Bullying, damaging or helpful?

[Trollgaard]

For what? He did jack shit.

Then he shouldn't worry. I won't be the one reporting, that's up to the other guy since it was the other guy who mentioned it first.

What, you ITGs aren't afraid of bullies, but scared of authorities?

What an unsubtle little insult there, pal. You're not half as clever as you think you are.

[Un Corpse]

It doesn't.

Unless you like a society of barbarians, were only the strongest survive.

I used to bully kids in my youth just because they were different, smaller or weaker than me.
Nothing good came from it.

[United Estates of Pandora]

I was bullied when I was younger as well and I believe it has made me a better person. Dealing with bullies through elementary school helped me to know how to deal with them in middle/high school. It has boosted my self confidence. I used to be the guy everyone picked on, but now I'm the person people come to when they need help. To people like you and me, bullying has been beneficial; however, to some people bullying can be an extremely negative impact on their life. I look at problems and try and find a way to solve them, so when I was bullied I found a way to overpower the bullies. There are people in this world who don't think like that. When they look at problems they try and find someone to help them through the problem, and they don't try and solve it themselves. So mix a kid like that with a kid whose parent's aren't the best at caring for their children and there is a real problem. A kid like that has nobody to turn to for help. Bullying can break some people but make other people. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Bullying can be a positive or a negative thing. It hardens and refines some kids but kills others.

[Uzbirn]

I also was bullied psychologically at school (but no physical harm, cause my height), and although many people don't see what they don't want to, bullies are far blinder than that. They'll just never see what they do, no way what you do. Certainly you can make yourself a better person after such an experience, but the harm they don't inflict to you, they'll inflict to somebody else who just won't react as you. Everything has consequences, but if you're less blind than your enemy (and use logic), certainly you can act better in the future. Is evident that the own factor is quite present.

As conclusion, the "helpful" component of being bullied is seriously related to your capacity of understanding the world. If you're quite blind as them, you'll not have any good learning from the experience, and probably end in suicide, or something like. Bullying helps some bullied, but no way is the same for all. Is like an opportunity which will just not serve to every bullied. The "damage" one, although suffers the same phenomenon depending on the bullied one values (like worrying about what others think), always will be present, not as the first one.

pd: excuse my english.

[Uzbirn]

As conclusion, the "helpful" component of being bullied is seriously related to your capacity of understanding the world. If you're quite blind as them, you'll not have any good learning from the experience, and probably end in suicide, or something like. Bullying helps some bullied, but no way is the same for all. Is like an opportunity which will just not serve to every bullied. The "damage" one, although suffers the same phenomenon depending on the bullied one values (like worrying about what others think), always will be present, not as the first one.

You're still saying it was my fault that I was mercilessly mocked and picked on in school for being myself. Screw you.

The word is despite, not because. Stop trying to excuse bullies.

Not true. I'm saying bullying is not a rentable business for everyone.

[Vestr-Norig]

I don't think bullying is much helpful. Yes, I see that they may "learn" from the bullying, but I believe people become more dragged-down, and their confidence becomes damaged. I think many stop believing in themselves, and may think they are less worth than others, if bullied. This may follow them, at least to a certain degree into the adult life.

[Vetalia]

Meh, I got a bit of shit like everyone else back in the HS middle class but I had friends and shrugged it off. TBH, a lot of the people who got really bullied were fuckups to begin with...the kind who weren't so much smart as smarmy assholes or who were just plain weird.

[Vetalia]

Bullying toughens up the kid and teaches them to have thicker skin and stop being a thin skinned little weakling makes them learn to stand up for themselves rather than be sheep, and weeds out the weaklings. It made me stronger and taught me to fight back, that others words and thoughts of me unless they were useful to me were simply dirt and that all people unless they are useful to me are simply lower than dirt and to not care about what they say about me unless it directly effects me. Also taught me to never trust anyone always watch my back and fight tooth and nail for myself and myself alone, no one ever came to help me and i learned nobody was going to help me and i learned i must only help myself unless i directly benefit from helping them they are useless to me and to simply ignore them. I don't have my father in my life so i need to fend for myself, I'm the perfect bullying target i go to school in a relatively wealthy neighborhood and i am poor, also I'm an African-American and i have red hair, black eyebrows, and blonde mustache so i was a pretty good target for people until i showed them what happens if they mess with me. when i was in Elementary it was either 2nd or 3rd grade after school this one little slut kept on pushing me in the mud, she would when i wasn't looking run up behind me push me on the ground run away to a safe distance then laugh at me, one day she forgot to run to a safe distance and just laughed at me when i got back up and turned around she was smiling this annoying little smile so i punched her in the face, and then threw her in the mud i preceded to bite and choke on her neck until one of the adults hit me over the head with a plank, from then on everyone knew if you mess with me I'm going to mess you up badly. "Survival of the fittest" animals in the wild have predators to get rid of the weak, we humans have Bully's.

lol you got beat up by a girl. (also well played)

[Vitaphone Racing]

We live in a culture dominated by women. A culture where being a grown man watching shows made for 8 year old little girls is acceptable in some circles. More than 70% of teachers are female. Those females are in position of power, and have become many of our role models rather than men also not forgetting that many young men are raised by single mothers. The real problem here I believe is not with bullying, but with feminization of males. Which is a symptom of our increasingly liberal for lack of a better word society.

A man needs to defend himself, and to stand up for himself against bullies. When some one disrespects his honor a man should raise to the occasion fully prepared to fight. How can he though learn these skills from a female? Most females are compassionate and caring. Rarely do females concern themselves with the testosterone driven behaviors of men.

We are told "be nice" when it is to no consequence of ourselves. Then when we're defending our honor or defending ourselves on the playground we are punished. What were these fists made for if not the defense of honor and self? These manly fists.

The biggest criminal here through all of this though is public schooling. It forces children into school regardless of their whims. It oppresses and neuters many young men. I wish for boys to some day work besides other men, and to be influenced by and develop male role models.

ITT any male brought up without a male role model in his life is doomed to fail.

So where did you get your degree in psychology?

[Vitius]

Eh..That's like saying me taking away your food every time you try to eat is helpful because it helps you build resistance to hunger.

It can be helpful in only a few ways, but it can starve you, make you anorexic, deprive you of vital nutrients, decrease the amount of muscle you'll have/gain, etc. etc.

[Wamitoria]

Anybody who thinks that bullying is helpful is likely a bully themselves.

[Wamitoria]

For a while I believed the BS - indeed, being bullied did serve to make me a more compassionate person, and more inclined to stand up for the weak, but in the end it got to me and two years ago I had a full-scale nervous breakdown, complete with a night-in-the-nuthouse™.

The depressive illnesses I have suffered throughout my life are due in no small part to the bulllying and abuse I have endured in my youth.

I feel the sudden urge to give you a hug. And I don't usually hug people.

You still probably turned out better then I did.

[Wamitoria]

Congratulations on having been the exception, rather than the rule. However, you still need to learn that one person's experience is not sufficient evidence to overturn larger statistical examinations. Bullying sucks and does great harm.

I understand your reasoning entirely, but because bullying had no lasting adverse effects on me there is still a debate in this.

It has lasting effects on everyone. For instance, you have a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome.

[Wamitoria]

Anybody who thinks that bullying is helpful is likely a bully themselves.

I was never a bully, I never prayed on the weak and I find that a very terribly cowardly thing to do, I stood up to my bullies and stopped there.

You don't really think bullying is helpful, though. You just feel indebted to the assholes who pushed you over the line that turned you into what you are today.

I used to be just like you.

[Wamitoria]

You know the Nazi's used to encourage fights in the Hitler Youth because it toughened the boys up for war, and if you look at how strong the SS were as an elite force, it might have done the trick!

I hate to break this to you, but...they lost.

And they took out their aggressions on innocent people and POWs.

It wasn't a healthy culture.

[Wamitoria]

And they took out their aggressions on innocent people and POWs.

It wasn't a healthy culture.

"The Schutzstaffel didn't have a healthy culture."

Understatement of the year, right there

Only of the year?

I'm almost disappointed.

[Wamitoria]

Harmful to an extent, but I really think that all this anti-bullying shit is foolish. Kids need to toughen up, not wimp out.

Does giving into a bully's intimidation and stooping to his level really count as "toughening up"? That sounds more like wimping out to me.

If it's the only way to make it stop...

[Wamitoria]

To an adult, the problems of a high school student are years in the past, and it's easy to tell them "Someday you'll look back on it and laugh."

For some reason, every person over the age of 25 who's told me this turned out to have been a complete monster in high school.

Bullying makes us stronger.

It turned me into a depressed, angry individual who hated himself, then, following extensive therapy, a righteously indignant individual who hated his former abusers and anyone who he sees as preying on those who he doesn't believe deserve it more then they could ever hate him.

And no, the latter is still not a good thing nor is it fun.

[Wamitoria]

If bullying is beneficial, then I propose we have teachers smack around every child, every day. Anyone who dies or is injured was obviously too weak, so whatevs.

I do think light capital punishment in the classroom was a good thing, but what you have suggested there is ludicrous, children are bullied by other children and that will always happen, but if kids learned that by getting stronger and standing up to their tormentors they could stop them, they would no doubt be better people because of it.

Corporal punishment. Capital punishment is execution.

And no. Seeing as many of the people who bullied me were teachers, I'd rather not allow them to bully people physically as well as emotionally.

[Wamitoria]

I'm not just saying I am a better person because I was bullied, I know I am.

I'm not so sure, to be blunt. Anyone who claims to be a 'psychopath' in a positive sense (And in doing so insulting people who are actually sufferers of psychopathy) was probably not benefitted by the experience.

I just had an epiphany. If he's a psychopath, he's incapable of understanding any reality other than his own.

So arguing with him is useless.

[Wamitoria]

Rape toughens women up. Truefax.

For goodness sake, I never talked about sexual abuse and I wouldn't like to because I haven't been sexually assaulted, but I have been bullied and it did made me stronger.

Sexual assault is not the same as school-yard bullying,

So... physical and emotional abuse toughen us up but sexual abuse doesn't.

Today, OP was genius.

[Wamitoria]

I was hit with the slipper for not handing in homework once and I remember it with such clarity, because I never failed to hand it in on time again.

I never feared the slipper after that because I knew I would try my hardest and as long as I did that I wouldn't be subject to the punishment again, perhaps I was a fast learner, but I don't remember many children getting the slipper too often, most children would be punished, and be steered straight.

Then your school was lax with it. The school I went to used a variety of techniques, although it was most common for a cord flogging or a rubber club. We all lived in fear because if you stepped out of line or didn't live up to every single little standard the administration had, you'd be savagely beaten. My nose was broken for the first time by a school administrator with a rubber club.

For the preservation of the Revolution, of course.

[Wamitoria]

... Get the fuck out, OP.

This is not a debatable topic. At all. Bullying is never helpful for anyone, ever.

Really, because after being bullied for years, I am in complete and total agreement with the OP.
Bullying actually improved my life. It gave me a reason to fit in and make friends.

It turned me into a depressed, angry individual who hated himself, then, following extensive therapy, a righteously indignant individual who hated his former abusers and anyone who he sees as preying on those who he doesn't believe deserve it more then they could ever hate him.

And no, the latter is still not a good thing nor is it fun.

[Wamitoria]

Now I'm popular and all that jazz...

Lemme guess. You aren't as open about your German heritage anymore.

[Wamitoria]

Hmm...I arguably became stronger. I also fantasized about killing my tormentors before. Then I used to cry because thinking that my vivid fantasies questioned my humanity...either way, people have told me I need help. So I'd say it's more harmful than helpful.

The fact that you wanted revenge proves you aren't a robot.