Adult bullying and the common good.

 I am addressing some issues/concerns that an official of a non-profit organization had when I approached her for help with a national anti adult bullying campaign.  I am concerned with the arbitrary use of power which results in hurting, intimidating or tyrannizing another or others.  Why call that bullying?  Bullying is the best-fitting label that I have so far found in Webster's dictionary.  Perhaps I should call it "ballying".  Whatever one calls it, the problem has been around since Cain murdered Abel.  There is something about this problem that has been changing during my lifetime.  There is an intensification and growing commonality in the arbitrary use of power by adults that results in hurting, intimidating, and/or tyrannizing another or others in this alledged land of the free.  Perhaps the commonality is not so much a case of increased frequency as it is the increased number of people negatively affected by bullying.

     I base my belief that the trend of bullying is becoming more common and more intense on an intuitive feeling that has been percolating for the past thirteen years.  Ever had the feeling that some negative change is occurring but you can't quite identify it?  The change over the past 50 years has been rather subtle at least up to the beginning of the last Bush presidency.  Even though it's not based on science, it is nonetheless real. When I was a child, there was no Monsanto trying to control the world-wide production of food.  Perhaps there were Bernie Madoffs, but none as successful or ruthless as him.  There was no housing melt-downs contributing to major recessions.  There was no cyber-bullying and I did not hear about students being killed or seriously injured by hazing incidents every few months.  Nor did we hear about students killing themselves or each other as a reaction to bullying as often as we do these days.  Nor did small groups of politicians shut down the government in pursuit of their own personal agenda.  The arbitrary use of power is intensyfying and hurting, intimidating and tyrannizing more people in this country more effectively than 50 years ago.  Perhaps I should write a book about the problem that would explain why people who care about certain related causes are indifferent to the general trend.

     I now realize it would be politically unwise for non-profit organizations that rely on corporate funding to draw attention to this trend in American society.  If Monsanto wanted to give a grant to an organization to educate people about pesticides or GMOs it would probably think twice about giving money to an organization that exposed Monsanto as one of the world's biggest corporate bullies.

   This blog and the suggested national bullying awareness campaign are directed toward adults rather than children.  Children can tell that the arbitrary use of power that results in hurting, intimidating and tyrannizing another or others is widespread in the adult world.  Children tend to imitate adults.  As long as adult bullying continues to be so pervasive, i.e., common, school bullying will continue to be a problem for its victims.  Children know instintively that the only difference between a schoolyard bully and an adult bully is size. 

    What is so important about opposing adult bullying, apart from my claim that it perpetuates child bullying?  What is at stake is the quality of the common good in this country.  People who are concerned only about what this country can do for them, are willing to let bullies win.  But even bullies benefit from the common good that their actions lessen.  Victims of bullying naturally devote more energy to protecting themselves and their families than they do to promoting and preserving the common good. 

    What is the alternative to the triumph of bullies?  For all Americans to be able to live in a world where people use their power to promote the common good as opposed to using that power arbitrarily to hurt, intimidate or tyrannize another or others.  If this results in fewer millionaires and billionaires, higher taxes for the upper !%, higher minimum wages, and lower prices for the necessities of life, then so be it.

    So what's the end game?  What is the goal of an adult bullying awareness campaign?  That would be to get as many people as possible mobilized to stand against bullying for the sake of the common good.  Some ideas for how that would be achieved are contained in the previous post.

 

 

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SYNOPSIS

I have simplified the definition of bullying and am looking for an organization that can handle a national campaign to draw attention to the problem of adult bullying.  If you are reading this latest blog post I would like any suggestions for accomplishing this goal.  The following is the campaign proposal:

A.      The Problem

Bullying is commonly thought of as a childhood problem.   If, however, bullying is defined as the arbitrary use of power that results in hurting, intimidating and/or tyrannizing another or others, it becomes evident that bullying affects people of both genders, and of all ages, classes, races, ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations.   Power that can be used to abuse takes different forms.  These include authoritative power, economic power, emotional power, fire power (gun possession), peer pressure, persuasive power, physical size and/or strength, political power, social status, withholding the truth.

        Q.  What do abuse, arson, breaking and entering, coercion, discrimination, espionage, false accusations, harassment, hazing, hostile take-overs, insider trading, kidnapping, murder, price fixing, police brutality, reckless driving, road rage, robbery, slavery, unlawful imprisonment, vandalism and violence have in common?

        A.  They are all arbitrary uses of power resulting in harm, intimidation or tyrannizing, i.e. bullying.

        Fortunately, many of the above examples of bullying are punishable under law.  But that is not true of all forms of bullying.  For example, corporate officials operating on the theory that their primary duty is to increase profit for the stockholders or owner of their company tend to make arbitrary decisions that hurt other people.  When businesses market products and/or services that they know are harmful to the public good and/or to the environment, it is bullying.  When government officials with political motives make arbitrary decisions that result in the public good being threatened, it is bullying.  In fact, some decisions of politicians and judges have supported the bullying actions of corporations.  Bullying that is not against the law happens daily.  Nor do all law-breaking bullies get caught and punished.

B.      The Solution

Must we allow bullying to persist in this country?  Do we want corporate bullies to eventually control the entire political/economic system in order to maximize the financial gains of the richest Americans?  Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.  Based on the principle that “All men are created equal”, bullying is an evil injustice.

Instead of accepting bullying as inevitable, why not mount an anti-bullying campaign that would give people the opportunity to take an anti-bullying pledge?  The pledge could read as follows:

“I stand against bullying no matter what form it takes.  I will not use my power to practice, to promote, nor to support bullying.  Furthermore, I refuse to support those who bully.”  This pledge could be posted on library bulletin boards all over the country with instructions on how to sign the pledge on-line.  An alternative would be to get a copy of the pledge at the circulation desk, sign and mail it in.

I would be more than willing to create a beginning draft of an informational pamphlet or booklet on adult bullying and to help edit such a document.

Another aspect of an adult anti-bullying campaign could be lists of the worst ten bullies of 2013.  One list could be American bullies.   The other list, published at a different time, could be of bullies in the rest of the world.   Nominations could be accepted from interested parties.  This would help to increase awareness of the various manifestations of bullying.

The goal of the campaign would be to make bullying more recognizable in ourselves and others, regardless of the form it takes and to make bullying in any form socially unacceptable in all situations and circumstances.