Bullying.

The problem of "bullying" is a big deal in Japan's schools... at least so far as that even with my poor Japanese skills, I've had conversations with other teachers about bullying and "human rights." And sadly, in Japan, extreme cases sometimes end with the bullied committing suicide, igniting the next round of "awareness."

This article on the industry that's arisen in the field of bullying is pretty interesting, albeit lengthy. I chopped some of the better bits, but it's probably worth reading in full.

I'd never say "always" but the point the writer makes towards the end seems pretty valid to me. All too often bullies only get "violence" and the only way to get a bully off your back is to bust their ass. And the evolution of language and perspective, in 21st century America at least, seems to be towards one where people embrace their victimhood, and dwell in their powerlessness. Nietzsche is crying somewhere, I think. Basically, if you lose it just because people are mean to you? Well, you're gonna need to toughen up or the world is gonna give you a serious spanking.

Beating Up on Bullies:

"...Though the United States is a relative latecomer, the anti-bullying movement's flourishing in our country can be traced to a specific date: April 20, 1999, the day Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold took the lives of 13 people at Columbine High School. Indeed, in a strange way, school shooters have become the patron saints of the anti-bullying movement, serving as warnings of what happens when bullying goes unchecked...

...Not to excuse any unkind behavior on the part of the Columbine jock class--the one that has become the national stand-in for popular kids behaving boorishly--but for a moment, put yourself in their place. If two guys came to your school in goth facepaint, boasting of mutilating animals, spewing hate toward blacks and Jews, and voicing praise for Hitler (all of which either Klebold or Harris is reported to have done pre-shooting), even from the vantage point of enlightened adulthood, you might not ask them to sit by you on the bus.

Likewise, there's no evidence the simplistic approach of implementing anti-bullying programs can head off such incidents. When Charles "Andy" Williams shot 15 people at Santana High School in Santee, California, in 2001, he, too, claimed he was bullied. But three years before, his school had been the beneficiary of a $123,000 Justice Department anti-bullying grant.

...With lawmakers so willing to institutionalize anti-bullying hysteria (some countries have actually passed national anti-bullying laws), it's small wonder to find all manner of overreaching.

...In Edmonton, police asked the city council to enact bullying bylaws that would enable them to fine bullies up to $250--not just for stealing lunch money, but for "name-calling and intimidation." Here at home, down in New Orleans, school officials have begun levying fines against the parents of kids who fight at school. In Costa Mesa, California, a school district decided that not only was teasing possible grounds for expulsion, but even glaring at a classmate in a threatening manner might get a student bounced.

In Hastings, Minnesota, prosecutor James Backstrom decided that a student who picked a fight or harassed another would be punished with at least one night in jail (one female bully has been locked up 13 times). Now that the hurly-burly of the playground has actually been criminalized, it stands to reason that all sorts of boutique bullying complaints would emerge. These days, stories abound of "e-bullying," as well as "menace by mobile"--kids being bullied through messages left on their mobile phones (messages they're encouraged to save against the event of litigation).

Now pandemic, the anti-bullying movement is even extending to adults. Today, there are books like The Bully at Work--What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job. For years in Britain, some have been trying to pass a Dignity at Work bill, which defines bullying as "unjustified criticism on more than one occasion." Computer Weekly recently reported that one in five British computer geeks--or "IT professionals," if you prefer--claimed to have been bullied at work in the past year (including 17 percent of senior management).

...I tell him about how, in fourth grade, two classmates decided they'd jump me after school each day. I fended them off for a while, but I was outnumbered. So after four or five days of this, I used my "interpersonal skills," as the conflict resolutionists would say, and rallied the rest of the male population of the class to wait in ambush for my assailants. The next time they lunged at me, my friends rode in like the cavalry and beat the crap out of poor Michael Palmer and Michael Cassidy. They all ended up in the principal's office, while I made it unmolested to the bus. It wasn't my finest hour. But the Michaels never bothered me again.

...When we head back to the group and share our childhood bullying stories, I notice that a surprising number of successful anti-bullying interventions recollected by these mild-mannered Dairy State teachers end with the victim slugging the tormentor, never to be tormented again. During our "Connections" exercise, in which "we say anything we're thinking, feeling, or just any gifts you wanna give the group," I bring this up to Sherrie. She looks as if I've committed high heresy, and cautions that I only heard the stories people "felt safe enough to share."

...After the session, I grab seven kids (four girls and three boys), and ask them questions. They seem fairly confused by this turn of events. When asked how many of them consider themselves bullies, all seven say they are. When asked how many of them consider themselves bullying victims, all seven are just as convinced. I'm put in mind of something my wife, herself a former first grade teacher, told me after she taught a required lesson on "inappropriate touch." The next day, little Tyler could not remove a piece of lint from little Ashley's sweater without being accused of "inappropriately touching" her.

...What is impossible to quantify, however, is the deeper effect of trying to eradicate all bullying. Richard Hazler, a professor of counselor education at Ohio University, who has taught seminars on curbing bullying, says, "There's a normalcy in this whole process. I don't want to say that bullying is okay. But it's a teaching tool for kids. It teaches them to get along with people, how to use power, the victims--how to obtain power when not in power positions. How do we stop bullying and victimization? I hate to make this case in public. But we don't entirely want to--because if kids didn't have it--how would they learn? These are mistakes they're making. We want a cooperative atmosphere, but we also want to show them how to deal with aggression."

Back in the fifth-grade classroom, Tali winds things up. After a 25-minute discussion of put-downs, we are in touch with our feelings. I know I am with mine. Glancing down the "Don't Laugh At Me Feelings Inventory," I quietly reflect that I am being made "afraid, anxious, and exasperated" by what we are doing to these kids. I am "horrified, nervous, and paranoid" that we are not teaching them resilience, but rather, turning them into human flypaper. Every insult--even ones formerly sloughed off--now sticks, and gets reclassified and inflated, as children are encouraged to nurse the memory of petty hurts. I feel "sad, sorrowful, and suspicious" that we are teaching them to be nervous nellies and lunchroom litigators. That we are teaching them to feel "persecuted, self-pitying" and pusillanimous--the last of which is not on my feelings inventory but is a feeling I nonetheless feel entitled to express."