Philosophy Now Forum

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am ....

Why don't you go and tell those people to stop attacking America and America will stop attacking them. Let us know how it turns out, if you survive.

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:18 am

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:55 am

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:53 am Is prejudice a form of bullying?

When it's expressed.

PhilX

So when the black students openly expressed their prejudice against me, they were actually trying to bully me into a particular form of behavior.

Maybe. Care to give more details?

PhilX

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:15 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:51 am

Then I will assume that you do not consider your attacks on Americans as bullying.

You can whine to me when I become the most powerful country on the planet and start raining megabombs and drones down on you.

What has that got to do with anything, or is it just your own way of coping with your own inadequacies.

God you are thick. And your constant stalking of me and breathing down my neck with your bitchy little comments isn't harassment? Not that I particularly care. It's a bit like caring about a gnat buzzing around you-- although a gnat is probably more useful and attractive.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:51 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 3:20 am Especially not when I actually do know what bullying is.

Then I will assume that you do not consider your attacks on Americans as bullying.

You can whine to me when I become the most powerful country on the planet and start raining megabombs and drones down on you.

Oh now I know. You're from N. Korea.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:38 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:51 am

Then I will assume that you do not consider your attacks on Americans as bullying.

You can whine to me when I become the most powerful country on the planet and start raining megabombs and drones down on you.

Oh now I know. You're from N. Korea.

PhilX

Or from one of those many countries that North Korea is invading and bombing at the moment. You have plenty to choose from (Edited for the purpose of stating the glaringly obvious to PE who doesn't 'compute' either irony or sarcasm).

Greta wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:00 am I have tried to respond to this a couple of times and failed because my own school experiences are too raw, 44 years on. It's embarrassing to be so weak and vulnerable, but there you go. Five years of sustained mental and emotional pressure from bullies. I was sensitive and didn't make it, something broke. I flunked out a year before matriculating and spending a lot of time thinking about how I might commit suicide with minimum trauma to my parents. My main interest in philosophy is existential - the nature of life an death - and there is a tie-in. Lemonade from lemons and all that

Seriously, do what you have to to protect your child, Henry. Maybe move him to a school away from those who are targetting him. What does he want? The bullies probably won't stop unless forced by the school or their parents; some kids simply lack restraint. One option is to write and speak to the school in a stiffly formal way about the issue that suggests that you are gathering evidence and clearing the way for legal action, but without actually making the threat (maybe hold that Ace up your sleeve).

My school did nothing back in the day. They let me fail. With a strong right wing culture, the school leadership group would have figured that they couldn't save everyone (true enough on the face of it) and seemingly one unconventional, moderately autistic child would seem as good as any to let go. All fair enough, unless you are the child or his or her family.

So we can't rely on schools. It's up to the parents to do the hard work, unless they can scare the schools into actually getting interested in protecting their little monsters from each other. Good luck with it.

It can be even worse now.

The bully who made my son's primary school life a misery, was kept in the school for six years, under the 'protection' of six 'professionals' from social workers to play centre workers. It wasn't just my son who had to suffer six years at the hands of this child, but the many other children. The bully was removed from the school six months into the last year. Six years affecting his, and other children's, almost entire experience of primary school, were based on how well the school could contain this child, who came from an unfortunate background. Some parents were sympathetic and tried to help the child, probably just so that their child wouldn't be targeted, and not one parent treated the child as if he were despicable.

Two weeks before he was removed from the school, I came to collect my son from school. He had red marks round his neck. This boy had jumped on my son and tried to throttle him, as he played with another child. In all fairness, to the bully, the two boys were rough housing for a laugh and the bully, who hated my son, thought my son was hurting the other boy, but instead of pulling him off, he jumped in and attempted to strangle my son! I spoke to the deputy head who said my son had not brought their attention to it... Hardly surprising, as the children had learned that to say anything, implicated them as 'reacting,' and therefore made then complicit in any incident that followed. She then stood there and claimed there were barely any marks, on my son's neck, as I pointed them out, so I took him to the nearest police station and logged the complaint there. Pictures were taken of the marks. The school were forced to investigate and it was how we found out the bully was leaving. The whole case was dropped as the boy was leaving.

The bully was not removed from the school as a result of school action, but because, after six years and his mother committing suicide, social services and his father, accepted that the father (a pop star from the Nineties!), was unfit to look after the child, and he was passed on to a 'friend of the family' who lived in another area of London. Already I am trying to stuff so much information into a few lines, but I could rattle on for pages about how all the other class parents knew how unfit the father was... but the school knew his family well, from two older sons passing through the school, with fewer problems, and, as the complaints stacked up, they always fell on the sword of their "duty and care to protect EVERY child particularly the troubled ones".

I feel pity for the bully. It's rare that a bully has no reason to be the little sh*t that he is...but for me, responsibility for his actions lay squarely with the school and their failure to provide the child with his own teaching assistant, as was done with those who had severe learning difficulties. Whilst I did consider moving my son from the school, I didn't, because a place at another good school never opened up and there was no guarantee we wouldn't end up with a similar situation at a worse school nearby, which always did have places, as they had such a poor reputation. It's easy to say "move your child" but much harder to do.

The school, we stayed at, had, and continues to have, a fantastic reputation, it's head teacher was awarded an OBE for services to education. We were left feeling that we were just unlucky, that we ended up in a class saddled with such a problem child, rather than aggrieved at the school for failing to provide better solutions.

I'd like to think it all goes into making my son a stronger, more decent person, though that's never a guarantee for bullied kids who can just as easily go on to become bullies themselves.

It's a horrible situation, Greta. It's good you turned out not to be a real horror... like me!

'Pop star from the nineties'? Hmm.
So they either become 'stronger' or morph into bullies themselves? I'd love to see the scientific studies that show this. People just stay as who they are, with added emotional scars and baggage. You can't simply turn into a different person.

Quite often bullies want the punishment of abuse in return.

Do you give the bully what bully wants, or do you punish by depriving the bully?

And, how to deprive?

Consider: after all those many, many years, has the bully ever thought of you?

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:23 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am ....

Why don't you go and tell those people to stop attacking America and America will stop attacking them. Let us know how it turns out, if you survive.

Which people are they? Or has the US been invaded recently and I'm just not aware of it?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:04 pm

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:23 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:09 am ....

Why don't you go and tell those people to stop attacking America and America will stop attacking them. Let us know how it turns out, if you survive.

Which people are they? Or has the US been invaded recently and I'm just not aware of it?

The second one. By ransomware from N. Korea.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:08 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:04 pm

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 6:23 am

Why don't you go and tell those people to stop attacking America and America will stop attacking them. Let us know how it turns out, if you survive.

Which people are they? Or has the US been invaded recently and I'm just not aware of it?

The second one. By ransomware from N. Korea.

PhilX

Pathetic. Why are you and doc so blind to your own country? You are like indulgent parents who can't see what an obnoxious brat your child it.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:13 pm

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:08 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 12:04 pm

Which people are they? Or has the US been invaded recently and I'm just not aware of it?

The second one. By ransomware from N. Korea.

PhilX

Pathetic. Why are you and doc so blind to your own country? You are like indulgent parents who can't see what an obnoxious brat your child it.

"... child it" or is it child is? Actually you're the one with a problem with your blind rage against the US and I shook doc's hand for putting you in that state.

PhilX

VT is a blustering sweetheart.

The thing is, when someone awakens to knowledge of oneself
One awakens to innate goodness
To the true self that is love.

By contrast, the past can be horrifying and too much to bear.
Compassion and understanding then becomes choiceless and critical for survival.
For the bully, the soldier, the cheater, the liar, the coward.
For the binding sin of ignorance, and what was done.

Thus, the advice of Trungpa Rinpoche. Best not to begin a spiritual journey but if you do begin, on principle it’s best to finish. This is because egocentric reasons to finish will be lost in futility.

thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 5:51 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 3:20 am Especially not when I actually do know what bullying is.

Then I will assume that you do not consider your attacks on Americans as bullying.

So called bullying, of a verbal nature, is only ever bullying, when there is a threat of physical violence. Otherwise it's just heated debate!

"I feel pity for the bully."

You're a better man than me cuz I don't.

I got no sympathy for the kids who came after me (when I was a kid) and I got no sympathy for the three givin' mine grief now.

I can only hope mine gets the same chance I had to even the score.

Till then, he and me will muddle through.