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I have a palpably hard, rough, gnarly, snappy, fiery disposition. It's not natural / not my nature. It's the product of years and a lifetime of hardship, abuse, brutality, vulgarity, viciousness, chronic crises, chronic traumas, and tortures. All to severe extremes. I have a death-blow strength punch sometimes. I'm packed and loaded with caused and cultivated violences.
I remember when my daughter was being destroyed by bullying. She was a nice girl. Fair and friendly and kind. The bullying turned her into a double B word (bossy and *itchy). She was in second grade when God's creation (life on planet earth) destroyed her.
It's a force of destruction that can't be stopped.
The abnormality in the world is,
People who weren't sexually abused as kids
People who haven't experienced major traumas
People who weren't bullied and abused
Not everyone who is mean is being mean out of malicious intent.
Those whose actions are targeted for the purpose of causing discomfort and/or physical or emotional pain are engaging in bullying or harassment.
This is the best response IMO.
Of course there can be overlap.
The "An imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim is often involved." quote is also significant to me.
Someone can be mean without achieving bullying status simply because they do not hold superior power over another, whether it be physical or otherwise.
If it is a repeated and advertised act of exclusion, for example, it could be.
OK. I’ll buy that. But not everyone gets asked to every party.
If it is well known that someone is being constantly excluded, then I suppose that everyone who is included is a party to the bullying, unless we are talking about little kids who have no control over a guest list. I might agree about calling it bullying, but I’d call it discrimination first
The "An imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim is often involved." quote is also significant to me.
Someone can be mean without achieving bullying status simply because they do not hold superior power over another, whether it be physical or otherwise.
OK. I’ll buy that. But not everyone gets asked to every party.
If it is well known that someone is being constantly excluded, then I suppose that everyone who is included is a party to the bullying, unless we are talking about little kids who have no control over a guest list. I might agree about calling it bullying, but I’d call it discrimination first
I think it all depends on the case, on the attitudes, language used, level of planing and participation. Although there is a fairly acceptable definition of bullying and harassment , each case is unique. Until some years back most people didn't really consider online mocking to be capable of rising to the level of bullying. A number of high profile suicides later and that position was quickly revised. So I guess, one should always stop and consider the aspects of an individual case on its own. And, yes, it is possible for bystanders to end up being at least partially culpable but again this would very much depend on the circumstances.
I started thinking about former bullies in school. But then it got me wondering- what is the difference between someone who is bullying and somebody who is being "mean" or a jerk?
I remember people were definitely jerks to me from time to time. But I'm trying to decide if it was true bullying or just kids being rude.
Tell me your thoughts.
My thought is, I don't care about difference. No one has right to make another's person life miserable. Thus, if anybody attacks you, in any way, it is your full right to defend yourself with any methods suitable for that.
If child is bullied, it is important to notice it, help him to deal with immediate situation and encourage him to deal with these people confidently and with assertiveness.
To me, bullying seems to imply an on-going situation. But anyone, even people who love and care about you, can do a jerky thing to you maybe. Maybe they're having a bad day and take their frustration out on you. But they don't treat you as such all the time.
The "An imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim is often involved." quote is also significant to me.
Someone can be mean without achieving bullying status simply because they do not hold superior power over another, whether it be physical or otherwise.
Correct and the target does not have equal power to defend themselves:
Physical -The classic larger sized person attacking a smaller sized person
Emotional - Agressive personality bullying meek personality
Social - The queen bee bullying someone lower on social hierarchy
Economic - Boss having greater economic power bullying employee
Authority - Parent abusing child
Generally a mean person does not discriminate in this way. A bully rarely picks on someone his/her "own size."
Last edited by Maddie104; 10-03-2019 at 03:30 PM..
To me, meanness is a part of someone's character. It does not discriminate, and happens effortlessly.
Bullying is done to cause pain, and is purpose-driven. A bully is always a mean person, but a mean person is not always a bully.
I agree with this.
I was thinking of an instance of someone I thought of as "mean, but not a bully." There was a man I worked with when I was young, in a downtown sandwich shop in Cincinnati. He was a good looking, tall, thin gay man. The manager ADORED him. She was an overweight, middle aged woman. He would say mean things about customers after they exited the store. He would speak cutting insults at coworkers, including the manager, and because he was acting kind of hoity-toity sassy, she would laugh as though that joke was not in fact MEAN...which it was... Just because he did not come across as threatening enough to be a bully, exactly, he was still mean. He acted as though he held every other human being around him in constant contempt, and that somehow being a sassy gay man meant that he had the right to put other people down.
He is one of very few LGBTQ+ people I've ever met, that I really disliked. I quit that job because I was tired of dealing with it.
Saying something unpleasant about someone when you don't believe they will hear it, find out about it, and it will not ever affect them, is mean, but it's not bullying really. Hell, a person might just have a head full of nastiness toward others, and be secretly mean, and never say a thing. Saying it to them in order to put them down, and being fully prepared to follow through with additional confrontation, or relishing the prospect, deliberately provoking trauma and distress in others, "trolling," picking on, harassing, or directing violence at another person, especially if you feel like there is nothing they can do but take it...that is bullying.
And the concept of the bully being in a position of power has something to it, as well, but that should not just be imagined as the bigger boy beating up the smaller boy in the schoolyard. I don't know how many adolescent girls I've known of who physically harassed boys, because they figured that a boy won't hit them back. And even bigger, stronger males can be bullied if, for instance, a mean spirited person finds out that they are non-violent. There are some who just can't seem to help but to try and provoke.
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