Bullies and Jealousy

Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power. Behaviors used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment or threat, physical assault or coercion, and such acts may be directed repeatedly towards particular targets. Rationalizations for such behavior sometimes include differences of social class, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, behavior, body language, personality, reputation, lineage, strength, size or ability. If bullying is done by a group, it is called mobbing.

-- Wikipedia.org (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying) 

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions.

-- American Psychological Association (http://www.apa.org/topics/bullying/)

Bullies.  They're all over the news today.  The reasons they bully are nothing but excuses for parental and societal shortcomings.  These excuses do not give the bully a free pass from taking ownership of their own pitiful egos and trying to be more than the sorry excuse for humanity that we have allowed them to become.  There are as many excuses for why they are, as there are ways to bully.  The problem with walking away from a bully, is the bully becoming some other poor soul's tormentor.

This subject came to light in a recent post from someone becoming dear to me through our communication.  It is a serious concern from a mother at the end of her tolerance.  My concern is for the children that endure this, more than the parents who have to seek legal, or other, recourse in order to end it.  To set the stage, I included the original post here:

"Okay, I'm MAD... like, really mad! I am SO sick and tired of my son being picked on. I am OVER mean kids! [He] is not your "typical" child, thank goodness! He opens his mouth, and the first thing that comes to mind is that he is very bright, and he is. So in exchange for being very bright, he's told he's stupid, that he's "not going to grow up to be a man, but he will grow up to be a sissy" (that's the one that has me worked up tonight), and kids make fun of his vocabulary because he doesn't use "normal" words. I am sick of it. I won't fight his battles for him, but this breaks a mom's heart. It also makes me very thankful that he is homeschooled and not around bullies on a continual basis. His peers simply don't "get" him. Maybe by the time he's in college, he will be admired for his brain instead of ridiculed."

One of the first things we need to inform all young people of, including the bullies, are the definitions of what bullying is.  Then we need to make very certain everyone, parents included, understand why bullying occurs.  I have included a pretty good explanation here:

Studies have shown that envy and resentment may be motives for bullying. Research on the self-esteem of bullies has produced equivocal results. While some bullies are arrogant and narcissistic, they can also use bullying as a tool to conceal shame or anxiety or to boost self-esteem: by demeaning others, the abuser feels empowered. Bullies may bully out of jealousy or because they themselves are bullied. Psychologist Roy Baumeister asserts that people who are prone to abusive behavior tend to have inflated but fragile egos. 

Bullying may also result from a genetic predisposition or a brain abnormality in the bully. While parents can help a toddler develop emotional regulation and control to restrict aggressive behavior, some children fail to develop these skills due to insecure attachment with their families, ineffective discipline, and environmental factors such as a stressful home life and hostile siblings. Moreover, according to some researchers, bullies may be inclined toward negativity and perform poorly academically. 

Often, bullying takes place in the presence of a large group of relatively uninvolved bystanders. In many cases, it is the bully's ability to create the illusion that he or she has the support of the majority present that instills the fear of "speaking out" in protestation of the bullying activities being observed by the group. Unless the "bully mentality" is effectively challenged in any given group in its early stages, it often becomes an accepted, or supported, norm within the group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying

For most of my young life, until I entered college and the military, I was the victim of bullying.  My "victimization"  ended when I said enough is enough and beat the crap out of one of them with a tree branch, until a buddy of mine pulled me off of him before he suffered serious physical damage.  This was before I entered college, majoring in psychology, and became aware of why they are.  I found this information to be a life changer in that I could find reason feel sorry for my tormentor.  

I mean, really, read and understand the three paragraphs above.  Bullies are the least of us.  They do what they do because they are, at the most basic definition, jealous.  They suffer their own torment of not being all that their victims are; of knowing they may never become everything their victims might.  They have to suffer the possibility that they are the real loser, and their ego pushes them into denial.  They act the way they do so we can all join them in their marginalized lives, their pit of despair.  How sad is that?  Like an escapee from a mental institution that dances in the street, drooling and naked, while a voluminous oration of gibberish spews from their pie hole, we must endure them until the authorities manage to find a way to control them.  We should never condone what they do, even though we shake our heads in embarrassment for them while muttering, "Bless their poor heart," to those around us also shaking their heads.

And, what of those that stand around while the bullying occurs, goading the bully on, or simply saying nothing?  With the information presented, above, what does this say of their lives, of who they are?  Are even the silent any better than the tormentor?  Don't they marginalize their own lives and morality by saying nothing?  Fear is an equally ugly thing.

I seriously believe that once kids learn why their tormentor exists, they can also learn to forgive their tormentors for being so much less than the victims they terrorize.  Bullies are mentally challenged and need serious help.  We all need to realize this, understand it, and find a path to helping these young people, bully and victim, before more lives are lost.

"Bullying is killing our kids.  Being different is killing our kids and the kids who are bullying are dying inside.  We have to save our kids whether they are bullied or they are bullying.  They are all in pain."

-- Cat Cora, chef

Editor's Note:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Pastor Frank Anthony Villari

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."