The persistent and pervasive impact of bullying in childhood and adolescence

Bullying is the social destruction of self not because it is the act of one "crazy" person but because bullies have the support of the entire community including teachers, other students, and school administration.

If it was just one violent person doing one thing it would be a minor act. It is everyone being complicit in this act that demonstrates to you how worthless you are that destroys you.

I recently wrote a letter to the alumni development office of the undergraduate school I went to about why I don't give money to them when I was re-traumatized by receiving the first alumni newsletter I had received in a long time.

We had a student who waged a war against gays but this was the 1980s and people like that were so afraid of AIDS that instead they'd bash straight people who showed the slightest amount of support for gays. I couldn't leave my room without the risk of being assaulted. It only ended when he hit a resident assistant in the face with a rock from a catapult at point blank range. A gay man and a lesbian woman committed suicide because of this nonsense.

This person had support from many groups of people at tech including religious people, drug users (this guy was the drug dealer who would take the biggest chances to get supply) and the school administration. What I found was so wounding was that I lost many of my friends over this.

The person I blame most of all was the very popular dean of students who told me repeatedly that his "hands were tied" but I am sure he would have found something he could have done if his daughter was the victim.

The ringleader of this group went to prison a few years later because he was caught on tape selling 3 kilos of cocaine to an undercover cop. If I heard he was still alive and had gone straight I would would forgive him and actually celebrate him because he has paid for his crimes and it is such a hard thing to go straight.

I would have a very hard time forgiving the dean of students because he has received so many accolades from people and is seen as a hero (for many good reasons), I grieve more for the people who were victims of suicide than I do for my own suffering which was minor in comparison. I wonder how many other victims there are from before and after I was there. It is all the more wounding for me because otherwise college would have been a respite and chance to heal from the abuse I received in the public schools.

This presupposes that bullying is always explained by something environmental or that it's learned behavior. But what if bullying is just fun for some people? What if human beings have differing innate levels of aggression, empathy, and tolerance? What if some people see bullying and feel a little pit in their stomach -- fear, disgust, anger -- and what if others simply don't?

"The blank slate" conception of the world continues to mislead us about the domain of effective interventions.

I would say in an ideal world yes, but the fact is that in the real world a lot of generalizable anti-bullying messaging/curriculum can start from a good place but can easily be mis-construed or willfully and purposefully construed or in fact morph into such things like critical race theory, etc.

Society will probably need a lot of time to collectively figure out where to draw the line between the spectrum ranging from "let's not bully a distinct subgroup of people" and "why are we unnecessarily over-empowering a distinct subgroup over all other groups".

In the meantime, those people in the subgroups need support.

Putting aside outliers like kids wity cancer, there is what is diplomatically called "death by misadventure". Or less diplomatically winning a Darwin award.

I think you problably have some sampling bias in your adult interactions.

Im guessing most of them don't involve the lowest functioning portion of the population, eg, people who regularly comment violence, rape, and beat their wives, or are currently incarcerated. Public schools cut across the entire population spectrum and include children with legitimate social and cognitive deficiencies.

Adults also have more developed brains and better incentives to obey. a hostile worker might still care about losing their income, car, or house. It is hard to find comparable incentives for children and young adults.