© 2011 bridget batch
© 2011 bridget batch
Occupying Wall Street...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I was bullied as a kid... (too)
Wow, I am really impressed.
I have been paying minor amounts of attention to the anti-bullying initiatives floating around the internet (or press about the ones being installed in schools). But although I haven't completely repressed the bullying I suffered through (now, did I commit some? That's suppressed...), I haven't thought to personally engage with this as an adult.
The It Gets Better Project, begun by Dan Savage and his partner Terry, is a great start in bringing attention to this enormous problem, and hopefully helping people. Obviously I support it, but I cannot completely identify personally because I am heterosexual (I still feel pain on behalf of friends of mine though, but that could be a days-long rant...).
My own personal experience was painful enough to be extremely influential in the development of myself. Although the excruciating generalities of the memories of two particular points in my life - 5th Grade and 7th Grade - are clearly delineated in my brain, the specifics of those periods seemed to have been flushed down some sort of pain drain. So, I don't think about these experiences much. But then, I read this story on Salon, in which writer Steve Almond actually publishes an interview with his 8th Grade tormentor.
I am touched by the compassion and Almond's ability to actually place the transactions of junior high school "kids will be kids" bs into the context of real people's lives. The actions of every single force in our lives affect how things will be, and it is easy to forget that. Life is intricate, but the harder we work to unravel the complexities, the more deeply rewarding it is. It's so easy to simply write off people as "bullies" and "assholes." But what about envisioning a world in which that can be prevented, in which people no longer become (or pass through phases) in which they are such things.
We can continue to punish the perpetrators, but isn't it time to figure out how to prevent the crime from the beginning?
I think it's terrifying to envision a peaceful, harmonious world. It's frightening to even try to make a more peaceful, harmonious "self." I don't mean this sarcastically, I think this is a real thing for people, for our culture. What would we talk about? What kind of media would actually sell if people weren't scared to death all the time? If people didn't stress-eat bad foods and gain weight, they wouldn't buy weight loss products. If people were happy with themselves, they wouldn't need to buy as much cosmetics, plastic surgery, clothing, strippers, whatever... When there's a threat, you want information. Our major media keeps us in thrall to a constant low-level sense of fight or flight. Sure, it's important to know about the world, but I notice that I get less and less from consuming the news. Half of what goes on in the world doesn't get covered in the mainstream media anyway.
If the media and advertising industries cannot sell by tweaking our fear instincts, then wouldn't our entire economy collapse? Wouldn't that be even more painful?
The Hippies talked about a dawning of a new consciousness. It may be easy to ridicule the New Age Movement, but a shift in consciousness is such an enormous change that it's pretty much unimaginable. There is much to malign in corporations but they are made up of individual humans, and most of those humans, at least on a personal level think they want a better world. They don't want to cause "real" pain in whatever way they want to define it. But I don't think the powerful interests of the Western world actually can envision any way to act than how they do. Living in the harmony envisioned by the television-less residents of the state of Bhutan doesn't make any sense to most of us.
It's that vision, and it will be radical, that we need to develop.
But one step towards that is examining and investigating the elements of our culture that allow and even encourage bullying, which Salon.com is starting to do.
I have been paying minor amounts of attention to the anti-bullying initiatives floating around the internet (or press about the ones being installed in schools). But although I haven't completely repressed the bullying I suffered through (now, did I commit some? That's suppressed...), I haven't thought to personally engage with this as an adult.
The It Gets Better Project, begun by Dan Savage and his partner Terry, is a great start in bringing attention to this enormous problem, and hopefully helping people. Obviously I support it, but I cannot completely identify personally because I am heterosexual (I still feel pain on behalf of friends of mine though, but that could be a days-long rant...).
My own personal experience was painful enough to be extremely influential in the development of myself. Although the excruciating generalities of the memories of two particular points in my life - 5th Grade and 7th Grade - are clearly delineated in my brain, the specifics of those periods seemed to have been flushed down some sort of pain drain. So, I don't think about these experiences much. But then, I read this story on Salon, in which writer Steve Almond actually publishes an interview with his 8th Grade tormentor.
I am touched by the compassion and Almond's ability to actually place the transactions of junior high school "kids will be kids" bs into the context of real people's lives. The actions of every single force in our lives affect how things will be, and it is easy to forget that. Life is intricate, but the harder we work to unravel the complexities, the more deeply rewarding it is. It's so easy to simply write off people as "bullies" and "assholes." But what about envisioning a world in which that can be prevented, in which people no longer become (or pass through phases) in which they are such things.
We can continue to punish the perpetrators, but isn't it time to figure out how to prevent the crime from the beginning?
I think it's terrifying to envision a peaceful, harmonious world. It's frightening to even try to make a more peaceful, harmonious "self." I don't mean this sarcastically, I think this is a real thing for people, for our culture. What would we talk about? What kind of media would actually sell if people weren't scared to death all the time? If people didn't stress-eat bad foods and gain weight, they wouldn't buy weight loss products. If people were happy with themselves, they wouldn't need to buy as much cosmetics, plastic surgery, clothing, strippers, whatever... When there's a threat, you want information. Our major media keeps us in thrall to a constant low-level sense of fight or flight. Sure, it's important to know about the world, but I notice that I get less and less from consuming the news. Half of what goes on in the world doesn't get covered in the mainstream media anyway.
If the media and advertising industries cannot sell by tweaking our fear instincts, then wouldn't our entire economy collapse? Wouldn't that be even more painful?
The Hippies talked about a dawning of a new consciousness. It may be easy to ridicule the New Age Movement, but a shift in consciousness is such an enormous change that it's pretty much unimaginable. There is much to malign in corporations but they are made up of individual humans, and most of those humans, at least on a personal level think they want a better world. They don't want to cause "real" pain in whatever way they want to define it. But I don't think the powerful interests of the Western world actually can envision any way to act than how they do. Living in the harmony envisioned by the television-less residents of the state of Bhutan doesn't make any sense to most of us.
It's that vision, and it will be radical, that we need to develop.
But one step towards that is examining and investigating the elements of our culture that allow and even encourage bullying, which Salon.com is starting to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)