pretty serious to me, but I don’t care all that much, because I find her reasoning interesting. It’s what anyone who has been bullied should expect in life. Although the author’s friends had made remarkable progress in their lives, to the point that it was hard for her to tell they were bullying material, she at last managed to see through their academic and professional success and put them in their place. Never expect to get a free pass—once bullied, always bullied. And they’ll do it happily, with a totally clear conscience. It makes sense, since bullying behavior evolved as a way to weed out weak members of the tribe, to let them die alone without dragging down the rest of the group to its collective demise. In other words, the bullying isn’t done till you are done for, and quickly forgotten like a nobody.

By the way, note the legend in the page her name links to: “Just a fun mom and a teacher at a ret*d school. I like recipes and my kids.” Looks like she has no shortage of opportunities to preach and practice her teachings on bullying.

What bothers me absolutely most about it is that they (her friends) would give the darnedest what she thought of them, given how despicable she and her values seem and how readily she admits and espouses the absolute shallowness of her personality and life. If indeed nothing ever changes and the bullied remain the bullied it must be in part because they continue to bestow power on the bullies.

WHAT THE...
...what an elaborate thought construction to avoid a conclusion that she was the bad guy.

But those tricking cool people like me into hanging out with her is the hands down winner. I am cool and what, I have been tricked to hanging out with uncool people?!

The whole text is a perfect example of rationalization.

Precisely. That’s how normal people work. It’s nice of her to put it into words so we can at least understand it.

People whose will to power hasn’t been broken never consider the possibility that they are the bad guy because, in their worldview, they are the hero by axiom. Anything contradicting this proposition is therefore immediately proven false. Simple as that.

Ok it appears this is a man writing under a female name - my detective work showed the link is to a male twitter account - and I think it is meant to be funny but not reflect his real personality and be written with a fair degree of exaggeration. The author has written another post on different boob sizes on the same site. Knowing this I can get the thought provoking aspect without feeling quite so sick.

Apart from if this text is serious or a satire – there is a sentence:

Is that true?

Because it is not true where I live.

I don't know. ^^ I am rethinking everything I thought about bullying recently as my daughter is going through some stuff at school and I am struggling to define what I think about it all.

I think the stereotype is that men will just have it out with each other - usually physically - and then be done with it whereas women will make a big song and dance of things and make it into a long drawn out game of top dog/looser. Either way it seems to attempt to establish some form of unspoken hierarchy.

I wonder if there is a cultural element too. When I was at the American University of Cairo surrounded by Americans I was always stunned by how within a second of meeting me they would do this bit where they provided me with all this information on how much they had already achieved, what they were likely to achieve and how amazing they were. In my cultural understanding that was arrogance and bragging. Certainly, extremely unlike Swedes where one of our main things seems to be "to be seen and not heard." But again it was this desperate need to externalise oneself and measure oneself against some apparently objective yard-stick of success and cool-ness. I found it very very off-putting.

The truly clued-up people like this Iranian girl which a scholarship from Harvard, said nothing.

I think what bothers me is not so much the bully-person writing the hideous article. There is really little hope with regard to her. It is the fact the the people who were bullied (in the article) have not developed or evolved beyond aspiring to be like her and can so easily just be put in place again. I guess I feel like perhaps they were bullied in school because they were young, lacked self confidence and were vulnerable to someone like her but the idea that they are perpetually vulnerable is very sad. I wonder if this is often the case in real life though or whether it is more common that people grow up and become impervious to people like her.

The same here. As I observed on international conferences, Americans are excellent in advertising but actual results are more often produced by Russians (who often suck at presentations).

My high school was nothing like what they describe, it was a small, nerdy place I chose myself and I commuted to. Included a bunch of different individuals, almost all happy to escape their previous schools and very tolerant towards each others' quirks. Bullying was marginal because the "underdogs" supported each other. The most bullied ones were incompetent teachers.

When I hear about high schools in Anglo-Saxon countries, I come to a conclusion that there is something seriously fscked-up in their system about it.

What link?

Click on Nicole muller, The name that appears at the top of the article. This will take you to a page about the author, under where it says "Nicole is a local mum and a free spirit" click on "twitter" - it takes you to nickmullen "extremely online guy"

I am not very internet savvy so I might be wrong.... but a quick scan of the articles that the person has written for thought forum, like the one on different sized breasts leads me to conclude that it is written in jest.

Entirely irrelevant, perhaps, who wrote it and their gender, but treating it as a thought provoking piece of writing rather than a description of a gang of women by one of those women, made it easier for me at least to consider the content more objectively ( without being as repulsed).

Oooh! Apparently, it’d never occurred to me to click that link. I’m not used to seeing much of interest on Twitter, not having an account myself. I’d taken a look at “her” personal page on Thought Catalog, but hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. “8 Reasons Why Having One Huge Boob And One Very Small Boob Is Awesome” is a bit hard to take seriously, but I find it even harder to believe “Inhuman Ann Coulter Refuses To Let Gamer Touch Her Feet” was written by a woman.



I guess it’s easier to be honest when you don’t actually have to walk in your character’s shoes. But I’ve seen enough evidence that people do think that way.