From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: misc.kids,alt.postmodern
Subject: Re: BARBIE DOES IT AGAIN!!!!
Date: 15 Oct 92 12:16:01 GMT

davem@mcs213i.cs.umr.edu (Dave Mentis) writes:

RC:
> >But the first thing that comes to mind is the hisortical accuracy
> >of the account.  Bullies seldom pick on kids who have big
> >brothers.  They prefer defenseless victims.  This (presumably
> >fraternal twin, who is presumably _not_ 6'3'' and 200 lb) brother
> >either was not well known to the bully, or he may have done
> >something which elicited the aggression.
> >
DM:
> Well, I'll add an anomaly for you to analyze...
> 
> My father grew up in a small town where it's almost certain that
> anyone who went to school with his younger brother would have known
> of their relationship. My uncle Paul was in the 3rd grade and my
> dad would have been in the 8th grade. There was a kid who picked on
> everybody in Paul's class. He was about my dad's age (they held kids
> back in those days) and he was about my dad's size, too.
> 
> This bully had picked on Paul 3 or 4 days in a row coming home from
> school and my dad decided that Paul wasn't going to be able to get
> it stopped since each day he had a bloody nose/black eye/etc...
> 
> So my dad dropped by the elementary school one afternoon and met this
> kid. Asked him who he was to make sure he had the right kid. Then
> asked him if he had been beating up his kid brother. Bully said yes.
> My dad told him he wanted it stopped. Bully said fine. My dad turned
> to go, thinking it was resolved. Bully threw gravel in my dad's
> face, blinding him. And then proceeded to start beating on my dad.
> Got him down and bloodied his nose and was punching pretty good.
> So my dad got pissed off and beat him silly (I'll spare you the details,
> except to say this kid was looking around the schoolyard afterwards
> for his teeth and probably still is today. My uncle never had any
> more trouble with him.
> 
> As for eliciting aggression, my uncle had done the unthinkable
> by showing up for school. My dad had done the even more unthinkable
> of asking this kid to stop beating on Paul for showing up for
> school, and even tried to walk away after thinking that talk
> would solve the problem! 
> 
> Aggressive bastards, aren't they ?

RC:
> >In orther words "fighting back" is good, "starting it" is bad.
> >Isn't that the myth we see inscribed in American narratives from
> >the old Western movies to current coming-of-age pix?
> >
DM:
> Who said it was a myth ?
> 
> Maybe life does imitate art.
>  
> And then again, maybe just as often, art imitates life.
> 
> Anyway, if the above doesn't deter your certainty that people who are
> victimized are really just looking for a romantic excuse to exacerbate
> the already endemic violence in our schools and streets ...

I am not trying to "blame the victim." I am looking for victim
characteristics -- which, like some varieties of defenselessness,
may clearly imply an obviously blameless victim.

I thought your story was fascinating.  Moreover, it somewhat
violates the myth but supports some of the (very limited) factual
data which does exist.

I don't know how I left the idea in people's minds that I have
some kind of "rigid" theory or "certainty."  The main thing I am
trying to do is to deconstruct the bully myth.  There are two
propositions which follow from the bully myth that are clearly
false in the real world.  1.) If you hit back the bully will leave
you alone, and 2.) If a person of the same size and strength as
the bully stands up to him he will back down (because he is a
coward who _only_ picks on weaker kids).  Your story illustrated
the reality that really serious bullies don't always back down.

Of course the bully myth is not self-consistent if you extract all
possible theorems form its primitive axioms.  For example that
story, as a narrative, only makes sense from your father's point
of view.  He stands up to the bully, there is the spin that the
bully fights back (doing something sneaky, of course), and
rightness triumphs, as it should.  From Uncle Paul's point of view
deliverance appears like a _deus ex machina_ (even if the two
brothers were as close as Wally and the Beav, your father is
_outside_ the main conflict situation of Uncle Paul vs. the
bully).  Whether his story "made sense" in a narrative sense would
depend on things like whether he had "tried" to stand up to the
bully, at which point you father would be sort of like the arrival
of the U.S. Cavalry after the hero has fired his last bullet at
the Indians.

My point, which I make over and over, although apparently not
clearly enough, is that we view the facts of any given encounter
of a "bully" and h/er "victim" through a narrative prism or lens
and we often don't see the reality because the narrative _tells_
us what's there.


> maybe
> you could comment on a portion of a post of yours in misc.kids
> (I've included it below for those who don't have/recall it and for
> those in alt.postmodern who haven't been reading misc.kids)
> 
> 
> 
> From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
> Newsgroups: misc.kids
> Subject: Re: Aggression in boys (Was: Re: BARBIE
> Message-ID: <Fs3isB2w165w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
> Date: 12 Oct 92 10:53:50 GMT
> References: <1992Oct11.233317.17554@sol.UVic.CA>
> Lines: 34
> 
>  [mucho deleted ...]
> 
> I used to get beat up
> every day by a girl when I was 9.  If I had thought I had a chance
> I think I would have taken her on.
> 
>  [more deleted ...]
> 
> Or maybe it's better for your mental health if you remember it
> your way, whether it happened that way or not.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Perhaps you can tell us just what it was you did every day to
> torment this poor girl to the point that she had no choice but to
> beat you up each day (provided your mental health is poor enough
> you can still recall it) ??

I think just being an outsider in a rural community at a time
prior to the huge increase in horizontal social mobility was
enough.  Add to that that I have that _kind_ of intelligence --
words, ideas, whatever it is -- that kids don't seem to like
because they see it as "showing off," and the whole thing is e
explained.  I could write a story where some city kid moves into a
friendly rural community (maybe just _before_ it _becomes_ a
suburb, which was the case with me) and the girl, who is having
some problems at home, takes a dislike to him and beats him up
every day. I could write it from her point of view and make the
city boy a jerk you don't care about and who plays only a minor
role in the narrative as she deals with her real problem, whatever
it is.

--
Richard Carlson
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