[aficiomaquinas]

As a victim of bullying in my childhood, I can attest to this. When I hear people say that they cannot fathom how a person could walk into a restaurant and kill everybody, I don't tell them, but I do know what kind of anger you need to develop to be able to do such thing. That could have been me, but fortunately, it wasn't. I'm grateful I was able to overcome that.

[WarOnPrivacy]

The stigma against revealing harmful tendencies kills a powerful method of thwarting that behavior - self-outing.

I often (to generally good effect) out myself as a child abuser. This is narrowly possible because my abuse was strictly verbal - which is marginally allowed by society.

The benefits of being able to speak openly (with empathy and careful consideration) about my bad behavior are huge.

For starters, it encourages my children to speak and think about their mistreatment as a matter-of-fact aspect of their lives. Factoring that reality helps them be more self-aware.

Also, constantly keeping sunshine on my bad behavior degrades the ability of that behavior to exist in harmful, self-sustaining cycles.

This also gives me a good position to speak on the sexual, physical and emotional mistreatment I received. I can explain how the people who hurt me were themselves shaped by abuse - which is a deeply unpopular thing to consider.

The overall reality is this. By believing the only appropriate way to think of perpetrators is with shame and rage, we are insuring the creation of more perpetrators.

[justinclift]

To me, "that anger" seems kind of weird though.

I mean, the anger itself is understandable. eg "person XYZ or people ABC kicked my teeth in every day of school".

But shouldn't the anger be directed to the people who did the bullying? Rather than just randomly spread out towards people who weren't even present.

Like, only one of those approaches goes some way to solving the problem or even "pay back".

[rowanG077]

It's an attack on the system. In the end it wasn't really the individual kids that are bullies that are the cause. It's the system that allows them to bully. That's why you see so many school shootings. School is essentially bully heaven.

[justinclift]

> it wasn't really the individual kids that are bullies that are the cause.

Hmmm, I don't really buy it.

From the perspective of a bullied kid, those individual kids are the bullies.

What bullied kid really thinks "it's not those kids doing this, it's the system"?

Blaming the system is a much higher-level / abstract thought. Maybe from a more mature person's mind set, looking back over things?

All that being said, randomly going and shooting people doesn't really seem like an effective "attack on the system".

Wouldn't attacking the system involve figuring out the responsible "system" people or components, so they'd be the focus of attack? Random shooting acts... isn't really that. :(

[msteffen]

> What bullied kid really thinks "it's not those kids doing this, it's the system"?

Me, I thought this. I wrote a long post explaining it and then erased it because this pattern exists everywhere and is essentially the foundation of all terrorism (which terrorists often believe works, e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing: "McVeigh believed that the bomb attack had a positive impact on government policy. In evidence he cited the peaceful resolution of the Montana Freemen standoff in 1996, the government's $3.1 million settlement with Randy Weaver and his surviving children four months after the bombing, and April 2000 statements by Bill Clinton regretting his decision to storm the Branch Davidian compound."

Obviously I don't condone terrorism or agree with Timothy McVeigh about anything, but the idea "group X is neglecting their responsibility for this broken system, and they need to feel the pain of the brokenness so that they take the responsibility seriously" is common)

Would students not believe this because they're young? In middle school and high school I was definitely aware enough to see the ocean of people who didn't think the bad behavior of bullies was their responsibility (or were too timid to confront bullies' constant boundary-testing, or both) but loved the opportunity to repremand any victims who tried to escape their situation by escalating the conflict. In that case I think the argument that the bad behavior of bullies actually was their fault is credible, since they weren't forcing bullies to take responsibility for their own behavior and they were denying victims any tools to escape their situation. Likewise, we, as voters, know that schools all have this problem and yet few of us are taking any responsibility for it. Major school reform is rare.

Honestly for me the escape was a late growth spurt and an enthusiasm for weightlifting. A reality of human psychology is that if you're physically intimidating, both peers and teachers will give you some space. The magnetism of "might makes right" is powerful, even if it's unfair

edits: wording

[justinclift]

Interesting. Thanks, that's explained well.

Didn't realise some young people were that self aware. I don't think I was, when I was bullied as a kid (long time ago now ;>).

[WarOnPrivacy]

I feel the term Society fits better than 'the system'.

Society's compulsive responses to strong abusive scenarios do not initiate harmful cycles, but they do protect and help perpetuate them.

Please see my above post for a more direct explanation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24991788

[imwillofficial]

It’s not “societies” poor management. It’s literally the system put in place over decades. The system is an apt metaphor.

[WarOnPrivacy]

To be clear, are you saying there is a system of bullies in play?

[carapace]

> Hmmm, I don't really buy it.

Buy it.

You asked for the answer, you got it.

> What bullied kid really thinks "it's not those kids doing this, it's the system"?

Hello there. Me.

I was an alienated, disaffected youth. Do you know what a Bagger 288 is? I used to day dream about driving one of those through my city, ripping up entire neighborhoods. When society systematically fails you it's easy to feel that "Everyone deserves to suffer because everyone is to blame." (A line from Aeon Flux that haunted me for years. IIRC the character who says it has some sort of emotional breakthrough and winds up donating his arm to a little armless kid or something. Weird show.)

But you don't have to be a genius to figure out that kids mostly don't come prepackaged with severe mental and emotional problems.

Back in school, the hyperactive kid who rubbed his crotch on my head? It turns out he's a crack baby. That's why he acts that way. Blame the CIA!?

(> Webb conducted a year-long investigation during which he discovered that a San Francisco-based drug ring, which had ties to a CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan contra group called the FDN, sold cocaine to a dealer in South Central Los Angeles. The millions of dollars made from those sales were later used to fund a secret war against the leftist Sandinista regime. In short, Webb accused the CIA of being complicit in getting thousands of poor African-Americans addicted to crack in order to fund rebels in Central America.

https://time.com/3482909/this-is-the-real-story-behind-kill-... )

The system itself is the problem, and there's no effective attack on the system.

How do you fight Moloch? ( https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ )

[9HZZRfNlpR]

When it comes to school shootings the shooters often give mercy to other social outcasts.

[gedy]

> But shouldn't the anger be directed to the people who did the bullying?

Yes, but bear in mind the world does not necessarily pity the bullied. When it happened to me and my friends in school, we were shunned and snickered at by seemingly "everyone" at the time, girls especially. Teachers didn't care either.

[justinclift]

> ... the world does not necessarily pity the bullied.

That kind of confuses me. Not sure why it's relevant? :)

[imwillofficial]

Because instead of finding solace outside of the abusive situation, one often finds more abuse. It’s very easy to misdirect that anger to others.

[gedy]

I just was commenting on directing anger at the perpetrators, that to a young mind it can feel like "everyone is a part of it".

[watwut]

Human anger is not necessary targeted fairly or at right target. Human anger is often targeted at whoever is around when the emotion strikes - or whoever is easy target.

People are not perfectly tuned machines. Yes, people should exercise self control over emotions and acts and direct that anger appropriately.