The kid with a myth of a father, and a mother who trades out her allotted food-stamps for drug money is a thug? Bullies aren't born, they're created; I have not once met a bully who had a perfect life before they decided to get angry and take it out on their peers, because, well, they don't know any better. So, yes, kids will be kids.
When I was bullied as a child, several of the bullies were children of lawyers and doctors, in well-to-do families. They were dressed well and clearly did not want for anything. It's possible that they were having some sorts of problems at home, but they certainly were not from a family such as you've described. Also, anecdotes are not data (for either of us)
Even then, if I accept "kids will be kids", it should be (and certainly is not) the purpose of a school to teach children to grow from kids to well-behaved adults. You do not teach them this by ignoring the behavior when they bully, and then punishing the bullied when they inevitably decide to strike back.
The Lord of the Flies atmosphere that exists in public schools is appalling, and we should not try to wave it off. It is clearly not "working as intended".
They didn't want for anything materially. Studies show that upperclass neighborhoods have as much neglect and drug addiction as the ghetto. As they say: The problem with winning the rat race is that you are still a rat.
Making it your goal to be the lord in a lord of the flies environment is like that. Good families that produce healthy kids are generally solidly middle class: They work hard enough to provide basic essentials, not so hard as to value work or money over family. Current trends make it increasingly difficult for anyone to arrange that. We increasingly make people choose between family and money. We didn't always do that.
OK, but what's your point? So the bully has a hard life. OK, yes, that's true, so sad (really, no sarcasm), but what do you plan on doing about it?
Your argument often ends up implicitly turning into "Therefore, we shouldn't punish the bully, it's not his fault. Therefore, I guess, well, we'll do nothing." You've cognitively narrowed your focus to just the bully and forgotten everyone else who is getting bullied.
That's not goodness or justice, that's terrible. A very common form of terribleness that some people seem very inclined to, but I don't think it's ever just to get so caught up in the hard life of a bully or criminal that you forget entirely about the victims of the bully or criminal. I don't know what's so cognitively tempting about this point of view, but resist it.
To be clear, I'm not trying to secretly advocate for or justify any particular solution either. But there must be some way to contain the bullying; there's no value to anyone in letting one bad seed's poison spread.
> OK, but what's your point? So the bully has a hard life. OK, yes, that's true, so sad (really, no sarcasm), but what do you plan on doing about it?
Eliminate the social problems that make said person's life hard in the first place. Reduce poverty, end racist laws and law enforcement, and make it possible for individuals and communities to have self determination rather than being undermined by private and public institutions.
> Reduce poverty, end racist laws and law enforcement, and make it possible for individuals and communities to have self determination rather than being undermined by private and public institutions.
Welcome to the twenty-fourth century. My name is Jean-Luc Picard and I'm captain of the starship ``Enterprise''...
That's completely useless. Bullying is here now. It's not something that bad conditions are going to produce in 20 years if we don't do something. Your proposed solution is to let bullies just bully while we hopefully, someday, address some of the reasons why they exist, and I suppose, when that doesn't work, we continue to let the bullies bully then too. That's punting on the problem in a way even worse than the one I strawmanned in my post.
And if you had one, you would understood what I wrote.
This bulling thing is cultural. It doesn't happen everywhere, the same way mass shooting doesn't happen everywhere (and no, it's not because of no guns available).
And part of it is giving it too much attention. A lot of times it's not even bulling is merely normal behaviour in any team of people.
But since kids are taught that everybody is supposedly a "unique snowflake" and they must be greeted with roses and "ohhhs", they are devastated if they are not the most popular in school or are called a nickname or don't get the girls.
Meanwhile, in the real world, kids are struggling with extreme poverty, war, lack of water and food, etc. Not nicknames and not being invited to the prom.
There are kids who have everything except the love and recognition of their parents. This can have a detrimental effect on a childs life, not feeling loved but having everything. Money is not happiness.
I just used a stark example, you are correct, money isn't happiness. This is something a lot of people don't realize. So what is? In the case the answer to that question is out there, think about a child contemplating that. Can you expect a child to know how to deal with emotional pains at an early age? What are we putting on children if we expect that?
