> As is widely
> recognised here - I don't know what they do in English schools -
> bullying is as much a symptom of problems with the bully, as a
> problem for the bullied.
In the English schools in which I spent my English schoolchildhood, this was
the orthodox view. It meant hand-wringing inaction, or a lot of rather
wasteful empathising with persons who, irrespective of their age or putative
moral status, needed restraining. If I'm angry about this, it's mostly
directed towards the adults involved: their stupidity, complicity,
helplessness; the well-meaning dogmatism that shielded a basic moral
cowardice and confusion - the inability to see cruelty and brutality right
under one's nose because one is too busy agonizing over the wrongs of
society at large. Sympathy for the aggressor entails a kind of sleazy
wallowing in one's own unresolved desire to injure, to pick on others, to
retaliate. It is the precise opposite of a real commitment to social
justice, and one of the defining moral vices of the liberal left (my team)
in this country.
I can remember the malice of children quite directly and vividly, as vividly
as a glint in the eye, a smirk. Not altogether an adult emotion, because all
but the most psychotic adults are at least superficially different in their
emotional make-up from children (the exceptions tend to be in prison), but
certainly a real one.
If you find "Lord of the Flies" unrealistic and OTT, try Susan Hill's "The
King of the Castle", a much truer and no less brutal book. I read it about
the same time as I read Alan Garner's "Red Shift", and felt as if the
unspoken truth about everything was being laid bare right in front of my
very eyes. Mind you, when I was fourteen this happened on a fortnightly
basis.
Dominic
|