Bullying

[mercedesjin]

Originally Posted by JayT

Yet 50 has bragged about dealing drugs in many of his songs.
Getting shot 9 times seems to be one of his selling points.
Sure some artists portray images, has that not actually happened to him?
Has he not actually done that shit, is he not influencing most of todays youth with the things he talks about?

Plenty of people have been shot. Ronald Reagan was shot. Is Ronald Reagan a thug?

Yes, it happened to him, but most artists pull in from their personal experiences for inspiration. He raps about selling drugs, but he isn't doing that anymore. Because he isn't doing that anymore, he's not a criminal. He's not a thug.

He is influencing most of today's youth, so that kids will think that it's fun to pretend to be a thug. That definitely doesn't mean that they are thugs.

[JayT]

Originally Posted by mercedesjin

It's true that it's a pathetic attempt to win an argument. However, to me, that's all a part of the bullying. A bully will want to gain control and so will want to win the argument - even if it means calling the other person an idiot.

I personally feel that because insults are degrading, they will always be connected in some way to bullying. I do see your point a little better now, though, in part because I just started reading this article:

Gabriel: Introduction to the Social Psychology of Insults in Organizations

It's pretty long, but it's really interesting if you're curious at all. It supports both of our points.

He didn't directly call you an idiot,
he clearly stated the example was dumb.

[darksyndrem]

Wow....I lol'd a little bit.....

Oh well.....guess I'm a bully now....I'm gonna go steal someone's lunch money....bbl

[mercedesjin]

Oh, hey - and since we're talking about an entire group of children being thugs because of the way that they dress, here is an article's thoughts on stereotyping and bullying.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is a common characteristic of insults; it is also an area of extensive theorising. Paradoxically, however, most of the theory on stereotyping is unhelpful in elucidating the emotional experience of an insult's target. Much of the academic literature on stereotypes regards them as oversimplified views of reality or as errors of overgeneralization. Martinko (1995) for instance, approaches stereotypes as "a subcategory of perception and attribution" (1995: 533) offering an equivocal view of their advantages and shortcomings. This tradition of theorising scrutinises the cognitive and perceptual processes involved and identifies the deleterious group and organizational consequences of stereotyping, in phenomena such as 'groupthink' (Janis, 1972)) or authoritarianism (Dixon, 1976).

In contrast to this cognitive approach to stereotyping, the political and the psychodynamic approaches seem to ground stereotypes in the political and psychological realities of organizations. The former views stereotypes as forms of discrimination and oppression, and, the second, as wish fulfilments, especially as manifestations of unconscious aggressive fantasies and desires. The political approach is adopted by Kanter (1977: 230ff) and feminist theorists (See, e.g., Gutek, 1985, 1989; Sheppard, 1989; Leidner, 1991; Auster, 1993 who regard them as instruments of sexual oppression in and out of the workplace. Far from being the result of ignorance, naivete or cognitive blind spots, these theorists view stereotypes as barriers to equality which are systematically maintained and reproduced. Enlightenment alone is not enough to overcome them, since they support material interests. The psychodynamic view, that of stereotypes as wish-fulfilments, reinforces the feminist contention that sexist stereotypes not only support material male privilege but also male psychological needs. Freud, on several occasions, argued that men find it hard to view women beyond the stereotypes of mother-figures or temptresses (Freud, 1910h, 1933a; Rieff, 1959). More recent variants of these arguments have added some further stereotypes to the original two (e.g. pet, iron-maiden etc.) but maintain the view that such images meet various male desires and fantasies. (Kanter, 1977) What these two approaches have in common is the view that stereotypes are no mere generalizations or even errors, but are mental forms supporting and supported by psychological and political structures.

Stereotypes assume the character of insult precisely when the target finds him/herself literally trapped by the perpetrator's biased perception, where his/her every action can be skewed to reinforce the stereotype. Allowing the perpetrator to get away with an insulting stereotype enhances its social acceptability and may lead to escalating insults. Challenging or contesting the stereotype may often be accommodated within the stereotype, under the guise of 'temperamental', 'obstreperous', 'lacking in sense of humour' etc. (See Sims et al, 1993) Thus, stereotypes strike at the heart of the victim's self-esteem, placing him/her in a position which exacerbates feelings of powerless and shame.



So, ironically, the people who think that an entire group of children are bullies... are the ones who're actually the bullies!

[mercedesjin]

Originally Posted by MMM

Would you say darksyndrem is bullying you by saying that?

I feel that because it's an attempt to degrade me - yes, it's an attempt of bullying.

I'm not too emotionally affected by it, though - but then, I don't feel like people always need to feel emotionally attacked to support the fact that someone has gone out of their way to attack them.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by mercedesjin

I feel that because it's an attempt to degrade me - yes, it's an attempt of bullying.

I'm not too emotionally affected by it, though - but then, I don't feel like people always need to feel emotionally attacked to support the fact that someone has gone out of their way to attack them.

Then we will have to agree to disagree.

I think everything you describe in your first post is "bullying" but I don't think darksyndrem calling your example stupid (or whatever he said) is darksyndrem bullying you. It was an isolated insult. Was his goal to knock you down to make himself feel more important, or was he looking for a quick and impactful way to give his feelings on the argument?

[Salvanas]

Originally Posted by mercedesjin

I feel that because it's an attempt to degrade me - yes, it's an attempt of bullying.

I'm not too emotionally affected by it, though - but then, I don't feel like people always need to feel emotionally attacked to support the fact that someone has gone out of their way to attack them.

To degrade is not to bully.

Bullying is when you go out of your way to degrade someone. A passing comment is not bullying.

[JayT]

Originally Posted by MMM

Then we will have to agree to disagree.

I think everything you describe in your first post is "bullying" but I don't think darksyndrem calling your example stupid (or whatever he said) is darksyndrem bullying you. It was an isolated insult. Was his goal to knock you down to make himself feel more important, or was he looking for a quick and impactful way to give his feelings on the argument?

Originally Posted by mercedesjin

I feel that because it's an attempt to degrade me - yes, it's an attempt of bullying.

I'm not too emotionally affected by it, though - but then, I don't feel like people always need to feel emotionally attacked to support the fact that someone has gone out of their way to attack them.

Like I said he didn't attack you at all, he merely stated you could have came up with a better example to get your point across. It seems someones too sensitive and they take disagreements as 'attacks' to them.

[mysteryman]

Bullying is very sad indeed , it happens everywhere in the world.
I saw it happening in my school too, and the saddest part is that usually there are more bully's that are ganging up on 1 person... or that bully at least has the support of most people in that class or depending on the situation and I think that is why it is so easy.
If there were people in there who would be against it and would not let him do it then he couldn't do much, but people are often selfish and will only walk by like nothing is happening.
Personally I think in most cases its the bully who has problems and issues with himself so he has to bully someone in order to feel good about himself and to mask what a coward and what a useless person he really is.

[mercedesjin]

Originally Posted by MMM

Then we will have to agree to disagree.

I think everything you describe in your first post is "bullying" but I don't think darksyndrem calling your example stupid (or whatever he said) is darksyndrem bullying you. It was an isolated insult. Was his goal to knock you down to make himself feel more important, or was he looking for a quick and impactful way to give his feelings on the argument?

I don't think that's an either/or situation. People can give their feelings on an argument while at the same time knocking someone down. People can make it known that they disagree with an issue while saying, "You're a dumbass."

Since you mentioned my first post, I'll give another example of what happened today in class. One of my students called another student fat while they were in an argument. (He is pretty overweight.) That, I think, is bullying. Even if it was an isolated insult, it immediately degraded him in front of the entire class.

Salvanas: There are some examples of why degrading another person is bullying in this article: Gabriel: Introduction to the Social Psychology of Insults in Organizations