From: n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Victims of Bullies
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:16:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: henson.1992Oct15.181651.5773
Organization: Western Washington University

rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:

>I've been interested in the phenomenon of bullies, bullying and
>the victims of bullies for years.  As a matter of fact I even make
>my living at it.  I'm a child psychologist and I specialize in
>aggression and conduct disorders.  That is, I spend my time with
>the bullies.  I do that because I never thought there was very
>much the victim half of the dyad could do.  

>(Everyone knows that
>the victims of bullies have problems as adults.  Only lately have
>we discovered that bullies grow up to have problems also: often
			^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	To say that they grow up to cause problems would be even more
accurate.  I wouln't say that this is any recent discovery, however.

>they become spouse or child abusers, have problems on the job --
>especially dealing with bosses -- and frequently have run-in's
>with the law, sometime even graduating to adult criminality.  At

	I can't generalize this to all bullies, but many of them can
be thought of simply as young criminals, or perhaps crook larva. %^)
The personality is right, but they haven't realized their potential yet.

>Since there was a thread started here on misc.kids, I thought I'd
>jump in.  A long term interest I've had, which developed almost
>entirely in the context of bullies and victims, is the role of
>pre-packaged myths (narratives) and the prescriptions and
>recommendations associated with or contained in them.  The
>"fighting back" myth is an interesting one and I think possibly a
>very dysfunctional one. 

	Violence has a role as a solution to a limited number of
immediate violent problems, for both children and adults.  "Fighing  
back" is not a panecea, few would claim it is.  Nor is it a myth.

>I even think it plays a role in the
>drive-by shootings and gun-related violence in our schools.  From

	What plays the biggest role in attempted murders, assaults, 
extortion, and other initiated violence inside schools and out, is
that small minority of the population that feels its right is to
prey on those around them.
	When they are young they are called bullies, a little
later in life they may be called gang-members, and when they realize
their full potential (and are caught) they are known as felons and
prison inmates.  
	It's not the grade school nurds and whimps, egged on to
defend themselves from bullies, who go on to become the bulk of
gang-members and criminal preditors, but the bullies themselves.

>the obviously admirable courage of Gary Cooper standing up to Lee
>Van Cleef and the other baddies in _High Noon_ to the more
>questionable machismo of Clint Eastwoood's "Make my day" in _Dirty
>Harry_, to the obvious silliness of Arnold and Sly going around
>tearing folks apart, that same meaning element (ideologeme),
>"fighting back," seems to be more and more virulently expressed.
>The culmination, of course, is the impersonal drive-by shooting.
>"Defeating" someone with a gun instead of your fists is sort of
>the analog of making music on a tape deck instead of a piano.

	The hoods and crooks who perpetrate the crimes you read about
in the paper are not victims of bullies who got confused by watching
too much television.   They are people who view those around them as
mere providers of resources, to be exploited, intimidated, and punished
when uncooperative.

It takes more than a few cowboy movies to develop that kind of world
view.

>Richard Carlson
			Jim Del Vecchio