[saghm]

As someone who also was bullied heavily as a kid, my best explanation is that a lot of the adults who are in the posittions of authority were probably never the ones being bullied as kids (and some of them maybe were themselves the bullies). A large number of kids aren't directly involved in the bullying learn to keep their heads down and not get involved. The victims of the bullying will always remember it quite vividly, but those who just saw it happen without the same strong emotions attached to the memories won't recall the specifics of just how frequent or severe it was, but just have a vague recollection of bullying happening sometimes. When they end up seeing something similar happening in front of them again as adults, it wouldn't shock me if the same instincts around not getting involved or thinking about it too hard resurface and make it easier for them to rationalize not intervening.

For those of us who identify with the victims, this is almost unfathomable, but over the years I've been able to recognize that quite a lot of people don't actually identify in the victim in this situation. The idea that this might be the case didn't ever occur to me for years because of how much my insecurity and anxiety as an adult are related to my experiences of being bullied as a kid, so it made it hard to realize that this core emotional experience that's impossible for me to separate from my conception of what it's like to be a kid just doesn't exist for most people.