How much of human behaviour is nothing more than bullying

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I was thinking with regards to why people with ASD get such a hard time, and often end up isolating themselves from others.

I was thinking that the reason why many of us don't get on so well in life isn't so much to do with how we are,
but how others treat us. I know for a fact, that a great deal of the problems i have had in life is due to being subjected to prejudice and psychological bullying (often covert) from others, who due to their own uncontrolled destructive emotions driven by their own insecurities, end up abusing people such as myself so as to exclude us, and to capitalise out of the situation.

Unfortunately for us, i think that this type of ignorant behaviour is more common that behaviour that is free of prejudice. I guess a lot of human behaviour including "humour" is nothing more than cowardly covert bullying.

You'll probably get a load of responses using wild animals as an analogy for human behaviour, which irks me often because it's basically giving them a pass to be bullies. Humans aren't wild animals, we don't survive by eating each other, and as a society of laws, humans ought to be intelligent enough to know better. I mean, if a lion killed a human, you don't send the lion to jail, do you?

And it's not just people like us that are at the bottom of the "social hierarchy" (or whatever that s**t is) who get bullied, it's anybody who might be different. I watched a documentary about a couple with quadruplets, and the couple got some very hurtful comments by strangers in public when they saw them with the identical quadruplets. And how does having 4 same-aged children make the couple socially "weak"? It doesn't. Some people are just nasty, and cannot help themselves. That is the answer.

Bingo.

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I think that the analogy of comparing bullying to animals is more to do with the primitive behaviourisms that human beings exhibit, primitive in nature, which of course primates are known for.

Although human beings generally do not eat each other (some do) however human beings are known to eat other creatures. I think that this is generally the same to animals who are carnivorous also do not generally eat their own. Some do, some don't.

However i believe the analogies describe more how human beings behaviours can be very similar to animals in that they generally but not exclusively intimidate, bully, use physical force / violence, gang bully and prey upon the weak or those in a weak position, to capitalize out of the circumstances for their own benefit.

I would say that a great deal of human behavior is simply these types of behaviours disguised by sophisticated and often manipulative language.

What i also find interesting, in some of the most ancient religions, such as those that come under the western "hindu" label, these religions made such observations thousands of years ago.
What i also find interesting, is that those who do not have that type of sadistic amoral nature, as most Aspies do.

Are considered to be blessed with this disposition and more likely to make spiritual progress in this life time.
That's if you buy into their belief system / mode of perception.

I also think that this is to a greater extent how the Buddhist spiritual philosophical path works and I would say, that with Aspie's general dispositions i.e. logical, good natured, uncomplicated. Then such a spiritual path and perhaps even fraternity / social circle may be a good one for some aspies.

As good genuine Buddhists such as monks, should be focusing on cultivating compassion for everyone, and be less
susceptible to being controlled by their own destructive emotions or the norms of society.
Which is interesting in itself. Perhaps a sanctuary for some.

In my day, it was largely the troublemakers of the school who did the bullying. Most people were nice to me.

Today, in the advent of social media, under the cover of anonymity, the bullying has become worse.

If the instinct of survival was removed, would bullying exist?

Yes, it would. Just not so much, right?

Can I rephrase the question?

How much of Human Behavior is Nothing More Than Maneuvering for Status?

I see bullying, alongside a constellation of other behaviors, as falling within this larger umbrella. I think a lot of the expression of these behaviors is learned and subconscious.

I doubt little kids actually think "he has emotional vulnerabilities that I can exploit to build reputation off of their back. I'm going to push their perceived weakness and enhance my own status by displaying dominance over them aggressively."

They get older and, at least for the more intelligent among them, cultivate superior status building skills that are less crude but no less exclusionary and selfish.

... or how we believe others treat us. Sometimes people can say the most innocuous things, and we will immediately perceive it as an attack or an insult. Sometimes, those people aren't even talking about us, and we perceive their conversations as some kind of coded conversation about us. Even "I feel wonderful" can be perceived by us as being a deliberately implied statement of "You miserable fool". I think it has a lot to do with the insecurity and self-doubt that most of us deal with every day -- it's almost impossible (sometimes) to even accept a direct compliment as a compliment, and not respond with "What do you mean by that?" in a sharp tone of voice.

One thing I learnt from getting my diagnosis and reading about behaviours was that whilst most of my co-workers would say I wasn't an unpleasent or aggressive person certain behaviours could have been mistakenly interpretted as close to bullying.

I could be very demanding and controlling BUT only because of the way I was treated by others. Thankfully I wasn't like that with everyone, or all the time. Certain self-defense behaviours could be interpreted as bullying.

But if people repeatedly ignore requests to solve work flow issues how else do you maintain your sanity when you are constantly [passively-aggressively] work supply isolated from others doing the same job? You have to stick up for yourself and that sometimes means being a bit of a bully back.

Needless to say I don't work there any more.

The old adage - "treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself" is very true, as is the reverse "expect to be treated by others as you treat them....."

Bullying is a very complex topic.

I wouldn't call self defense a form of bullying at all. If it was anything remotely close, then I would have to admit to being a bigger monster than Hitler for all of the times and ways I have had to defend myself.

I read, recently, that something like 60% of conversation consists of gossip. I don't trust those sorts of figures, but it sounds approximately right, to my mind.

There was someone at work who I worked with for years. We got on quite well when we were doing the same job, but when I moved to a different job in the same area the relationship when down hill. There was never one thing, just a gradual erosion. There was one incident where they called me quite an insulting name. They were well known for being explosive and openly critical of others, so one had to tread carefully. But remember at one time we were quite friendly. So I always tried to make the relationship the best it could be from my side. I was very forgiving of their faults shall we say.

So at some point I changed my hours because of ill health (which lead to my diagnosis). Everyone else started at 6 and I started at 8. So when I came in - me being freindly said morning to everyone including the person above. Very often they would be non-commital in their reply. Eventually I could sense that by my saying morning to them was making them uncomfortable and it was making me uncomfortable in turn. Around the same time I read a book by Temple Grandin about social relationships and one of the things she mentioned was relationships and conversations being a two way thing. One person shouldn't be expected to do all the work [which I felt I was begining to do].

Rightly or wrongly [bearing in mind I was going through the diaognosis stress] I decided not to say good morning any more to this person. After all they never said good afternoon to me (or goodbye) when the shifts started at 2. And, heck, I didn't say morning to everyone in the workplace.

So from then on I never small talked with this person, just strictly work related stuff. Now to the point of this essay. Look at it from their perspective. From me saying good morning and then not saying good morning and ignoring them in small talk they could percieve that I was socially isolating them [cutting them out of interactions, yet interacting "normally" with others]. This is one of the things mentioned as being a bullying behaviour. So to them I may have appeared like I was bullying them, but to me it was self-defence. That is why I say it is a complex topic.

We could have talked it over, but that would have meant disclosing my diagnosis and that was something I was NOT going to do with that person as it would have been all round the workplace by the end of the day.

That isn't bad at all. I wouldn't call ignoring someone a form of be bullying at all unless you are ignoring certain key factors like ignoring an ax stuck in the person's forehead. And I still would be skeptical to judge that until I knew exactly why you would ignore that type of detail.

Ignoring bullying----depending on your ability to do something about it----is "enabling bullying," and could even be a form of "bullying."

Ignoring bullying kind of falls into the same as my example of the ax in the forehead. When I discount ignoring as a form of bullying, I am mainly referring more in terms of not responding to small talk or something.