The following is still only a proposal. No claims or promises are made or implied.

-Ali ibn Abi Talib, 4th caliph (602-661)
"Friends may come and go, but
enemies accumulate."
- Thomas Jones
We the bullied, are not without responsibility to network, to learn how, to stand together and organize, from such contact as we do, indeed, establish, despite all the most perfidious harassment and Relational Bullying.
This electronic document, while serving as polemic against Obscurantism and Apologism and to raise consciousness about the pandemic menace of bullying, the primary outreach is for anyone genuinely exasperated enough to at all seriously consider to conspire with me in this, a modest proposal in guerilla social engineering cultures of respect! Beyond awareness and the sociological background information provided, there remains the dire need to come together, face reality, frankly assess the situation and at long last frame an adequate agenda, the need for an organization, broad based logistical support, a clearing house for reciprocal alliances to conduct innovative outreach and intervention.
-Even by low guile without apology, to ferret out, expose, denounce, ridicule, defuse, outmaneuver, disrupt and undermine bullying and to befriend and defend targets of bullying from harassment, abuse and defamation. CliqueBusters is a proposal to come together and deploy a new and different intervention strategy for bullyproofing. Email me privately if it's sensitive, or post to the forum in order to engage public controversy! And not just about bullying in general, but preferably at all also about Clique Busters in specific, please.
As an author finding ones own voice even identity and POV, Point Of View, beyond tone, syntax and structure alone, that is the moment, finally, of the lucid and vivid articulation of theme, gaining momentum and central clarity from whence all else unfolds smoothly and powerfully. Whereas to be relationally bullied, manipulated, confused, invalidated, isolated from social connection and robbed of ones voice, is classic reversal crushing unto despair.
In the words of Thomas S. Szasz in 'The Myth of Mental Illness' New York: Harper & Row 1974. "This…is the essential communicational dilemma in which many weak or oppressed persons find themselves vis-à-vis those who are stronger or who oppress them: if they speak softly, they will not receive a hearing; if they raise their voices literally, they will be considered impertinent; and if they raise their voices metaphorically, they will be diagnosed as insane." - or, presumably, otherwise generally dismissed, or marginalized as however kooky or less than credible, often subject to the effective ostracism of social mockery and with utter impunity, even that which Sam Vaknin has dubbed: ambient or stealth abuse.
In other words, the proverbial porridge will never be the just the right metaphorical temperature. All efforts will only backfire one way or another, given the power relations of bullying as they stand.
Even Gandhi endorsed war against the Nazis, much as he exploited the crisis to end British rule in India. After all, there is never really any question as to whether or not to resort to any measure, no matter how extreme, let alone anything the more measured and moderate, but only as to under what conceivable circumstances. Nevertheless: The two most enthusiastically positive email respondents to CliqueBusters, nevertheless would barely be pressed to acknowledge and simply and adamantly refused to discuss the central concept of open or even covert or clandestine but utterly nonviolent intervention against bullying!
One of them, in his own emotionally charged experience and reflection, resonated strongly with my prose, while the other greatly valued the information resource. But what was sad was explaining to another abused and vulnerable soul that no such organization as CliqueBusters as yet exists to protect them. For even after all this time, CliqueBusers remains merely a proposal.
There is a common dilemma in writing, that to omit background obscures by lack of context, while to include adequate and extensive background obscures by detracting from whatever central new idea. Worse, engaging against the denials of apologists likewise feeds into their diversionary slight of hand, while, in the alternative, lies uncontested leave the world at the mercy of liars. And so I regret to impose upon the reader to work their way through, finding whatever they need, hopefully included, in order then to glean all that is crucial and central.
First will be established the nature and motivation for bullying from it's ancient and natural advantages, then the destructive toll which bullying has always taken, then support for the worst case assumption, to whit, that existing recourse is all too often not adequate, indeed that the authorities, such as may exist, may actually worsen the problem. Finally will be proposed in a distinct paradigm shift, organizing in new and different ways, with a unique and distinct body of practices and procedures, to monitor, recognize and respond to bullying by new and innovative measures. -The justifiability all whereof will be duely questioned and then seriously addressed.
The very first thing anyone
ever pays attention to as an infant and later a young child is whatever one
needs to survive in physical
reality. Indeed, the very first lesson you learnt,
was that your survival depended upon others. Specifically, you learnt what to do
(and later, to say) in order to get what you needed. You learnt that when others
approved of you, they would nurture you. When they disapproved of you, they
would withdraw that nurturing.
You learnt to pay attention to whatever gave you the ability to control your
environment. You discovered what made your care-givers pay attention to you and
give you what you wanted. Later you learnt what you could do to get what you
wanted on your own: grasp, reach, crawl, walk and so forth.
The basic need to survive focused your attention on whatever would aid the
process of receiving approval and control. In turn, then others molded not only
behavior, but even perception and world view.
When it comes to reaching out to others, there is always the direct approach to
simply court whomever the other personally. Or, indeed, another indirect and
even somewhat devious strategy, or courtship display, especially if one is adept
at socializing and can make oneself the center of attention, is to join in with
the peer group of another, and pay most of one's attention to them especially if
they are of the other
sex, so that they will pay attention in return; for the
attention of the peer group must impress the other of the advantages in
association, and also must illicit envy in the whomever the other so that they
will become desirous of one's attention and therefore pay one better attention.
Either way, however, there are the pitfalls of jealousy and hostility from
whatever competing vested interests, cliques of hypocritical self serving
bullies, unless one discerns and pays whatever their sycophantic price of
collusion to ingratiate oneself and/or/else can adequately intimidate them.
Otherwise, that is why so many work so hard simply to blend in and escape notice rather than to shine. For such are the incentives and disincentives to condition people that they will yearn to belong the group, when it is actually interpersonal relationship that they are really desperate for. -To crush all misfits and dissidents and render the masses attachment disordered but socially skilled, sacrificing deeper and genuine robust and healthy autonomous social development essential to freedom in favor of conformist and heteronymous socialization in an ongoing program inculcated via our Inductivist public educational system, with the effect of better recruitment in the preservation of status quo by the eager and ubiquitous Fifth Columns of the Reactionaries even within ostensibly or nominally open and democratic society, wherein more straightforward and pervasive blatantly dictatorial brutality will be unacceptable but tactics of, for all intents and purposes, injurious participatory mass brainwash are normal, even banal.
Because in all things, the substance beyond mere form, the dynamic and flexible social engineering principles, personal autonomy, good sportsmanship and responsible values of rational democratic progress are systematic doubt, hope in the honest embrace of fallibility and tolerance for uncertainty, substantive discourse, debate of disputes, criticism without punishment and no insult taken, free inquiry into problems openly and publicly without fear of punishment, indeed, open unfounded speculation about different case scenarios pursuant to any number of varied and different proposed measures, without need of conforming or in any way limiting said speculations to any accepted quasi-official position.
The very
values and aptitudes ever fostered in brainstorming!Civilized adversarial systems and healthy attitudes, formal or informal, that are the bulwark of our precious freedoms, are predicated upon systematic doubt. But the antiseptic and dehumanizing demands pressed by blind loyalty and faith of conformity and compliance, crushing, silencing, excluding or marginalizing all oppositional protest as a matter of course, either preclude entirely or eviscerate and enfeeble, all doubt and curiosity at all, whatsoever.
As appetite or disposition, beyond the debased pandering fantasy and voyeurism of prurient gossip, real curiosity promotes meaningful connection, not only exploration and learning, but empathy, care, concern, compassion, much as, beyond bitter insularity, sheer credulity promotes not only Criticality but justice and fairness, all of which are excluded by utter indifference, plain cowardice and approval seeking conformism. Autonomy, responsible risk management, creativity, curiosity about reality and individuals easily comes into conflict on every level, with adaptation, risk phobic attentiveness to social cues upon which so much depends, that must so often guard itself from curiosity, compassion and conscience, instead promoting bigoted prejudgment, irresponsibility and malice by rendering impunity for jealous rage.
Bullying must be predicated, one way or another, if not upon captivity or restriction in one sense or another, then manipulation, somehow getting sucked in against better judgment, indeed, as individuals, in life, are routinely drawn into freedom inhibiting interaction patterns, interpersonally and with the larger social environment and institutions. And whatever theoretically wider freedom of choice offered will tend to be actually encumbered (both by bureaucracy outright and simple lack of facilitation or logistical support) with user unfriendly bewildering and unmanageable complexity as to render it practically speaking, unavailable to most people, all but the most socially capable and steady nerved, regardless of real talent and ability.
Otherwise, who
would choose to endure bullying abuse? And the damage should never be
underestimated or taken for granted. And yet what is omitted from 'Complex
PTSD A National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet' is even mention of the harm resulting
even from constant low level stress, let alone anything any more harrowing
including
ambient or stealth abuse,
never mind only the very worst life and death ordeals. And so it should come as little surprise that the
conditions of captivity listed in 'Complex
PTSD A National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet' are woefully incomplete:
To begin with, at whatever whim of fate, we are each and all disgorged helpless
into a condition of captivity by
dependency, the family, better or worse,
invariably dysfunctional to some degree, a misfortune only to be summarily
compounded by
yet more demeaning conditions of captivity and unremitting constant low level
stress, particularly in education and employment.
Hence, another description of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder might be life itself, the human condition as we know it. Because, in nature, more often than not, happiness is but an empty and unlikely hope existing only to perpetuate struggle. In the alternative, whatever idealistic notions of happiness and dignity are unnatural, either democratic and historically recent, belonging to the technologically Industrialized World, or else embodying whatever untenable nostalgia for mythic innocence.
Maslow's famous "Pyramid"
Hierarchy of Needs begins with sheer biological life support plus amenities.
Alienation and helplessness already begin to undermine safety and security
concerns that not only project all such immediate practical concerns into the
uncertain future, but also encompass the reassurance of defense, care and
nurture. But alienation is even more obstructive to social needs along with
those of self esteem and self actualization.
The two possible active means to security, or else actual threat thereto, are
either the self or others, society, which brings us to the social needs. The
social needs are
connection, love,
sex and respect, or failing that, their
manipulative counterfeit of conditionality and helpless exploitation. Against
which self esteem, as we have seen, also a function of the same drive for
security, is fulfillable only by empowerment, control over one's environment,
and, the more so,
self-actualization is also empowerment, peak experience of
fulfillment by true vocation, towards realization of full potential,
investigation, knowing and understanding, creativity,
motivated
goals
ever
put forth and causes. Hence,
in actuality, true love and respect must empower, if not the lofty pinnacle of self realization,
then at least functional
autonomy. Indeed, all
self realizing true vocation, investigation, creativity,
motivated
goals
ever
put forth and causes, must
somewhere and somehow aim at and relate to some manner of utility in the needs
of the individual, in other words, clear added
value to whatever specific target market(s). Or else they will be abstract beyond correspondence to
reality!
-Pointless obsession... Thus, social needs cannot neatly be met first, only then
whetting some hither to dormant loftier apatite for self realization. For,
clearly,
alienation worms deeper than that.
Hence, depending upon variable tolerance for sheer petty conditionality as a
price for security at all, many simply yearn and strive to fit in one way or
another, while others in society who undergo
positive maladjustment therefore aspire to the free self-organization and administration of
their own affairs from the bottom upward.
For alienation is the condition in which individuals find themselves at cross
purposes with, and dominated
by, forces and institutions of our own creation, driven by their own Monopolistic
agendas, confronting the individual as overbearing, loveless, conditional,
bullying, threatening and
manipulative
alien powers.
The dimensions of
alienation
include powerlessness,
meaninglessness, normlessness (anomie), social isolation, cultural
estrangement and self-estrangement.
Many conform as best they may. Many live in all manner of learned helplessness,
frustrated denial and fantasy. Others still, only lash out, one way or another.
But can there be any better
free
choice? That is the mission of
FoolQuest.com, the struggle with unhappiness,
against
alienation
and for
self-actualization or at least freedom and
autonomy, on various fronts. The
Clique
Busters
concept,
in specific, addresses the obstacles of conditionality and malice, continual and
systematic abuse of power that is the
very
antithesis
of self realization. In a nut
shell,
Clique
Busters seeks to contend with bullying.
Gresham’s Law states that banality, the overwhelming volume of that which is either inherently of low quality or else poorly directed drives out that which is unique, of better value, or resources including effort and attention well focused.
In other words, that quantity can and does overwhelm quality. And this already profoundly impacts all evolutionary processes.
It means that fitness is not the same thing as excellence. That evolution of whatever sort need not actually favor excellence. On the contrary, evolution may favor the easiest thing to be rather than the highest quality end product. There will always tend to be more iterations of the easiest thing, idea or person to be, as the most likely outcome. It's just Entropy.
So, if bad money does, indeed, drive out good, and if, likewise, dull repetitive conversation does drown out novelty and value and thus bore silly and drive away potentially better contacts, then what less and how less deleterious can be the impact of maliciously deliberate pettiness upon our lives?
What all this means, sadly, is that we can easily and certainly anticipate Terrorism as a Means of self-actualization, the term here used to denote any savor in life, any sort of excellence in one's own experience thereof, especially by way of any sort of true productivity, and that just such self-actualization will always tend to come under assault one way or another unless adequately defended. The exception to that rule being where the easiest way to have anything good in life is concerned, namely to simply prey upon the vulnerable. After all, have we not all heard of the banality of evil?
1 in 4 child bullies will grow to have a criminal record. Bullying and theft, violence and trickery of every kind, are only ancient and successful strategies in human society no less than in nature, especially toadying to the powerful while beating down and scapegoating the competition, the lowest common denominator appealed to by demagogues. Alas, there is no shortage of natural dedication and man-hours whole heartedly devoted to pettiness and sheer spite in this world. There is never a gap in volunteerism, so long it's for injustice and destruction.
Surely, if the Devil had to pay minimum wage, Hell would go bankrupt!
The rugged and transcendently self sufficient Ubermench remains a myth. In truth, the inferior tends to dominate the superior. Indeed, as the saying goes, no matter how bad you are, there will be someone who is worse simply because they think they are better.
The challenge in defense of personal individuality in life has always been not only to navigate another path as ever needed for whatever reason, but to find alternative supply chains, connections, alliance and defense. And it is the widespread failure to accomplish this all things being equal, let alone in the face of cliquish bullying, harassment and isolation, that perpetuates the crisis. Because, evidently, not everyone who ever feels alienated or finds themselves excluded, for whatever reason or under any circumstances, can rise all that well to such a challenge. Especially if one finds oneself actually hounded, one way or another.
Also, there may be any number of other separate problems and complications unaddressed to obstruct even whatever seems so practical and straightforward adaptation to others. Because life and people are like that. Indeed, any adaptation of an individual may seem, metaphorically speaking, like cutting the foot to fit the shoe, whereas, of course, it is the proverbial shoe that needs to fit for the comfort of the wearer.
What, then, is the alternative? Building cultures of respect, inclusive societies, on the basis of the highest principles and most functional empathy and attachment has never quite been accomplished.
And yet, so often, the approach to self help in social integration, even in the face of the most flagrant bullying, assumes that the key, so to speak, is already there to be found and turned. But, quite often, such helpful encouragement towards social adaptation fails for any number of reasons. And this suggests that such an approach might not be adequate in all cases, for any number of reasons, none the least being because there might not be any "key" lying around, as it where. Bullies do not need to be so reasonable, let alone kindly and accepting.
As Clausewitz warns us, "The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to [bully] unopposed." They are the enemy, after all! And, as grand as it may be to befriend one's enemy, one's enemy will only be befriended should they choose to be. In the meantime, the enemy is no friend, and it is grave folly to behave otherwise and to surrender all initiative. Indeed, Sun Tzu observes that if the enemy seeks peace or opens negotiations unexpectedly, they are actually scheming, and that apology and humility likely just a delaying ploy playing for time and respite to regroup.
You can shoot the tiger, or
stay out of his way, but you cannot pronounce him a vegetarian.
- Richard Mitchell
And so, the need for better strategy must be addressed. Including alternative supply chains, connections, alliance and mutual defense by which to intimidate bullies more reliably. Social Darwinism is unacceptable. But that's no excuse not to rise to the challenge thereof. Therefore, let us begin by confronting the Hobbesian ugly truth:
The niches of all opportunistic bullies, predators and parasites tend to be stable and lie along their path of least resistance. Such niches are provided by opportunity, the prey or host or target of bullying, purposefully or by chance, locating anyone who is vulnerable. Moreover, threat and manipulation tend to eventually render one or another distraught and vulnerable target's responses even the more amenable to predation, exploitation and parasitism.
Bullies are domineering, vengeful, Sadistic, and solve whatever their problems by overt violence and intimidation or other more covert destructive tactics. Bullies achieve recognition and respect, of a fashion, even if actually disliked and resented, through aggression, and naturally proliferate where dominance is tolerated if not valued and power struggle is the accepted way of things.
It is all too often observed that the successful make the rules to their own advantage and to keep the rest of us playing their looser game as their pawns and fools. Where naked mayhem and brutality can no longer stand, not mere coercion alone, but deception and misleading manipulation of others broadly, has become central to the organization of modern society, not only in politics but also in the economic relationships served.
Bullying is often classified as either strategic, a coercive means towards any self serving benefit or goal put forth, or else otherwise driven or motivated by character, whether by initiative or in response to whatever situation, opportunity or conflict as may ever arise. The principle types of bullying are the violence and intimidation of Physical Bullies, most obviously, but also varying degrees of mimesis, while Verbal Bullies employ threats and abuse, the Relational Bully continually instigating to undermine and isolate the target of bullying socially, and no less deceptive or devious, the passive or covert aggressor, a coworker, collaborator or recruiter of any sort who sabotages, deceives or exploits the target of bullying by simple non cooperation, and Reactive Victims, ever manifesting the most blatant projection and constantly triggered by slights -real, exaggerated or entirely imagined. But, of course, rationalizations of grudge collecting are hardly uncommon in bullies unless, as often, they are just gloating Sadists outright, who tend to prefer scapegoating and victim blaming of whatever vulnerability of the target of bullying, singling out of the most trivial of difference and scapegoating rationalizations of invented threat to society and especially feminine "virtue" and other such typical taboos, also typical to the folly and sanctimonious abuse of power characteristic of the politician bully. Indeed, even while gaining impunity as bullies, mania and undue volatility even to the point of self-indulgence aside, or even simple over stress, as actual targets of deliberate bullying themselves, Reactive Victims may be resented the more for fighting back at all. Hence, fairness is not merely abrogated, but actually reversed!
Also see: The 4 most-common workplace bullies and bully bosses
Guide to bully types and tactics
Are Bullies Sabotaging Your Ability to Compete?
Whistle Blowing
- the psycho-dynamics of
conflict
When friendship is not good for your mental health
All to
often, without the overwhelming deterrence of adequate
connections, support and
alliances, the only and costly apparent last resort to
effectively deter persistent bullies at all may be to unambiguously sink to
their level and win or even to loose a fight, but doing enough damage in the
process none the less to make the bullies think twice in future. That is to say,
depending on the cowardice of the bullies, and unless the social environment has
become unremittingly violent or otherwise dangerous beyond caring, in which
case, even successful self defense earns little respite. And if not actually by
hand to hand brawling then by whatever due process or legal recourse, if
available. Or else by any decisive initiative, which is to say, any threat or obstruction to livelihood or other vital
interaction, overt or covert. But not in case of any hesitation, delay,
trepidation or compunction, on the part of the target of bullying.
And not if one can't get away with it. Not if the bullies are sneaky and
actually hope to provoke whatever retaliation or angry reaction, in order to get the target of bullying into
all the more trouble. Not while intelligence gathering against bullies is at all neglected and/or in any way
hampered, and the only access to the bullies at all by the target of bullying is
in any context of restraint of civility abused and
manipulated by the bullies while
actually only constraining without much protecting, the target of bullying. For,
as Sun Tzu said: Know the enemy and know thyself.
And once a potential target of bullying exhibits social constraint or responsibility, never mind intimidation outright, the bully quickly realizes that, particularly in sheer bullying mimesis, he or she can safely maneuver the situation to the very brink of disgrace. The reticence of the target of bullying may arise from out of whatever reluctance, shock, paralysis, inability, situational deadlock, typical of "let's you be reasonable" headgames or conditioning, even remedial socialization and expectations, formal or informal. Counting on the integrity of the victim's constraints to keep them both from tumbling over, the bully stands on the crumbling edges of socially acceptable behavior, agitating and pressing the target of bullying either to misstep and cross the line or else to effectively submit to ongoing and mounting abuse and distress because the target of bullying will often be in jeopardy, one way or another, should they give way to being baited.
But, otherwise, submission only reinforces the behavior of an unpunished bully. The target of bullying exhibits an anxious vulnerability. The situation of mimesis is engineered wherein the target of bullying is set up as an easy target for later ongoing victimization and scapegoating. The target of bullying suffers severe painful traumatic stress, fear and loss of control, that must eventually impair performance and achievement, a detriment and danger all to often underestimated in ongoing denial. Indeed, with the rise of youth violence, so too has the suicide rate increased.
Worse, any perceived failure of the target of bullying to stick up for themselves tends to make others highly uncomfortable, thus the target of bullying will not be well liked, exacerbating social isolation. And it will be often true, as is often said, that the one shunned, indeed, has an attitude problem or just whatever indistinct bad vibe. After all, who wouldn't? Because bullying and shunning rapidly bring on the onset of depression, to paranoia if not actual hypervigilance, bitterness, misanthropy and other such acute mental conditions of distress. Obviously, people tend to keep their distance from such a one for fear that what they have might be contagious (which, indeed, it more often is), or for the sheer repulsiveness of their company, or for the rational fear of being associated with them.
And, alternatively, the target of bullying will typically only be the more resented as a spoilsport for lashing back in their own defense.
If anything at all can be learned from observation, it is that whatever the price will be extracted for avoiding becoming such a wretch, it will most often be accepted.
Hence, the targets of bullying
will be rejected not only by the bully but their peers as well, drastically
limiting the pool of potential social or business contacts. In other words, the
isolation and ostracism of
Relational Bullying
is already well under weigh. And without
connection and amid the anonymity of
the masses, dangerous
bystander
apathy is vastly exacerbated and assertive
honesty so badly undermined by social
loafing.
Generally, social, residential, familial, scholastic, professional needs, prior
investment or circumstances compel the target of
bullying into dealing with the bully at all, one way or another. Otherwise,
given any
better
free
choice, the
target of bullying might very well simply prefer to disengage and just put all
unpleasantness out of mind. More over, world view, composure, presence of mind
under fire, and social skill level and
available resources might not provide the target of bullying viable alternatives
beyond either submission or steady escalation of ongoing
conflict
on every
level.
Bullying, like evil generally, is simple that way. And most advantageous to the evil doer. Hence, evil succeeds and propagates. Because collaboration among evil doers likewise comes naturally, along the path of least resistance, so long as evil people generally covet what they can get or keep from those whom they victimize but fear one another at all.
And that is why collaboration in bullying, among other evils, must be continually disrupted at every level of any open society or culture of respect. Clique Busters is conceived to attempt the ongoing disruption of bullying in ordinary day to day life, where the need has always been great and sorely neglected, and even to egg on the bullies to misstep, once and for all, and to reap the embarrassment that they have sown. Clique Busters pretty much follows the definition and characterization as laid out in the in the Bully/Victim Problems document, but goes beyond the prescribed solution, in seeking to institutionalize change societally, even if reform will not come from the top down as is often generally assumed.
Hence, Clique Busters proposes independent investigation, intervention, consciousness raising and even covert counter-conspiracy.
But any benevolence, by contrast with exploitation, quickly runs into Entropy. Benevolence of any kind expends personal resources (even just time and compassion) and stalls upon their depletion. And benevolence also depends upon the receptivity and cooperation of the intended beneficiary.
At worst, benevolence opens the benefactor's own vulnerability to predators and parasites. But even short thereof, the intended beneficiary may prove to one degree or another unresponsive for any number of reasons:
First of all, that the most needy and vulnerable are somehow so easy to find by exploitative bullies, but so hard to find and then to connect with for help, intervention or even sympathy. And that even then, benevolence may be in any degree misguided or inadequate, in any degree missing or falling short of the actual or self-perceived needs of the intended beneficiary. But also because the more that bullying threat and manipulation have rendered a vulnerable target's responses amenable to predation, exploitation and parasitism, the less amenable and competent their responses are to opportunity and help because ongoing threat and abuse may tend to erode one's instincts and intuition. And, all to often, opportunity will be fleeting while tribulation will remain incessant.
Likewise, helping oneself to begin with, may often entail effort and discomfort, especially taxing to anyone already distraught from bullying/predation/ exploitation/ parasitism. And this may still apply no less even given however valuable the offer of whatever outside advice, assistance or resources.
In summation, for optimal success, benevolence requires adequate resources, best receptivity and adaptability to the needs of the beneficiary and capable amenable response on the part of the intended beneficiary.
And all of that inevitably tends to become exceedingly daunting and complicated. All in all, it's easy to understand Nietzsche's dread of responsibility and Altruism. Of getting dragged in and sucked down with the drowning more often than saving them successfully. And this may apply to whatever familial and other responsibilities, without assuming additional burdens of charity or civic mindedness.
No wonder, then, how Nietzsche deplores the entanglements of Altruism.
However, reciprocity, reciprocal benevolence, mutual support of one kind or another, may improve sustainability over one sided benevolence. But attempts to build reciprocity may only tend to be even more complicated and vulnerable. So much so, that one may even be better off to do good works without expectation and the vulnerability of over extending oneself.
Sun Tzu said there is no loss worse than that of the initiative relinquished. And initiative means the power to create threats.
The side with the initiative
is usually also attacking. Against a threatening enemy, one has not only has the
right but the obligation to attack upon any sign of weakness or opening. If one
can create threats the enemy is weakened. This should be self-evident, and
expected of the enemy. Yet many tend towards contempt of weakness and assume
that one must have made some mistake to be put in any position of weakness. But
clearly, and as we have seen in
scapegoating, this can be vastly unfair.
Because the side with the initiative controls the course of events. But keeping the
initiative even when over matched requires creativity, whereas the opponent only
has to react to threats. But in everyone's experience, attacking is easier than
defending, and, what is more, errors in defending tend to be more fatal,
typically leading to defeats or great loss of resources. While errors in
attacking usually only lose the initiative -- which, or course, in the long term
may lead to defeat.
The defender has less alternatives in choosing a plan. One might think that
the effort of defense would therefore be easier, whereas, actually, choosing the right plan may be much more
difficult for the defender.
And this applies to all constructive endeavors including Altruism and Reciprocity. Because it is always easier to destroy than to build and thereby to put oneself on the defensive. Indeed, trying to help at all often principally entails seeking to counteract some harm, to defend against a destructive threat, in one sense or another.
And it may often be unclear how best to endure, whereas there may be several ways for an attacker to win. Indeed, mounting, compounded and unforeseen dangers for anyone harassed and isolated by bullies.
Many brilliant attacks have proven better defendable only from hindsight, because the defender could have gained the advantage with some imaginative response. Indeed, any target of bullying will have many occasions to regret a missed strategic opening of one sort or another, lost in the disorientation and heat of the moment, which is always so much to the bullies' advantage and must be turned against them.
In theory, every attack is over-optimistic; in practice, attacks are most likely to decide the outcome. Being proactive means being willing to win, which may make all the difference in many situations, if anything will at all.
On the other hand, and seemingly contrary to Sun Tzu, the strategist Carl von Clausewitz actually emphasized the strategic aspects of defense. Because however strongly an offensive may start out, it inevitably weakens as it advances from its original base. The need to maintain the lines of supply and communications and to sustain numbers on the offense, which in this context must amount not only to keeping up unremitting harassment but also to reinforcing and sustaining social barriers to isolate the target of Relational Bullying, and moreover, to maintain all of these operations in an ever changing social environment. An ongoing and substantive effort which eventually may begin to show strain and degrade the aggressor clique's force. Because, indeed, even mimesis relies upon strength and coordination. Meanwhile, the defender target of bullying can fall back upon the sources of his strength, if any. Or, as is is all to often, if not, this is precisely where Clique Busters can come in, to fill that gap, to step in and provide any crucial emotional and tactical support to targets of bullying.
And every offensive, however victorious, has a "culminating point." If the defender has enough time and space in which to recover, the aggressor inevitably reaches a point at which they must themselves take up the defense. For if they push too far, as bullies are wont, the equilibrium may even shift against them.
Especially considering how public opinion is more likely to favor the strategic defender, since significant conquests by one contender will threaten everybody else. Eventually, the conqueror will reach a "culminating point of victory" at which his successes may be exploited to provoke sufficient counteraction to defeat him.
The aggressor, in their own retreat, must be prevented from drawing on the defender's usual sources of strength--physical or psychological. In other words, Clique Busters must redouble efforts to undercut support for entrenched bullies at such times. For at the tactical level, Clausewitz was impressed by the advantage of entrenchment.
The essence of the defense is waiting: waiting until the attacker clarifies his own intentions; waiting until the balance of forces shifts; waiting for any improvement in the defender's situation, whether from the culminating process described above, from outside intervention, from mobilization of their own resources, or from some chance development. Time is almost always on the side of the defender, but not of the defenseless.
For waiting, however, does not imply mere passivity, and a passive defense is not at all what Clausewitz was describing. His vision of any effective defense was profoundly active. If the defense functions essentially as a shield, it is best "a shield made up of well-directed blows." And then defense must shift at some point to the offense, the "flashing sword of vengeance." Thus it is easy to find in 'On War' isolated quotations which seem to glorify the offensive. It is nonetheless the interaction of the two forms that concerned Clausewitz who strongly emphasized the initiative of the ensuing pursuit, permitting the infliction of disproportionate losses upon the loser.
After all, bullies often retreat strategically, and the target of bullying can only glad for any respite that they have achieved. Indeed, misplaced and civilized equanimity may render any however more vengeful options actually distasteful to the good natured, peace loving and harried target of bullying. But with more realistic assessment, firmer resolve, better preparation, responsible initiative, and intervention if need be, greater losses, particularly social disgrace, may be inflicted upon bullies to get the upper hand and more effectively neutralize the threat and harm. For all of this is no less than how any trustworthy and bullyproofed society would respond in protection of the individual within his or her rights.
The dynamic relationship between defense and offense is just one of a larger group of concepts which might collectively be labeled the "dynamics of war." These would include the emphases on friction and morale, the diminishing force of the offensive, the "culminating point of victory"; in short, all of the factors that prevent struggle from being a linear process, that create the unpredictable see-sawing between opposing wills and powers that characterizes real-world conflict on every level, even entirely social, and with utter indifference to whatever the stakes, great or small, well understood or scarcely fathomed.
All of this why a more militant approach against the pervasive problems of bullying, and certainly better intelligence gathering, needs to at least be considered, for better exploitation of tactical opportunities.
Give and take relations and functional social networks providing any sense of security in life do exist, of course. But that does not mean that everyone finds them or gains access, easily or at all. And those who are so blessed may often either take it all far too much for granted or fear losing it too much to ever stick out their necks. And so, all the time, many good people are slipping through the cracks, in one sense or in one way or another.
And this brings us to the difficulty of connecting and organizing and, consequently, the hopes invested in the very prospect of future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry.
|
For an extreme and lethally violent example of how bullying stays prevalent, one need only consider how, as a matter of craven vested interest, opportunism, power and ambition, terrorists routinely murder not only the so called "moderates" within their own ranks and amide their affiliations, but also peaceful activists and protestors among their own constituents as "traitors" and sabotage perfectly competent peaceful demonstrations in order to turn them violent so that the terrorists can continue to hypocritically declare diplomacy a hopelessly lost cause leaving terror as last resort of the underdog!
All such tactics insure that destructive behavior gets more attention than constructive behavior, while victimized dissidents may despair of even being noticed to be helped. In the end, oppressive and hypocritical government officials often may far prefer to negotiate with criminal terrorists, the former demonized enemy magically turning statesmen and even nation builder, than to acknowledge, answer to and work with the struggling and oppressed or their Intellectuals.
And no one cares.
Indeed, every rabid running dog, every vicious foreign policy tool that ever seemingly bit the hand the feeds them, may eventually come round again in due course, and make themselves useful again, one way or another.
Cynical governments and political hacks by far prefer to embrace terrorists as statesmen and nation builders if it helps them to ignore and keep obscure legitimate peaceful pro-democratic activists and intellectuals who might actually improve conditions for the people. Bullies on the world stage may like to put on a great and deadly show of factional conflict, but it's all just a propaganda squeeze play, higher stakes mimesis, with ambient or stealth abuse. a cult con game to press the people into choosing up sides, however interchangeable, to make cannon fodder and exploit emotionally unbalanced suicidal would be martyrs.
Indeed, Che Guevara well understood the symbiosis behind oppositional violence, openly declaring in his writings that the whole point of appalling acts of terrorism is, by that very threat and alarm, to enable the Fascists ever waiting in the wings to drive the government into heavy handedness, so as, in turn, and as the intended and desired end result, to radicalize the populace to be recruited into the Revolution. And, indeed, conversely, even fairly recent history teaches us that if terrorists do not exist, government conspirators will incubate them. Terrorism, then, may even be regarded as nothing more that a sort of violent sham opposition.
Moreover, by contrast, the truly progressive are conveniently easy to ignore in all the confusion. Once again, nice guys finish last!
Indeed, in many a context constructive behavior is often sabotaged and undermined, one way or another. Anti-competitive bullying is an unfair competitive advantage robbing the world of better alternatives.
Certainly bullies in the workplace, for a more common place and somewhat less lethal example, help to suppress superior innovation. Indeed, a common form of passive/aggressive covert/hostile bullying in the workplace or whatever context of collaborative effort, is simply stonewalling urgent memos, regardless of the cost or damage to the bottom line or whatever other motivated goals ever put forth in common. The classic toxic manager is well known for sabotaging the contribution of coworker targets of bullying and then to belittle their efforts. And even in grade school abusiveness is better rewarded with attention than any constructive accomplishment let alone the effort in the attempt or groundwork in the mean time.
"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say." to quote Sholem Asch.
While this may come as a good warning against triviality, it also happens that one can be stymied in addressing very important problems. And in such case, one must hope that one will be afforded at least the luxury of admitting it. Because that, at least, gives the writer something to say.
One just such daunting problem is that of bullying.
To address grievances including bullying there is the administration at school and internal procedure and policy at work plus Labor Union grievance process, all often more a part of the problem (and a protracted ordeal further breaking down the target of bullying and abuse) than any redress, only postponing and even subverting the final uncertain and costly ordeal of legal recourse. But the standard crocodile tears, facile helpless heartless "Arafat speak" and official victim blaming of scapegoats are all well documented at so many other anti-bullying websites, studies and literature. Suffice to add that attrition and manipulation into unilateral Soft Bargaining is known in Transactional Analysis as the "let's you be reasonable" Ulterior Transaction or headgame.
And aside from societally provided means of redress, there are only whatever personal resources and contacts of the individual, adequate to help intimidate bullies from targeting them. Or else not!
After all, bullies tend to prey upon the more vulnerable and isolated. Indeed, the aim of exclusion by Relational Bullying is to sabotage the all important social connectivity of the target.
In short, the reason that there cannot be a better resource guide for the bullied, against harassment and social isolation, is that there are more often than not, no resources to speak of!
That is why it is always far easier to seek to reach out and educate the pedagogs and officials, who have any where withal to fight such injustice as it arises and also to help "bully-proof" the societies in which they work in the first place, than to advise the actual targets of bullying.
For example, there is the Playground Pass System.
More over, bullying in society at large, rather than just in such institutions of school and work, is the most under addressed, except for the special case of the persecution of minorities. Although, at least the plight of those harassed by a hostile neighbor is finally beginning to come to light.
In society, institutions are
established to deal with various social problems. Institutions that adapt and
evolve.
Clique
Busters, as proposed, is conceived as a different kind of
institution, a counter-conspiracy rather than just an interest group or adjunct
to authority.
The reasons for this are two fold:
First of all, because when it comes to bullying, the pertinent authorities are
so often a major part of the problem in such formal context as school or
employment, let alone world affairs. Or else, because there is often no particular authority to turn to
in many informal social contexts when bullying arises. And so, if civility is
absent, what then?
Let us face ourselves
bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes
reality can lead us
into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.
- Lin Yutang
Aside from the ubiquitous problems of social loafing, bystander apathy, Anti-Critical Bias, cowardice lacking assertive honesty, function in the social network is simply inadequate to the needs of many people even in the lulls much less in their times of tribulation and struggle or the aftermath, and tends to be unresponsive simply from sheer inefficiency. The more so after social connectivity is damaged and subverted by Relational Bullying. As long as opportunity is tenuous to begin with, bullies can render the difficult impossible.
More over, it becomes clear that first socially isolating the target makes it far easier to lie convincingly, thus drastically increasing vulnerability to criminal exploitation, particularly fraud as well as violence and extortion.
Indeed, by contrast, the most destructive people, of course, often seem to be so very well connected, all the time! Whether they are mean spirited socially prominent student cliques, spousal abusers, petty thugs, crooked cops or corporate lobbyists and public officials.
Often, the targets of bullying are simply admonished to toughen up! Of course, that only means adaptation, one way or another, to the status quo. Rather, what is needed is to play hard ball and achieve real progress. To force the bullies to be tougher on themselves, and the less self indulgent with their hostile impulses and self serving abuse.
I respectfully submit that, victim blaming and scapegoating aside, good people often do very much need to take responsibility for our failure to seek some way to find and implement an adequate societal mode of connectivity, with it's own memetic propagation and it's own defenses, so as to become effective and competitive with the ancient and obscene advantages of dominance and predation. Because as things stand the current situation leaves all such advanced acquired traits as the enlightened and progressive so cherish, at a significant short term social Evolutionary disadvantage. And this is detrimental to all rational Humanist democratic social progress.
And so, the apologists for the bullies may even be correct in their excuses that it is the responsibility of the oppressed, exploited and forgotten to adapt. The question is whether those very traits which that we value can be adaptive to the threat they so often confront, rather than only a handicap of dissidence and principle that the cowardly intolerant conformists simply advocate be sacrificed for the sake of fitting in with status quo so that bullies, enablers and submissive victims can all effectively be recruited continually, there by.
In other words, we want to be free, individual and good, but at all autonomous, without being helpless and vulnerable and of no use to ourselves or anyone else. In short, to bring under control the sacrifice of being true to oneself. To establish a more secure position.
One aspect of predation, exploitation, dominance and bullying, is that they are proactive, responsive and benefit from connectivity and collusion. And that they subsume the society which they infest and propagate while marginalizing the competing opposition.
Not only do predation and dominance propagate among the predators and oppressors, but oppression also propagates among the oppressed.
Indeed, much as not only predation and dominance propagate among the predators and oppressors, with oppression also propagating among the oppressed, likewise democracy, reason and tolerance must also propagate. Nothing can be taken for granted and fair play must be zealously enforced by moral suasion at all times. Alas, all too often, such will be an uphill struggle. Whatever can improve transmission of democracy, reason and tolerance would be as proactive, responsive, cooperative and enhance connectivity in some coherent manner, much as are predation, exploitation, dominance and bullying themselves, but without predation, exploitation, dominance and bullying, because, of course, that would be entirely purpose defeating.
nevertheless, this hypothetical Memplex must be equipped with it's own defense, not only in the individual mind, but also within societal interaction. And so, it must also help to marginalize predation, exploitation, dominance and bullying, selectively non destructively enough not become or conform to the very predation, exploitation, dominance and bullying it seeks to oppose.
And this protective propensity in functional society has a name. It is called, civility. And civility is very nice when one can find it! Far to rarely, alas.
Nietzsche tended to view Altruism, morality, sympathy and responsibility, as an albatross, holding back the individual from self realization of freedom and autonomy. And there is no denying the personal sacrifice inherent in living by any moral principles at all.
But it is through the workings of democratic values in society that moral constraint and compassion may actually aid and abet self realization.
The only question is as to the feasibility of such a thing and the opportunity to overthrow the Post Modern Cynicism which Nietzsche foresaw and where in 'justice' signifies no more than the self serving interest of the stronger, exactly as the Sophist Thrasymachus asserts to Socrates in Plato's Dialogues.
Indeed, to this day, victim
blaming often seizes upon the old pretext that the targets of bullying are
socially inept and deficient. Indeed, let us no longer deny the truth of the
bullies' superior social skills. For by definition, who can deny the abilities
of an enduring predator or parasite? Indeed, the stereotypical oafish lone physical bully is
the exception.
By all means then, let us address the acquisition and improvement of social
skills. Indeed, the abused frequently learn from their abusers, even to become
abusers themselves, so, again, there's no use denying it. Or else, the abused,
miserable, only learn helplessness and to keep their place. Or others become
people pleasers and social climbers and to better fit in, or simply learn to
conform and escape notice. But by no means is sheer
heteronomy exhaustive. For
others even do learn how to stand up for themselves and ever fight back. As if
that where always easy or cut and dry! Or always enough.
Some, most fortunately of all, learn to network, socially, in order to gain
crucial connections, alliances, even friendship that they may reciprocally rely
upon for safety. Undeniably, such do acquire and master adequately proficient
social skills.
But alas, not all of us, and under any different circumstances and
situations,
for any number of reasons, rise to these daunting challenges. And that is how
the target of bullying will be different in their traits, and
also vulnerable to harassment and to
ubiquitous intolerable conniving active sabotage which is called
Relational Bullying,
isolation, ostracism,
syndromes
of shunning and
"mobbing,"
even
ambient or stealth abuse.
And so, the victim blaming seizing upon the old pretext that the targets of
bullying are socially inept and deficient, is not entirely or literally untrue,
just
amoral and lacking in decent
values.
Instead, the hypocrisy, the unstated
values
assumed are the dire obligation of every individual to enthusiastically validate
and uphold status quo uncritically, hence conformist pressures to adapt,
impunity, veritable vigilante socialization to crush all misfits and dissidents
and render the masses attachment disordered but socially skilled, sacrificing
deeper and genuine
robust and healthy
autonomous
social development
essential to freedom in favor of conformist and
heteronymous
socialization, in
an ongoing program inculcated via our
Inductivist public educational system, in which bullies
and thugs then actually lead
the way as pillars of a criminal community standing in for the open
Totalitarianism that would never be tolerated anymore.
Barriers to adequate social survival skills and strategies are varied, may
indeed include all manner of personal troubles, foibles,
character
flaws and failings, but no less often circumstantial or
situational
problems of practical insurmountably, also profound
dramatic
conflict
with real
values.
Hence the frequent sheer and tragic
irrelevancy
of pressures to adapt, impunity, veritable vigilante socialization prevalent and
so unjustly legitimized by victim blaming against the targets of bullying, with
the effect of better recruitment in the preservation of status quo by the eager
and ubiquitous Fifth Columns of the Reactionaries even within ostensibly or
nominally open and
democratic society, wherein more straightforward and pervasive
blatantly dictatorial brutality will be unacceptable but tactics of, for all
intents and purposes, injurious participatory mass brainwash are normal, even
banal.
And so, if however prevailing social expectations are rejected as inadequate and
illegitimate, oppressive, unjust, what options then remain? The answer is,
change, even revolution. And so, unless one is entirely satisfied with the petty
pace of progress, then the questions remain, what can be done to help, and yes,
what can be done differently and better for and, yes, by the targets of bullying?
No, indeed, the pursuit of
happiness need never be construed as any guarantee of
success nor any right nor
effete entitlement thereto. Yet remain open any range of questions of
responsibility and the limitations thereof. Because, supposing, as some hold
true, that we are each and all entirely responsible for everything in our lives
that happens to us, then we are also obligated to consider any measures of
possible effective response. Or else, if we are not responsible for every our
own fortune or misfortune, then why ought we simply to bear the latter
stoically?
Otherwise, any positive right, such as the right to walk out at night in safety,
remains entirely corollary to a clear negative right, such as the right not to
get mugged. Likewise, even the broadest pursuit of happiness will be contingent
upon the maintenance of the proverbial level playing field, in specific,
protection from the self serving unfair advantage of physical and emotional
abuse or the social injury of malicious disenfranchisement.
Hence, when all else clearly, chronically and systemically fails, the audacious,
unapologetic and ongoing primary aim of
Clique
Busters
must be to defuse, undermine and disrupt bullying of any kind, even covertly and
by the non violence of
moral suasion coupled with low guile.
Clique Busters is a somewhat Machiavellian Realistic conspiracy proposal for active outreach towards the covert engineering of Civility by Guerrilla Transactional Analysis re-scripting bullying mimesis.
Finding social context
The integrity
of independence comes at great sacrifice for the sake for anti-bullying
initiatives as much as for any other kind of undertaking. By
contrast, more profitable or Public Relations anti-bullying
initiatives seek to work within the system and to cooperate with
whatever authorities, such as employers or school administrators,
either to be more respectable, or just to find a billable patron.
But the more serious anti-bullying initiatives also strive to
remedy the ways in which the authorities can be a part of the
problem. Indeed, the authorities may even be the worst of the
bullies! Or, there are less formal social contexts with less
clear authority or accountability. In that case, there may be no
recourse except for targets of bullying everywhere to band
together. And as to response, both awareness campaigns and even
covert action may be indicated. Such will be the
role of
Clique
Busters as a most militant last line of defense against
bullying.
Clique Busters is nothing other than how decent individuals in a truly civil society would respond to bullying.
To befriend the targets of harassment who need allies and also the targets of Relational Bullies who are being isolated, to organize response and openly scold, mock, heckle, thwart, kill-joy, and frustrate the bullies responsible and/or to covertly misdirect the bullies, and talk about what is going and what can and should be done about it with others at large to raise outrage.
Indeed, the spell of social loafing and bystander apathy can actually be broken by the example and assertive honesty of even a single Good Samaritan, subverting the depraved mimesis of the bullies, and no less dramatically. -Which is actually important so that intervention is not simply by resented, in their dispirited amoral idle boredom, by the bystander audience as anticlimactic spoilsport and killjoy, but instead actually received and appreciated as a stirring appeal to participation in the uplifting renewal of civility reaffirmed.
Also to communicate,
strategize and prepare to foil bullies, whenever
malicious gossip reveals behind
itself, mean spirited conspiracy.
Indeed, because the forces of good are so thinly spread, the
Clique
Busters must actually go out looking for the opportunity, no less
than do the bullies themselves.
Clique
Busters will be proactive, answering
calls for help, and even reaching out to those in need unasked.
And such intervention constitutes vigilantism only as do all
random or not so random acts of kindness. -Vigilantism merely in
mimesis.
The low guile of
Clique
Busters, intelligence gathering, clique
infiltration, and generally out foxing bullies, is necessary for taking the
initiative back from the bullies, and turning their strengths to weaknesses.
Both so crucial to victory, as Sun Tzu emphasizes. Just as bullies target their
victims, the
Clique
Busters must defend
known targets of
bullying and
scapegoats, and resist
known bullies.
Another priority of
Clique
Busters, as with every good
idea, must be to preserve the integrity of
Clique
Busters itself.
Clique
Busters is empowerment, but power must not be
allowed to corrupt. Especially should the sort of bullies who
pretend benevolence and even believe it themselves are ever
attracted to join the
Clique
Busters! Therefore part of
the mandate of
Clique
Busters must be the creation of
protocols for maintenance of bully and bulling resistant social
psychological health internal to
Clique
Busters, and
adequate membership screening.
Possible options include sustaining Clique Busters as a Transactional Analysis social environment internally, and on the horizon the hopes of future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry.
In an untrustworthy society, everyone must tow the line in order to make connections and gain defensive allies in order to inspire fear in potential enemies. No one wants to be isolated and singled out. But genuine freedom of association requires that no one needs to be liked by everyone or feared by anyone. For this, Civility must be extend to all. Alas, this is all to rare.
The Youth Culture Awareness
Main Page cites School Bully Report 4/00
:
A recent report issued by Duke University psychologists revealed that bullies are among the most popular boys in school from the fourth through sixth grade. The researchers surveyed teachers and male students in 59 classrooms from rural, suburban and inner-city schools in Chicago and North Carolina.. They explored the effect of bullying of classmates, which is often undetected or unpunished by school staff, on victims and innocent bystanders. Duke University psychologist Philip Rodkin, lead author of the study that was published in the January issue of Developmental Psychology and other psychologists worry that popular bullies may be less likely to change their behavior than unpopular bullies because it works so well for them. "These boys may internalize the idea that aggression, popularity and control naturally go together, and they may not hesitate to use physical aggression as a social strategy because it has always worked," Rodkin said. "But there will come a point in these boys' lives when this turns from an adaptive and fun to a lonely and potentially dangerous characteristic." Parents may also unwittingly contribute to the problem by accepting or even encouraging aggressive behavior as long as their children are popular, Fisher said.
But, clearly, the break down of the adaptation Rodkin is counting upon does not always so reliably come to pass. Because the time tested tactics and patterns of the serial bully remain viable, unchecked and even highly successful in all manner of adult social context, none the least of which are the work place and even, most alarmingly, world affairs.
Schoolyard bullies, after all, face a far greater statistical probability of growing up to become common criminals. Unless, of course, they are slick enough for Politics.
"Explain cliques and their
mean maneuvers
to your child as in terms of power and control, not friendship." Yes, indeed,
and, or else, children, do explain it to your obtuse parents! "It
is amazing just how diabolical these
clique divas can be."
Girls use
a different kind of weapon.
Parenting solutions for girlish hostility.
voices From The Hellmouth from the Geek-Profiling dept.
More from the Hellmouth: Kids tell about rage.
Screams from Society "The Student As Nigger" The Columbine Massacre Geeks R Us
The Case Against Schools
Alienation
In The Life Of Students
WHY NERDS
ARE UNPOPULAR
I myself have found flamers and character assassins Online as Offline so irksome, tiresome and repetitive that, in order to save time I have finally simply compiled a stock answers to their distortions and accusations, into The Completely Inane and tiresome Ad Hominem FAQ for FoolQuest.com
But I am not the only one who can attest the matter is frequently far more serious and dangerous than that.
The formerly distant and impersonal Internet may be encroaching and closing in, faster than we think. "Perpetrators of social ills like bullying or stalking tend to use whatever media are available." Now, even text messaging on mobile phones. And here is a parody (I hope!) warning of the abuse of Online resources in the perpetuation of sinister cause.
After all, there are already thriving communities of spite, not just cutting edge Web-tech in the dark service of ubiquitous Neo Nazis and various and sundry other legions of angry kooks, but forums of revenge, cyber-vandalism and, of course, flaming.
Already for decades now on the Internet, flamers, short for for flaming assholes, have engaged in flaming, which is short for enflaming others with rage, that may consist of harassment, baiting, cyberstalking, disruption of forums, character defamation, malicious evil gossip, cyber-libel, slander against reputation, Relational Bullying, like manipulative strangers with candy, the trollish exploitation of confidence, harassment and sheer ventilation of Sadism, internationally ubiquitous or closer to home. But take the survey.
Prevailing guidelines for flaming, such as they are, scarcely constitute any embodiment of Critical Thinking, as flaming seeks to obstruct and subvert rational discourse of any kind. The mentality of flaming is iniquitous, in that being anti-critical, flaming does not seek to state, define or redress grievance or injustice reasonably or even press cogent criticism. Rather, the stated methodology of flamers is the highly subjective and flexible identification of unworthy classes of individuals, inferior beings, intrinsically deserving of abuse and provocation.
Or the evaluation of the quality and worth of expression of others according to the flamer's highly subjective and self-indulgent criteria, in order to rationalize lashing out at will, according to the morally bankrupt historically Fascist ideology of true honesty achieved only by the abandonment of all Civility and decency. But, far from unflinching honesty, flaming is predicated upon aggravation via unrelenting topic irrelevancy, the determined intent of drowning out signal with noise making heat without light and tends to be rationalized by victim blaming, scapegoating and defamation, one way or another. To deny injustice and gloat about it, all in the same breath. Flaming, in short, is the Online application of standard historically Nazi anarchic diversionary tactics, Sadistic persecution and self serving rationalizations thereof.
But flamers can be of any particular political alignment or none at all. Indeed, the logic of flamers, such as it is, may begin from their pointless taunting of such tempting targets as obnoxious flaming Neo Nazis, repressive religious Fundamentalists, charlatans, hustlers and USENET kooks. But then the field rapidly expands to become all encompassing so as to make anyone at all, fair game for flaming, at least in the twisted thinking of the flamers. Only so long as they can get away with it.
All of this is consistent with
Anton Levay's fashionably depraved
assertions of vengeance as any sort of a
moral compass, that are actually
immoral deception, having nothing to do
with any simply
amoral individual liberation and, indeed, can be nothing but a
license to
act
out, omitting as they do any
value of justice or proportion
whatsoever. For all such is but the ongoing distortion of Nietzsche that began,
historically, with his exploitative Nazi sister! Remember, Nietzsche, after all,
despised Altruism and Persecution, equally, as Ecclesiastical
vanity, Zen
futile worldly
attachment, snares and threats
to autonomy. But the post-Nazi likes of Anton Levay, not only
flamers,
specifically, but bullies in general, often actually advance Sadomasochism as
self realization, or at least on par with any other Hedonism.
After all, any success in
manipulation of the target of
flaming, any response at all, for whatever reason, indeed anything short of somehow or other
successfully barring or driving the target of abuse away
or driving them into silence one way or another, is considered by
flamers to
embody consent on
the part of their target to further abuse, according to Anton LaVey's puerile
and facile Satanist Sophistry and Apologetics for Sadomasochism that bald
facedly equates predation and baiting with courtship between informed and
desiring individuals.
And by similar repulsive logic,
often targets of bullying
conditioned into passive resignation by the school
authorities are then considered better adjusted, because, otherwise, if they
still react, then they are thought to be bringing it upon themselves. But, of course, by contrast with any physical
intimidation or attack etc. in Real Life Offline,
flamers are
quick to point out that Online with
flaming, far less is at stake. However, this may
be deceptive, as
flaming may serve to brand the target for disruptive
Relational Bullying,
defamation, ostracism and further incitement
to and co-validation of all manner of harassment and abuse, Online or Offline.
nevertheless, no different than bullies in general, there remains the one thing
alone that still stops
flamers dead in their tracks. And that is Civility,
manifest as the
moral indignation and disapproval of
bystanders
(instead of the all to common
apathy) against the sheer ugly discourtesy, as bad form and uncool. Or the disapproval may also be effective coming from an authority
figure such as a forum Moderator.
Indeed, The spell of
bystander
apathy and social loafing can be broken by the example and
assertive
honesty of even a
single Good Samaritan. But, otherwise, cowardice and
apathy of the public or effective secrecy that conceals abuse or, indeed, anything at all less than
staunch Civility at all, comes to the
flamers, as to any other cliques of
bullies, as tacit approval from society, thus enablement and impunity for
abusers.
Because, being devoid of actual conscience, conformist Sociopaths actually tend
to be all the more mortified by miss stepping into simple faux pas. That is
their weakness.
And all that is really needed for the introduction Civility into a culture, is a few plants in the crowd. A way of teaching in the field by demonstration. In turn leading to consensus building for moral suasion. The Clique Busters concept, Online or Offline, is about the covert engineering and orchestration of Civility and even the exposure of bullies and their cliques with intervention and counterpropaganda.
Is covert action justifiable? Yes, as an adjunct to more open Activism, sometimes when the problem is so bad that lives are destroyed and the victimized left traumatized. Especially when the authorities, or lack (or selective responsiveness) thereof, are part of the problem, then these are by definition conditions of at least relative oppression where an autonomous resistance, underground if need be, may be indicated. Not to rule out officially endorsed Clique Busters, should such opportunity arise. Labor and student organizations may also serve as Strategic Partners or patrons.
Clique
Busters,
should also cultivate legitimacy as a public advocacy or watchdog, wielding
intimidating
moral suasion, not unlike the Humane Society or the Better Business
Bureau.
The
Clique
Busters may respond to requests for help, or
even intervene
autonomously. In a closed social context, such as
a work place or school, recruitment must be internal. But
Clique
Busters insertion teams will be able to spring into action
in any open social context. And there are many places where
security is low, where infiltration may even be possible, at
least long enough to network local recruitment.
But, indeed, outside outreach
and intervention can be a thorny feasibility challenge depends the particulars
and will doubtless vary very much with the particulars of the
situation and
environs and it's isolation from, or
connection to, the rest of the world.
Are outsiders physically barred access? Otherwise, what will it take to just
drop by and but in, let alone get away with it? What about cover stories and
even simple disguises if need be? These are among the question that must arise
for intervention.
Perhaps at least co-workers/colleagues/fellow students/what-have-you and even
important customers and stockholders or whatever, whomever, as applicable, can
at least be canvassed for sympathetic support outside, say, on the lunch break,
by an Ad Hoc outside advocacy and intervention team, to draw support away from
the bullies and instead raise awareness and support for the
target of bullying and even begin building a stronger legal case than an
isolated and harried target of bullying is likely to muster all on their own.
If any respected adult where
to plainly state words to the effect of: "Thoroughly
bored of your tiresome
intimidation as I have become, nevertheless I take you extremely lightly, my
good fellow, because we both know that if you where ever to raise your hand to
me or anyone else within my sight, I shall certainly fill out a police report
and see it through to criminal charges. But mind your manners, sir, and we might
even get along by ignoring one another." -would that qualify him or her as a
Reactive Victim type bully, or
the response as somehow provocative or Masochistic, in any functional adult
society? Indeed, shouldn't the prospect of whatever suitable official complaint
be the expressly preferred deterrence?
After all, if violence in kind is all we respect, then why be coy about it?
indeed, in one way or another, some or any objection at all will eventually be
crucial in salvaging self esteem from humiliation. And for that purpose, simply
weeping and bawling openly in public might not quite do. So, exactly how are we
to expect people to ever stand up for themselves? Do we embrace the typical view
of thugs and bullies of complainants as "rats," or do we honor fully all
legitimate redress? This question must be pressed, always, to a satisfactory
resolution, both as a matter of official policy and informally, socially, by
Clique
Busters.
Because, plainly, threat of whatever appropriate official complaint should
actually be protected and encouraged both officially and in society at large.
Anything less is
conditioning to helpless passivity that is part of victim
blaming. And in case such is ever undeserved, than the natural response ought to
be something on the order of: "Well then go ahead and lodge your complaint if
you must. That doesn't frighten me because I obviously haven't done anything
wrong." If both the grievance and the objection thereto come in good faith,
a heated yet substantive exchange might ensue, even moving towards
honest
mediation.
Indeed, isn't rational
controversy
the most civilized and constructive exchange to which any society of
autonomous
individuals ought to pride and aspire? Do we not
value
forthrightness? And what is the acceptable response, but likewise? Or do we
simply coddle
acting
out
because in actuality, we only offer lip service to our ostensible
democratic
values?
Clique
Busters must actually orchestrate open and public validation of
free expression of grievance and of whatever applicable due process, not merely
in the abstract, but as example cases arise, locally.
Indeed, it should hardly come as any surprise that bullies would be averse to
the ideas of free expression of grievance and due process against bullying, or
that bullies, criminals and oppressors actively discourage either practice. All
the more reason why increased bullying in response to being warned to desist
from bullying (in legal terms: retaliation) should be punished most quickly and
severely of all, by whatever means are licit. Or else authority becomes an ugly
joke. Indeed, any such predictable behavior of bullying can and should be
exploited by
Clique
Busters against bullies at every opportunity, and as
repeatedly, publicly and shatteringly as possible. Anything less is sheer
impunity for bullying. Because bullying unpunished only persists.
All this being said, nevertheless, what are we to advise the target of
bullying, as a real world practical matter, as regards to sticking up to bullies
with a fair warning of whatever appropriate redress? Strategically, we might not
recommend it. Indeed, to be politic, it might be suggested that if the bullies
only behave the worse, then clearly they deserve no fair warning.
Instead, one unnerving tactic might be to smile wickedly at the bullies as if
one has a secret!
But blaming the target of bullying for being provoked at all is entirely
unacceptable no matter what, and be every means must be decisively ruled out, by
whatever necessary disruption, before any further discussion. Any cooperation
provided by the target of bullying ought to be treated as an immense favor. That
the targets of bullying must deal with bullying is undue and burdensome trouble
on the part of the targets of bullying. Never must the target of bullying be
rebuked simply for imperfect coping or other such nit picks. There is no perfect
coping with continual bullying. No one is perfect, but anyone must first be
rescued from danger and abuse before ordinary self improvement can again be
considered in requisite the tranquility. Basic protections must never be excused
or made contingent upon picayune complaints, much less invented grievances. Any
restraint on the part of the target of bullying ought to be appreciated and
considered as grace under fire and an immense favor indeed to the society that
has failed in the protection of the individual. The
trust of the target of
bullying must be well and fully earned by unconditional opposition to bullying,
before any even however most minimal added restraint or cooperation be requested
from the target of bullying, and even then, most humbly and apologetically,
under the circumstances of bullying which, after all, ought make responsible
authorities blush.
More over, meekly and most publicly apologizing in wretched mortification for
flagrant bullies may even be far more devastating thereto even than actually
scolding the bullies however soundly, much less actually accommodation or victim
blaming. And as a matter of optimal casting for maximal devastation and
humiliation of bullies and their vicious cliques, the apologetic spokespersons
might be any sort of authority figures and minor celebrities, figures of pathos
such as the elderly and infirm, or however passably attractive women.
Bullies generally prefer to target the socially isolated who are
without defenders. Therefore, the simplest and most innocuous thing that can
be done by any individual against bullying, is to immediately befriend the target of bullying
should one ever, whenever, come upon a bully or bullies bullying. The bully or bullies will
then retreat.
Alas, however, such opportunity is too haphazard as a reliable solution. And the bullies will only resume their harassment later on. That is why Clique Busters seeks a comedic systematic approach, by keeping known bullies and their targets under surveillance, to perform such maneuvers consistently, subjecting the bullies to mounting frustration in locating vulnerable targets of abuse at all.
Also, to better protect the targets of bullying, it will be important for Clique Busters cell to assimilate the targets of bullying into their peer group, and involve themselves in the day to day lives of said targets of bullying in order to better watch out for them. To raise consciousness, close ranks, and help build such group support as will leave bullies stymied, even ones in authority. Even to adapt such solidarity mimesis as nurses on call facing abusive supervisors have categorized under "Code Pink".
Again, the reason that bullies retreat at the sight of a target having friends, is because bullies prefer a victim they can isolate. But never a member in good standing accepted by their own immediate social circle, who may be supported when under attack. (Indeed, if future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, when operational, will, indeed, solve the problem of bullying, quite without any need for the Clique Busters, then, most simply, it will be by social embedment, leaving no stragglers for predation.)
Vague impossible and/or expanding demands and/or complaints/accusations, secrecy rather than useful feedback to at all chart one's progress in meeting whatever such demands, reasonable or unreasonable, are all typically all part of setting up the target of bullying for failure as a pretext ominously building up to abuse of power in the form of sanction of whatever sort. A decidedly helpless, maddening and Kafkaesque Paranoid experience.
Aesop said: "It is no use pleading when the prosecutor and the judge are one and the same." -As when the whoever takes it upon themselves to define whatever sort of standards are also taking upon themselves to decide who and who does not meet such invented benchmark (however defined or deliberately undefined). And this will tend to be difficult to demonstrate, as such tend to be very slippery and unaccountable.
And hence such ordeal only
accrues the terror, attrition and exhaustion from endless Cat and Mouse
headgames. For authority or peer pressure is well
known evaporate what little
support that the target of bullying may have found within an organization or
hierarchy of whatever sort, as if it where never there at all. Hence, the
best standard advice for targets of bullying is to hold onto sanity,
trust no
one, and to take great care not to say anything that might be turned against
one, and to document all interactions, verbal and otherwise, with bullies.
An interlocutor available by phone or email to help the target of bullying keep
and organize such a journal or log might be not only emotionally supportive and
validating but actually useful. Indeed, a drop in visit for just such might even
be intimidating for bullies and their sycophants!
Indeed, one effective mode of intervention might be to contact and keep tabs on
any target of bullying, to conduct ongoing interview and keep records. And, of
course, ongoing covert electronic
surveillance may also help best cover such vital needs of record
creation and maintenance. And there is even
The National Bullies Register.
(Though it currently seems dormant.)
Clique
Busters is conceived to help network all such above vital needs in
bullying
crisis.
Any target of bullying will also be well advised to locate and secure witnesses
and their written or recorded statements to back up one's own testimony of
specific experiences or observations. Of course, that would be easier with
the help of friends! And for the isolated and harried targets of bullying,
Clique
Busters, in outreach and recruitment, is conceived to bring those
who need it together to provide just such reciprocal assistance.
A target of bullying will also be most fortunate to find support and/or
mediation from an outside source to meet with all parties and find some middle
ground and even, if all else fails, to help the target of bullying in the
pursuit of legal action.
That, too, should be one of the
roles of
Clique
Busters, but not to the
extent of reinventing the proverbial wheel. Rather, a) to serve such function in
social contexts and
situations where such a thing does not yet exist and
probably has not been considered, and b) for outreach, intervention to
immediately bring targets of bullying (who might otherwise ill advisedly simply
try to weather the storm and hope in vein for things to blow over) together with
whatever help exists, is available, and is found to be at all reliable and
useful. This will also afford the opportunity for
Clique
Busters to build
ties of common cause to existing and influential associations.
Roots
of Empathy actually utilizes regular visits with an infant into the
classroom to reduce levels of hostility by teaching social/emotional
competence/literacy and empathy in order to effectively help elevate each
student's
emotional quotient, the
quotient between the "emotional age" and the chronological age in order to
measure
emotional intelligence,
how well a person understands emotions, intelligence regarding the emotions,
especially in the ability to monitor one's own or others' emotions, particularly
as determined by such as the MSCEIT (Meyer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional
Intelligence Test).
And surely, the above empathy tactics are as benign as it ever gets! So, can there any imaginative context or pretext for wider application? And could such ever be enough alone? Or might it remain safer to maintain a broader array of appropriate tactics against bullying?
Indeed, though already slightly more confrontational, the Bully Fix of Dr. Michael Leeds is an intervention wherein the participants, perhaps also including the targets of bullying too, gather together with the bully in an encounter group, and the bully is made aware of their own bullying behavior by demonstration, by being triggered into such habitual response under the controlled conditions, in order then to have said bullying behaviors lucidly pointed out to the bully. And it does seem only fair, after all.
Now, some bullies, hither to so blithely un-self-aware will be given awkward pause, ultimately to contemplate changing their ways. How wonderful, always! But other bullies, unable to cope, will retreat into denial, and the worst most Narcissistically indifferent will only smile and taunt: "what-cha gonna do about it, chump?" -Or any range between just such brazen flagrantly hostile expression or else slippery subtext still to that same effect.
That us why Clique Busters proposes, if need be, to go any further than the The Bully Fix in so far as to contrive the necessary encounters and dramatic mimesis between bullies and targets of bullying, even without the cooperation of whatever authorities if any, and to at all explore whatever feasible and decent nonviolent prospect of going beyond simply making bullies aware of their behaviors, merely bringing to the attention of bullies their misdeeds, if and as ever need be.
Whereas future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry is conceived to open even to bullies, more meaningful connections than the pathetic co-validation of their cronies. To provide better compatible matches to better integrate even bullies into society, in order to improve them. But it always pays to have a contingency or an added motivator. And that's where Clique Busters comes in. Their world must end, for ours to begin!
That is why the
Clique
Busters
are to routinely infiltrate
the cliques of the bullies with operatives under cover feigning approval for
bullying, in order to better maintain surveillance and intelligence gathering.
Let alone, ever by any means or notion, outreach to reform them.
After all, even Harry Seldon (unlike Karl Marx) had a Second Foundation up his
sleeve to safe guard his great plan from distortion.
The brilliance of
viral marketing
on the
frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry
will be that even people who do
not actively access the
system, may still be profiled and
matched thereby, from the compiled data anonymously entered by
others.
Future
interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry is conceived of not be merely a
software, but a culture,
that which people do. And
future
interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry will facilitate outreach, even to
the isolated or victimized. And, if need be, via
Clique
Busters, to better help bullies by consistently disrupting
their bullying. Which is only what a truly civil society ought to
do in the first place! Despite the concerns of critics who deem
it intrusive to "educate" others. Some bullies, kiss
ass that they are, may even take a hint and desist.
Clique
Busters will also be important, because, as well
as simple harassment and intimidation, bullies conspire and
collaborate toward what is now recognized as and termed
Relational Bullying, or to coin another description,
Interpersonal Sabotage. The very opposite
motivating
goal
put forth
for
future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry.
Anger phobic critics have even sunk so far into bullyspeak apologism as to complain that Clique Busters seeks to bully the bullies, thus sinking to their level, and that two wrongs don't make a right. I counter that the repertoire of Clique Busters techniques and responses are well within the conscience even of Pacifism, turning the tables, throwing the curve ball, playing the Transactional Antithesis, subversively elevating with justice, the mimesis of the bullies from scapegoating into a valuable morality play upon civility. And even then, as intended only for deployment given the failure of compassion, sweet reason and peace making, and as an alternative to the scapegoating, victim blaming and breakdown, conditioning of victims to passivity which so often follows, when there is a failure to stand up to unreasonable bullies who depend upon opposition being so completely wishy-washy.
On the other hand, for those who see resistance to bullies as at least possibly appropriate, but for whatever reason, question the idea of reformation thereof, let thwarting bullies be considered the primary objective, while any moral lesson learned by bullies from being consistently thwarted, the Psychiatric breakdown of the adaptation, be considered a possible and welcome added moral victory.
To paraphrase Clausewitz, Clique Busters is the continuation of civilized policy by different means.
Make no mistake, the ethics and morality of Clique Busters is a very serious consideration. Indeed, is it even possible for any sort of moral code to cover every conceivable circumstance or option? Not to mention that any action, however righteous, may have all manner of unintended and unforeseen consequences and repercussions. So, moral paralysis is not actually so hard to understand.
But as nothing can be perfect, the tactical options of the Clique Busters approach only needs to offer hope of improvement to be worthy of further serious consideration.
Consider also, that whatever the rules of engagement from the onset, in the end people will end up doing things differently, one way or another, according to their own natures. Any human process may evolve or simply go awry! -No matter what safe guards may be undertaken.
History teaches us that there is grave concern in sanction of action against people then for whatever reason classified as destructive, no less than in the alternative extreme of tying the hands of innocent victims.
Yes, life is often intrinsically and inevitably offers only the limited and dubious freedom that is choice of lesser evils. And, so, in any given situation, what are the alternatives? If a viable alternative, one that is not already failed and that is more responsible than Clique Busters presents itself, then, perhaps that ought to take precedence. But passivity and denial only abjure all responsibility, providing enablement for impunity compounding whatever damage.
The fundamental types or tactics of bullying consist, if not of violence out right or at least intimidation, then harassment, bullying mimesis, the syndrome of "mobbing" shunning and Relational Bullying by such means as disruptive pranks, peer pressure and evil gossip towards isolation and ostracism.
Beyond proselytizing, consistency, consensual validation and demonization to rationalize all manner of abuse, bullying memes employ what Dawkins calls the adversative mode against all dissent, the attacking and/or undermining opponents. Since it may also frighten many nonhosts into silence, the adversative mode effectively sabotages any counter-meme. The level of bullying and intimidation reduces most of its opponents to silence. But likely opponents, less proximate to nexus of cliquish interaction and power, and hence any harder to intimidate can always be kept in the dark, even as repressive elements expand outwards and increase in their strength and number.
For, to paraphrase Sun Tzu, malicious gossip is like water, flowing to the lowest places, and avoiding the high moral ground. Or like an electric spark to excite the evil doer, passing between the readiest conductors, while avoiding the insulation of morality or credulity. Such is the memetic vectorization of malicious gossip and highly organized mean spirited conspiracy adversative memes.
One standard strategy of bullies
is simply to persistently propagate hate speech about the targeted person in
order to incite hostility by any disturbed personalities or fanatics.
Bullies can often be hard to identify and oppose due to their two-facedness, as well as the power
connections
they've established. Such bullies are devious
manipulative consummate liars. And,
often, it may even take low guile to thwart low guile.
And, as to the place of and the need for low guile, in the good
fight, it does well to remember how George Bernard Shaw reported
no pang of conscience what so ever, in pointing the fox hunters
in entirely the wrong direction after the frightened quarry
dashed by before his very eyes. And as much can be said of the
righteous who gulled the Nazis at every opportunity to protect the persecuted. Even
courageous Pacifism must draw a demarcation line from sheer
spineless
conflict
aversion.
Of course,
Clique
Busters
ultimately aims at building
effective and open consensus against bullying. At some point, we must speak out
for
Clique
Busters
to
begin propagating culturally. That is why protest and counterpropaganda
attack operations are also key to
Clique
Busters, Online, by flyers,
buttons, other handouts, eye witness video
and word of mouth. Yes, consciousness raising and orchestrated
gossip, expanding
counter-mimesis
and with
a vengeance! And this
may necessarily entail that bullies may come to experience
distress from harsh public
criticism
of their behavior. The bullies, after all,
are to be pitied, having scorned every true friend to teach them right from
wrong. And some one must arise to tell them "no".
But, in that case, what is hoped will distinguish
Clique
Busters
counterpropaganda
from the bullies own repertoire of
defamation? In
a word, justice. Instead of the kill-joy of abrupt intervention without
resolution, instead, civility to subvert bullying
mimesis by
involvement with
dramatic
meaning
and
honest
moral
value
beyond the impunity of
bystander
apathy that only
panders
to
scapegoating.
Not mere criticism, but grievance. And, of course, truthfulness. With the motivating goal put forth not merely of dominance, but of moral victory and value. And certainly not martyrdom. Nor should perfectly truthful targets of bullying have to fear sounding crazy or pathetic ever again!
Short of complete and utter moral paralysis, Beating the Bully is a short and sensible article about dealing with bullying.
The context is that of grade school, but one may consider what part of it may or may not adapt to any other social context. But one must also consider when any strategy might fail or become self defeating.
For examples, in less formal circumstances where responsible authority is not clear or ill equipped, in situations of scapegoating and victim blaming, false accusation of whatever sort or collaboration with bullies one way or another, when stalking bullies actually make themselves nigh impossible to avoid particularly during social events where there is a grave Catch-22 dilemma in that retreat, momentary or permanent, obviates participation and only yields to the bullies' aim of exclusion of the target of bullying. Or when whatever legal recourse fails or becomes endlessly protracted. Nor is retreat even always feasible when there is an obligation to attend, as in the workplace or the classroom.
Indeed, the article does not even really deal with Relational Bullying. nevertheless, Beating the Bully remains good practical advice in some situations, and from which to make a beginning.
Likewise, though focusing in the workplace, kickbully.com where your fight begins
Of course, hypocritical bullies also can and do take a prosecutorial tone. Alas, guilt tripping, after all, is no more exclusive to truth and justice than indignation is reserved for the blameless. Because there are always manipulative scoundrels getting away with fraudulently seizing the moral high ground.
Thus, the potential for abuse in any sort of response what so ever is demonstrated. And some are sharply profoundly paralyzed by this realization.
But the
freedom
of any
moral
choices
can only be responsibly evaluated in comparison to the practical
alternatives. Unassertive inaction by
apathetic
bystanding,
dishonest
silence and social loafing, these are sins of
omission, however rationalized by whatever craven and self serving blanket
demonization
on principle
of any resistance or opposition what so ever.
nevertheless, perhaps one fine day,
future interaction on the frontiers
of advanced automated Sociometry alone can end bullying,
non confrontationally. Hey, if ya hate
Clique
Busters ya gotta love
advanced automated
Sociometry! But there are foreseeable
problems,
even with
future interaction on the frontiers
of advanced automated Sociometry. And, therefore, if it is ever needed, something like
Clique
Busters might well arise on it's own. Because
future
interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, if it works at all, would inevitably help
coordinate global bully resistance already coming together, and
even network together people who would evolve into
Clique
Busters by sheer complementary inclination. Unless, of
course, the need for any of that indeed simply begins to
disappear come the advent pf
future interaction on the frontiers
of advanced automated Sociometry, as
visionary computer programmer Douglas Wilson is convinced it must.
nevertheless, we may only be prudent to cover all bases simply to err on the
side of caution.
For, indeed, just as the Civil Rights Movement was answered with murderous Racial violence, and just as Gay Liberation has elicited Gay Bashing, indeed, future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, not despite but because of all the great good it could do, may be answered with a Reactionary backlash well before the entire world can ever be Utopian transformed.
In one case in the news, a Heterosexual male was severely injured in a beating by an assailant who simply thought the man was Gay, just because he was seen hugging a close friend before taking leave of the restaurant where they had gone with others for dinner. Worse, police response was decidedly half hearted. Gay Bashing is on the rise because open Homosexuality has triggered certain unstable and extreme Homophobes, who otherwise might tend to stay underground, but who continue to be supported underground, not unlike abortion clinic arsonists and other terrorists.
And, likewise, the tendency of Relational Bullying and harassment, in any context, and on any scale, from the petty to the severe, to escalate when the target of bullying tries to do anything about it, or things begin to improve, is well established. Because such petty cliques are protective of their vested interests and power, and such bullies already readily excitable to jealous rage by both the vulnerability and even the envied positive traits of what ever sort of personalities the bullies look for and tend to target as victims.
Thus, it is plain fool hardy not to have an interim back-up plan like Clique Busters. Just in case even future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry does not reform bullies just a step faster than it helps their targets or otherwise begins to improve and open up society in ways that, leave us face it, would rather tend to upset cliquish bullies to act out. Relational Bullying and Social Network Optimization are directly opposite and antithetical. Period.
Besides, until hoped for future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, we must make do with other feasible options.
And even from future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, social conflict, "culture wars" of some kind, are eminently likely. And head-in-the-sand Moralistic see/hear/speak no evil Pollyannas are merely irresponsible enablers for bullies. And it must be hoped, someday, and sooner better than later, that the positive influence of advanced automated Sociometry will help them all to grow back-bones, instead.
Indications are that bullies may already be coming out against advanced automated Sociometry. But response suggests that Clique Busters may even help raise interest in future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry. Thus, it may be hoped that the Clique Busters concept may prove more of an actual asset than any sort of embarrassing public relations liability, after all.
Be that as it may, the
correct identification of bullies and victims is key, of course. Hierarchies
of bullies, and
conflicts among bullies, may complicate the
picture. That is why effective Intelligence gathering and
development are crucial. local
area social network mapping functionality will also be useful in
intelligence analysis as entailed in projections of
future interaction
on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry.
Also, individuals who are really only angry mainly because they
might be pining for acceptance by bullying cliques, are quite a different
matter than targets of bullies,
known or unknown to the targets
who only want to be free of bullying and want nothing to do with
bullies. And
Relational Bullying goes far beyond any bounds of
the right of refusal by anyone, however snooty, to associate with
anyone else in particular, individually, or even to dislike them,
privately.
The difference is that divisive
Relational Bullying contrives and
connives to isolate the target from third parties entirely, even
to ostracize the target completely. To actually search and
destroy all of the target's existing social
connections and block
every opportunity for the target to make new ones. And that's
distinctly another matter, isn't it? A conduct so vile, that it's sheer unbelievability is exploited by bullies to vilify and discredit not only the
target of bullying, but the very idea that such things do, indeed, happen at all. And
these are all important counterpropaganda points against the lies and rationalizations of
abusive bullies. Given these realities of human nature, are we
all Paranoid
enough?
The entire point of Relational Bullying is ambient or stealth abuse to obstruct, subvert and misdirect consenting association. Relational Bullying is not an expression of the bully's freedom of association. What a pernicious lie to ever suggest that it ever could be! Rather, Relational Bullying intentionally robs the target of their freedom of association, thereby making very broad adverse impact.
"The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and unjust fella
But more upon the just, because
The unjust has the just's umbrella"
Putting someone at a comparatively unfair disadvantage, or by unfair means, is robbing
them.
The social technology of
Clique
Busters proactively aims
at the inception of a procedure that will
motivate exposure of
the truth and fan the flames of social and individual justice.
A good test for the identification of a clique of bullies is to persist in
asking for explanation of their hostility in terms of
objective
reality and fairness. To insist to know what actually
happened, and how and in what sense did their target ever wronged them.
If the questioner is simply brushed off or scorned, then the
bullies have been identified. However, by the same token, the questioning
skeptic is endangered, exposed to the bullies.
But to actually learn the whole truth, another more devious
approach is indicated:
When stroked, these braggarts will spill their guts
uncontrollably, of all they'd never admit under any duress. So
desperate are they for validation. All that is required is
feigned Sadistic approval! Indeed, questioning skeptics may even that easily
restore their safety and anonymity, by simply pretending to change sides!
Indeed, in order to avoid giving cues and contaminating the results, employ an emotionally loaded semi-coherent incomplete sentence as a projective test, just such as may be contrived to illicit response to exactly such ambiguous stimuli. Then humor the subject, feigning enthusiastic agreement to reinforce whatever answer as tumbles forth in response.
The
Clique
Busters Zen, the
moral bottom line, is,
if you came upon abuse of whatever sort, the act, preparation, or
the conspiracy, might you ever hide and listen, to warn the
intended victim or even to bear witness publicly and in protest?
Might you ever go so far as to humor the wrong doers just to pump
them for details by which to implicate themselves? And would you
ever plan on doing any of this sort of thing deliberately? -Especially
if you could rely upon good logistical support...
And, of course, the bullies' targets must also be contacted and
interviewed, then warned about the bullies' evil plans. Not to
mention anyone else by standing or involved.
Little Brother is watching right back! Indeed, the whole world's watching.
Optionally, all interviews, infiltrations, response tests, events as they unfold and so much more, can all be covertly recorded, electronically. Of course, this constitutes a violation of privacy. Just as good street lights violate the essential privacy of muggers and burglars! No, damn it, abuse and conspiracy thereof is not part of the legitimate privacy of the abuser. Much as their sycophants will complain.
But, one way or another, Clique Busters infiltration remains an important consideration because, unlike overt harassment, much of destructive Relational Bullying is orchestrated and carried out behind the targets' backs.
Extensive personal manipulation is contrived and practiced to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion, who and what one must approve or disapprove, together assimilate or ostracize, in such a way that it appears responsive and situational, while it actually has been prompted and orchestrated by the ring leaders of the controlling clique. The individual within the clique then increasingly develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates actively in the manipulation of others. Peer pressure and reinforcement legitimizes the deception and abuse used to influence and bully others.
This is why open and publicly visible freedom of association, the very motivated goal ever put forth of Clique Busters, is also crucial to tempting victims out from abusive relationships. Clique Busters will serve targets of bullying who want nothing what so ever to do with the bullies hounding them.
But bullies also sexually and emotionally exploit victims whom they draw in and isolate within their cult-like cliques. When a cult or a clique is recruiting, they only give the prospective recruit a little information at a time and lead them along in an environment they control, so that one never is availed of any opportunity to look too closely at the big picture that no one in their right mind and good conscience could ever fall for.
8. the cliquish community standards become the ONLY standards available
for self-evaluation under disorientation via
ambient or stealth abuse.
By the conditionality of meeting emotional needs only given the desired responses, peer pressure of negative conditioning and even emotional tear town against undesired response and awkward begged questions and generally obstructing and discouraging error checking, the technique of graduated indoctrination can be employed, with continual repetition, so as to gradually reshape the subject's belief's or position. Most commonly, whatever innocuous seeming truisms may be utilized initially as a starting point, and then the behaviors and rationalizations thereof of the clique are slowly and stealthily introduced and connected thereto, unexamined. In this way, the individual subject may be coaxed to perceive the righthink the peer group as consistent with their own own habits, personal boundaries and perceptions, no matter how jarring and suspicious it all might have been, had the proverbial cards all been laid out on the metaphorical table from the beginning, instead.
And in case any of the above threaten to become too transparent, then often find added thereto, like sly, deceptive, manipulative strangers with candy, the trollish exploitation of confidence online or offline alike.
All of the above is why it can be of great value for clique infiltration to also serve as a covert outreach to maneuver the exploited into forbidden contact with the target pariahs, to begin comparing notes, even bonding and even perhaps someday to benefit from future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry.
Infiltration into bullying cliques that are so often a first line of isolation shielding a private world of exploitative relationships, may also prove a valuable avenue for covert outreach and needed intervention and victims assistance from all manner of abuse. And so, Clique Busters should also coordinate with victim's rights advocacies and initiatives against relationship and domestic abuse.
The Clique Busters Zen, the moral bottom line, is, if you ever met an isolated, abused and exploited individual, would you befriend them and try to help them out from abuse, isolation and exploitation? And would you ever go out of your way to do it again on purpose? And would you ever do so discretely, if that where called for? Even to the point of humoring and deceiving control-freaks who are known to consistently run interference?
It is common sense enough advice to be circumspect, and give bullies enough rope to hang themselves, when they talk like bullies. To swallow ones ire, and even prompt them to continue. But often that simply isn't enough for proving malfeasance or acquiring crucial intelligence. And this is a very serious matter.
If the target seems isolated and vulnerable, harassment will ensue. Or, conversely, if the target initiates contact, or if contact is initiated with the target, Relational Bullying and even overt harassment will ensue. The behavioral responses of bullies are predictable, and they can be entrapped in carefully staged sting operations, appealing anti-bullying behaviors that spectators, both interested and unwitting, will be encouraged to learn and to imitate. Thus will a new behavioral structure be provided.
The
manipulative bully,
outmaneuvered consistently, will no longer be able to exploit the civilized
restraint and vulnerability of the target of bullying.
Indeed, if the right buttons can be pressed, a bully can be
manipulated into eruptions of temper and loose face completely
without dragging anyone down except for other collaborating bullies.
But even that may be
deemed less poetic justice, seeing as how perfectly nice
people can and are also incited to loss of temper. Yet
it may still be an important strategic option. For clear and distinct poetic justice that
unambiguously demonstrates the point,
ignoble thwarted bullying should
clearly be the cause of a bully's public temper tantrum and loss of face, unmasking
the inner ugliness and immaturity of a facile bully to public scorn.
Otherwise, any mere taste
of their own medicine, may do no more than sink to their own level, and
make little point, indeed, just as the most facile and gutless critics of
Clique Busters have opined. Bullies can and do already bully one another, after
all.
Are such tactics right and just? Yes, in self defense. Certainly when the bully
initiates the
conflict, and seeks to harmfully
manipulate the target of
bullying.
Answer: The standard and proper ethical standard regarding entrapment is that the sting ought to be invalidated in cases of anyone being coerced or drawn into something that one would not otherwise do. For example, even a Vice Cop posing as a prostitute must lay in wait for suspects already seeking to break the law rather than actually tempting the innocent astray.
For devilishly leading dupes astray, hounding law abiding citizens, or even fabricating opportunities and temptations that are unusual and unrealistic, drawing those who would otherwise never have transgressed, and even twisting their arms, is rightly criticized that such ought to be out of bounds for prosecution.
Likewise, what would be excessive might be to really hound and peer pressure anyone until they gave way, implicated themselves by joining into wrong doing, and then, say, to actually blackmail them. For such, indeed, is a common criminal and fascist political scam. However, triggering the knee-jerk responses of bullies against their targets of bullying, in staged scenarios, sting operations, in order to exploit their Paranoia of exposure against them, can fall well within the envelope which is the entire point.
If, and only if, bullies are already on the attack, then let it be in the time and place of our choosing, better than theirs, and with preparation, to regain the initiative, which is the ability to make credible threat.
Some calculatingly
pathetic
manipulative bullies,
Pakled like, cycle in an intimidating and
manipulative one-two
punch, as it where, continually between lying,
violently threatening temper tantrums, and then sad pathetic sympathy
plays. The
Antithesis against the Pakled type bully lies in just as
persistently and continually denouncing the lying right then on the
spot, then standing up to the resultant aggressive displays and threats
of violence, and then refusing the
cowering sympathy plays.
Because, with any luck, the threats are bluster, and they will
cower if they cannot intimidate. Thus the bully will loose face. For if
the bully does loose temper, let alone slip into actual violence, they
will loose face all the more. But only so long as no one is allowed
to then placate them.
Hidden violence, however, is another matter, of which evidence must be gathered and disseminated, beyond what the society will tolerate.
Sun Tzu said: "Be mysterious!"
It is important to always present bullies with the opposite of what they are counting on. To read them the riot act when they laugh up their sleeves, expecting one to swallow one's rage. But then one must stay calm when they are trying to get one's goat. Clique Busters, after all, is about regaining the all too crucial initiative.
Emotional quotient is the quotient between the "emotional age" and the chronological age in order to measure emotional intelligence, how well a person understands emotions, intelligence regarding the emotions, especially in the ability to monitor one's own or others' emotions, particularly as determined by such as the MSCEIT (Meyer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test).
Another Clique Busters strategic option may be to actually egg on bullies, in such a way that it will be obvious that they are being set up, and ridiculing them in the process. As they come to resent this, they may actually be conditioned to become suspicious and resentful of the attention, support and Existential co-Validation they crave for bullying. Such tactics may be most effective in reconditioning with followers, blistering outright sheeple, the "mobbing" and shunning copycat bullies and often characterized by underdeveloped emotional intelligence as opposed to the narcissistic indifference more typical of their ring leaders.
In a carefully controlled and orchestrated scenario, imagine repeatedly actually setting up bullies, egging on a bully, but progressively in an ever more a loud crass publicly mocking manner, ever more clearly at the bully's expense, there by conditioning the increasingly uneasy bully to actually mistrust enablers and instigators! That might be particularly good for copycat bullies, together with open discussion to help them gain the desired perception and perspective with regards to their conduct, and how they might actually appear to others they ever might ever hope to impress.
In other words, by orchestration and subterfuge, to actively condition by humiliation and shaming, the clear and distinct impression that bullying is actually ignominious, an unworthy conduct marked by and attended upon by discreditable public contempt, until the behavior pattern abates and is redeemed by change to the better.
While bullying can be a very public display, even so, bullies are often very sneaky. Or they just have sheer unmitigated brass and show no empathy or conscience, smugly playing it off like nothing at all. Such bullies are all about getting away with bullying.
Tactics against petty Demagoguery

There are always those picayune zealots who rail against the objectification of women as inherent in Media and Advertising, just as they continue to do against cartoon violence and spirited Rock & Roll.
But all of that is still nothing more than pseudo-psychiatric magical Victorian thinking, that if we don't talk about it, if expression will only be excised from popular culture, sex and all of the strife that comes with it will just go away. But sexual and emotional exploitation, unexamined, is a day to day occurrence accepted and adapted to as part of business as usual. That is why real attitudes and practices ought to bear such scrutiny as is wasted upon witlessly oppressive culture wars.
Truth in jest:
As the old joke goes, three women from different countries discuss how each of them would cope, hypothetically, as the only woman stranded on a desert isle with a group of healthy and robust men.
"I find a fortifiable safe location" answers the English woman. "I'd make an alliance with the strongest man to fend off the others" replies the American woman. "I don't understand" responds the French Woman, quite mystified. "What is the problem?"
Answer:
"The popular clique or cool group, whose members have the most friends, socialize earlier than others inside and outside of school, and appear to be having all the fun." But the truth may be uglier than cultivated appearance.
In Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels', Gulliver, upon his return to what we call civilization, describes life among the Yahoos. How the leader of the Yahoos is selected as the worst person among them, and how he then recruits the next worse among the Yahoos as his lieutenants to help him herd together all the Yahoo women for themselves and violently monopolize all other resources as well.
And Gulliver is perplexed at giving offence in giving his account of the ways of the Yahoos, blithely unaware how close it cuts to home! Nor can anyone explain it's offensiveness without exposing their own hypocrisy! What Gulliver describes, of course, is the amoral behavior of herd animals. And like herd animals, the Yahoos make no hypocritical pretence of Moralism even in all of their most flagrant self serving. -Unlike the persecution seen in that which we call civilization.
For to quote Mark Twain, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
"In general, most men fail to
meet women [because] they travel in packs but go on the hunt solo" or, to employ
the Naturalists jargon, they function, and badly, as "sneaky
rutters", according to
'CubanJoe's
Rules of Engagement', apparently a more
condensed version of 'The
Pickup Mission'.
But if the notion of a human pack seems already quite unsavory and disturbing, then, as Jonathan Swift reveals to us, the human herd is by far even the worse!
Bullies appeal to the lowest common denominator. Bullies are malevolent confidence tricksters often abusing trust of affinity and exploiting the greed for easy acceptance along with the urgency of misplaced compassion and sex appeal, to bypass Critical Thinking and conscience.
There really is no term for a sexually active or sexually open woman that is not derogatory. Use value, physical, emotional, help, assistance and comfort in life, every good thing, all of it, is at best taken for granted and actually vilified as to lower exchange value! Obviously, this peculiar exchange rate was never set by lonely guys. You know, the nice ones, who are always finishing last, as the saying goes. nevertheless, it remains the truth, that virgins are boring! Thus it must be hoped that tolerance is not, in truth, the exclusive hall mark of the utter looser and undesirable. For yet does it escape me what can be so tantalizing about domineering sexist prudery, judgment and abuse.
Disinhibiting chemicals, their social dependency and "Downright upright" TV commercials not withstanding, there simply is no way for a woman to be both respectable and free and exciting at the same time. Much as, now a days, many do try. Except by getting off the fence and asserting herself and the dignity of sex for pleasure.
A woman only exposes herself to risk of judgment and abuse by depending upon Yahoo cliques of bullies for social connection. And needlessly so. Because, when bullies slander a woman who remains in demand, no less when they seek to poses one who mocks them, all the more, the bullies will only seem foolish and impotent. They know this, and can only fret amongst themselves, if their bluff is thus called.
Not unless they are actually ready to resort to forceful coercion and even violence and enjoy the impunity for doing so.
Tension may arise from mystery, the unknown, events unfolding or outcome in any way in doubt. Tension is stress, and the innate or conditioned emotional, neurochemical and physiological preparative change or stress response to challenge, stimuli or stressors may be either distress and dread as to threat and emergency or eustress, the euphoric stress of pleasant anticipation, the demands of pleasant activities, power and opportunity.
Even humor depends upon tension from an insecurity brought to a resolution called the punch line, that may be either surprising or else even obvious and anticipated, just so long as the tension builds and then crests. Teasing, well intended or otherwise, also cultivates and builds stress. So does flirtation, but likewise manipulation, rejection or indifference and harassment or threat.
The Stress Vulnerability Model of Psychiatric Disorders is flawed only in that for these purposes, what is called biological vulnerability is actually universal in the condition of the human species. And so, the determinant is nurture, not nature. Fraudulent obfuscation to the contrary are only the current preferred high powered junk science marketing tactic of the Psychopharmacolical industry, pandering to compassion burn out and desperation, mocking and trivializing such cherished illusions as the yearning for understanding and with them all Philosophically/dramatically meaningful values arising from the deep wellsprings of human emotional needs.
The will to power may be benign, benevolent, malevolent or absent and ineffectual, as per culturally acquired behavioral patterns and the content of individual character. As a matter of sexroles, it is said that, one way or another, while the pleasure principle of power (even if not in the hostile sense of dominance, but only in the benign and even constructive sense of opportunity) arouses men, it is mystery that keeps women involved, for better or worse, the worst being to simply and blithely act out response to ambient or stealth abuse triggers of pernicious ambivalent conflicting mixed signals, even to the tragic point of veritable Masochism, even the eroticization of learned helplessness and poisonous Cinderella myths. Indeed, various destructive cliques, particularly Obscurantist cults and scams, draw in the mark in vein hope that things will begin to make more sense as the mystery unfolds. Alas, happy endings are never guaranteed in the face of passivity and love conquers nothing without backbone, the courage for growth.
Women are all too often encouraged to take men and sexual opportunity for granted, and, no less prudishly intolerant than men, even to fear, revile and despise what comes to them too eager and easily, to dread the forbidden fruit and wait patiently and even in some sort of erotic suspense for approval or permission that will never be forthcoming.
And, for the most part, men are either genuine and therefore easy or else just manipulative. And this is uncomplicated. The drama of real complexity and depth of character arises from empathy, regret and analytic disposition, and not just any level of common inner turmoil and conflict whatsoever. Alas, the vulgar preference for predictable melodrama, in both art and a life, the mimesis of senseless headgames and Stockholm Syndrome full of tribulation that come only to one's own disadvantage. And this is more corruption in the Nietzschean sense, against which the struggle of true Feminist empowerment, no less than the Causeless Compassion of a mythic Wonder Woman, must fiercely contend.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the
imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
- Samuel Johnson
The three motivating principle cofactors in effective manipulation and disorienting ambient or stealth abuse are whatever the incentive and disincentive vulnerabilities of the target(s), the tactics of the
manipulator(s), and time for the relationship to develop under whatever situation, free or captive.Stockholm syndrome is the name for the bond of attraction that sometimes develops between abuser and abused, molester and molested, captor and captive, and in particular between terrorist and hostage. The term derives from the recent case of a woman held hostage at a bank in Stockholm, Sweden, who actually became so pairbondedly attached to one of the bank robbers that she broke off her engagement to her previous lover in order to remain faithful to her former captor during his prison term.
The Stress Vulnerability Model of Psychiatric Disorders is flawed only in that what is called biological vulnerability is actually universal in the human species. And so, the determinant is nurture, not nature. Fraudulent obfuscation to the contrary are only the current preferred high powered junk science marketing tactic of the Psychopharmacolical industry, pandering to compassion burn out and desperation, mocking and trivializing such cherished illusions as the yearning for understanding and with them all Philosophically meaningful values arising from the deep wellsprings of human emotional needs.
The phenomenon of manipulation is best defined as undue advantage from trickery via the exploitation of affective innate and conditioned triggers or "push buttons" to undermine and overwhelm, even barrage, resistance, caution, better judgment and autonomy of the target, via insidiously motivating subtext and ambient or stealth abuse of emotional positive incentive and negative disincentive. –As distinct from open coercion alone or substantive disinformation, lies. Typically, the manipulator obfuscates the nature of their coercion exercised, along with whatever self-serving advantage thereof, whatever their own ultimate motivation.
Positive incentive manipulation is such as deviously appeals to value in fantasy and desire, love, sex or greed, promoting false hope of whatever gain, in order to circumvent or overwhelm resistance, caution, better judgment and autonomy of the target. Whereas an example of negative disincentive manipulation, such insult as condescension that after all comes of love can be less painful than insult that comes without it, or more so, or equally so, as the case may be: but be that as it may, it is, in any case significantly more harmful. This is because insult provokes anger and hostility, but hostility towards people who even sincerely profess to love you and act on your own best interest is curbed and turned inwards, internalized, and experienced on the level of the inner conflict of self-hostility, namely guilt. Such deceptive appeals undermining the target’s credulity and defenses even whilst actually exercising coercion constitute often likewise internalized flagrantly manipulative behavior, conscious or unconscious, selfish, indifferent or just desperate.
And under conditions of captivity, anger may illicit reprisal of one kind or another, giving cause for fear and the yearning for any hope as might present itself.
For the menace of the captor represents but also deflects a palpable threat of harm to the captive. And this makes for an inherently dramatic and perversely absorbing good news / bad news situation for anyone who ever feels trapped. Bad news in the danger, good news in that it may be appeased, averted, especially, if redirected and then validated. And most salient to Stockholm Syndrome, overwhelming gratitude even for the barest most fleeting respite.
In whatever degree, and in it's
immediate and long term effects, Stockholm Syndrome perhaps more accurately described as Slave Loyalty Syndrome or mentality, obviously applies to what amounts to effective captivity even in family life, and certainly to bored and stressed students and workers. Always, it's all for your own good, dear! Enhance your calm, citizen...The salient point omitted from direct assertion, even though actually fairly well explained in the otherwise most informative summary of
'Loving to Survive' is how Stockholm Syndrome, in any context or degree, is not merely situationally adaptive, but can all to often condition in the long term to become horrifically maladaptive and entrenched, even to the point of learned helplessness of Battered Woman's Syndrome, of conflict aversion and pathetically profound cowardice all clinging even to utterly kinky fairytale false hope beyond reason and even the most lucid conscious understanding. And also, what is not really confronted, evidently for fear of stigmatizing victims as defectively masochistic, is that resultantly attachment disordered sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome, in whatever context or degree, come to actually prefer abusers and manipulation to vulnerability. Indeed, yes, among other manifestations and examples, case in point, women so frequently do seem to prefer the biggest jerks and assholes! Though to be fair, many men, likewise, may be drawn to unattainable narcissistic women. Certainly, too many of us have lost confidence, pursue that which is withheld from us, and fail to reach out to opportunity or fight back in adversity.
Accepting constraining values of sexual modesty and propriety (overwhelmingly powerful triggers of the deepest and most intensely personal embarrassment and shame) and even the most plainly arbitrary and unfair self serving judgmental rejection of ones peers is a prime example of the Stockholm Syndrome perversely maladaptive and codependent immediate and long term effect of overwhelming gratitude even for the barest most fleeting respite and eager willingness to see things from whatever the captor, abuser or bullies' point of view. Likewise shunning and failing to reach out to more accepting and easygoing people instead, particularly the romantic competition such as demonized by possessive controlling cliques of bullies, likewise fits with ambient or stealth abuse and the Stockholm Syndrome perversely maladaptive and codependent immediate and long term effect of frightened rationalized actual loyalty to abuse, eager gratitude even for the barest and most fleeting respite and determination too see things from the abusers Point Of View.
And just such perversely maladaptive codependent effects of Stockholm Syndrome often tend take over the subjects' social life almost entirely, rendering autonomous responsibility for normal, supportive and reciprocal relations with decent people difficult to impossible.
Indeed, for those who equate jealousy with authority, everything happy or confident is quickly forbidden, because anything good in life will always incite acting out of jealous rage in one form or another by somebody or other at all manifesting exactly such character defects which the unfortunate subject of Stockholm Syndrome in whatever degree will consistently tend to attract and be drawn to and even seeking out for excuses to chicken out of life.
But Sun Tzu said that there is no loss worse than that of the initiative relinquished. And no illusion more perilous than any such folly. For Sun Tzu, the enemy is not to be placated and strengthened, but intimidated and steered in the direction of one's own choosing.
Initiative is the power to create threats.
The side with the initiative
is usually also attacking. Against a threatening enemy, one has not only has the
right, but the obligation to attack upon any sign of weakness or opening. If one
can create threats the enemy is weakened. This should be self-evident and
expected of the enemy. Yet many tend towards contempt of weakness and assume
that one must have made some mistake to be put in any position of weakness.
The side with the initiative controls the course of events. But keeping the
initiative even when over matched requires creativity, whereas the opponent only
has to react to threats. In most everyone's experience, attacking is easier than
defending, and, what is more, errors in defending tend to be more fatal,
typically leading to defeats or great loss of resources. While errors in
attacking usually only lose the initiative -- which, or course, in the long term
may lead to defeat.
The defender has less alternatives in choosing a plan. One might think that
that job would therefore be easier, but choosing the right plan may be much more
difficult for the defender. There is often only one way to endure, whereas there
may be several ways for the attacker to win. Many brilliant attacks have proven
better defendable from hindsight, because the defender could have gained the
advantage with some imaginative response. In theory, every attack is
over-optimistic; in practice, attacks are most likely to decide the outcome.
Being proactive means being willing to win, which may be enough in many
situations.
As will be demonstrated in the
sections of this text to follow, the threats and attacks of prudish cocksure Sexist bullies
seeking to control women are prone to exactly such errors of complacency and
underestimation that can cost them the initiative if only quickly and
competently exploited against them in imaginative counter attack most likely to decide the
outcome in resounding victory against them.
Bullies deserve no reverence, for they are pathetic. And, here in the Chivalrous
West, Sexist bullies may often depend entirely upon whatever explicit or tacit
prudish validation they can extract from women who by meekly playing it safe not
to anger the bullies thus enable their craven impunity. So much so, that the
bullies may be profoundly stymied and vulnerably exposed when, instead, this is
withheld them, and they don't get their way. And, as will be seen, just such
tactical "Judo" offers the best initiative to be seized and turned back against them.
But, indeed, should a woman submit to be deemed virtuous, made vapid chattel, dull and meek, then some of her suitors must be vilified by other of her suitors. Woman, passive, property, is the object of contention. Thus, traditionally, Straight people persecute one another quite vigorously, unlike sexual "deviants" instead achieving socially protected minority status by ongoing proactive strategies of activism.
Indeed, us "normal" folks also need to remember that
eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Cliquishness is all about driving wedges between different people. Particularly but not limited to those assimilated, isolated, abused and exploited within the herd/cult-like clique, and those ostracized, isolated, abused and exploited on the margins of the social network, once the bonds of sociability have been eroded away. Tactics and rationalizations of Relational Bullying and disorientating ambient or stealth abuse. Only the more volatile and hypocritical where sex and Sexism are involved, but essentially no different.
In order to advance their standing, Bullies may lay in wait for others to slip up. Ah, but bullying itself is no faux pas, precisely because it is maliciously deliberate. Of course, this flies in the face of the opposing ideals of Civility, where in, on the contrary, honor and esteem accrue in actually helping one another to save face, especially in matters of little moment.
Conniving and domineering bullies are self righteous and pimp-like, in that they cultivate influence by controlling associations between others. Relational Bullies, as Moralistic self appointed chaperones and gate keepers, are quick to portray themselves as public servants and their targets as paranoid delusional cases who actually bring their difficulties upon themselves. Thus hypocritical Relational Bullies love to seize the high moral ground by intervening unasked supposedly on behalf of any third parties, often taken by surprise and startled into silence, in order to publicly treat the target of bullying, whom the bullies actually hound, as a pest.
But, far from bearing any underlying redeeming agenda, abusive Relational Bullies hate their scapegoats and competitors the more should they succeed socially then should they fail.
Generally impugning motive and thus leaving grievance the more vague and damaging, rebuff of the target of bullying is cited to reinforce the depiction of the targeting of bullying as a pest and an undesirable, while positive response to outreach on the part of the target bullying is cited to reinforce depiction of the target of bullying as predatory or a bottom feeder, depending upon the social standing of the other party.
Yes, it would seem that one pariah can, indeed, contaminate another pariah, in the warped sensibility of bullythink! Indeed, the cliquish mentality is well known for it's scorn towards all who would offer aid and comfort to the targets of bullying. Anyone who even begins to accept the target of bullying will often be deemed one way or another helpless, fragile, callow and naive at best, and in urgent need of rescue or warning! -And, of course, the sense of all such memetically adversative "warning" is always purposefully ambiguous, as whether this is a simple caution regarding the target of Relational Bullying, however vague, dishonest, untrue, malicious and unjust, or domineering and cynically controlling peer pressure, a very, very thinly veiled threat indeed, to deter all others from free association with the target of Relational Bullying; while speaking of "rescue" or "protection" is obliviously euphemistic in obfuscation and rationalization of a possessive sense of appropriation or, failing that, destructive sense sabotage and vandalism of sociable conductivity, motivated by a deep seated jealous rage.
Hence social blunders may even be deemed the less intrusive than successful connection. Bullying is then justified as needed public service! Obsessive dedication in Relational Bullying and Harassment is then seen as socially constructive and, by just such victim blaming, scapegoating becomes self justifying. Indeed, fanatical and sanctimonious bullies, instead of tiring and losing interest in their malicious sport, often come to actually feel themselves weary and burdened by their scapegoats and by the obligation of sheer tiresome and wasted effort of unremitting persecution! For, in the words of Bernard Shaw, "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."
Bullies, then, are consistent in their unremitting behavior, but their actual
conduct belies their own habitual excuses and
rationalizations. Because,
shameless
Relational Bullies not only opportunistically leap into action to rub
salt in every wounds of incidental awkward rejection and to search and destroy
all opportunities for interpersonal networking in advance, but will go to any
shocking or devious lengths to disrupt any and all positive interactions with
the target of bullying as ever they may still arise. Be the afore said third parties
known at all to the
bullies or even complete strangers.
The threat to social progress
So, won't
future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry
to vastly
improve interpersonal networking for each individual, for
whatever kind of contacts or relationships, bound to upset a lot
of bullies? Indeed, there are indications that the very idea already does. nevertheless, visionary computer programmer
Douglas Wilson eternally hopes otherwise, because
future interaction on the frontiers
of advanced automated Sociometry will likely reshape a more stable
and tolerant society, and even imbed the bullies, or former
bullies, into close knit social networks, thus helping the insecure and maladapted, who need it most, so that they will be happy, benefit
from positive influences, loose interest in bad influences, and
give up their destructive behaviors.
And that all this will entirely go off as smooth as silk, without a hitch, and with nary a
ruffled feather! Or so, we can only hope. Because
future interaction on the frontiers
of advanced automated Sociometry, and it's revolution, will be both so
insidious and so ubiquitous. Non confrontational and
morally undemanding. So much the better,
then, if Clique Busters proves nothing but needless Paranoia. In
that case, the question remains whether such Paranoia simply errs
on the side of caution, or only exacerbates danger. After all,
just because the latter position sounds like sheer victim
blaming or
scapegoating, does not signify, neither logically nor
Ontologically.
The vindication of Clique Busters?
And so, I have undertaken the moral defense of Clique Busters on a point by point basis as we go. I also have been explaining Clique Busters, strategically, how it is intended to work, and why. And I still await cogent moral or strategic refutation, what so ever, from any of my horrified detractors. -Never mind from those who do not acknowledge the problem, impugn the motives, or even those with the sheer temerity to deny outright and categorically that group dynamics of any sort what so ever even factors into individual misbehavior at all.
And when people are nervous and refuse to explain why, then must wonder if we have at all convergent agendas. And so, it may even be a positive sign, from where I sit, that they quail so.
Because, why ever would people of good faith hesitate to open my eyes, if I am, indeed, so misguided? What ever can be the flaw so obvious in my world view that no one dares speak it's name? Surely not that the destruction that accrues from self serving petty malice and hypocrisy makes me angry. Not should they truly share my righteous indignation, sympathy or pain. Nor should anyone fear to act, these proposed tactics and measures all being so moderate as they are. Who are they afraid to upset? Surely not the enemy in the first place! Or maybe so, and even with good reason. But what are the alternatives? They refuse to say.
All in all, and unaccountably, there are those who seem more upset by Clique Busters, and far less afraid even of any prospect of yet another school yard shooting spree! Not that such, either, is really anything new. Just topical.
Standing up to bullies remains a test of character. And some folks just seem to measure and ration theirs out. Appeasers in the end, who compromise out of reflex, not reason or prudence. Who are timid in negotiation. Who imagine allowing some place for bullies, even as bullies, rather than excluding or improving their behavior. And let the targets of bullying pay at least some tolerable price for business as usual. As if the suffering of others can also be measured and rationed out, or that the bullies would ever be so careful and gracious, knowing their place and bound by honor.
Some more advice for women about men and society, in order not to be bullied
Some people generally and women especially, are hard to get simply because they know that they are in demand, enjoy every advantage of competition, and have so many options and too much on their proverbial plates. Others, ambivalent procrastinators, just lie to themselves that they are keeping their options open by sheer indecision and timid inaction.
Indeed, some people generally, and this is often the expectation of women in particular, value and rely upon close relations and connections not only for safety but also for resources, while others are quite simply terrified of strangers. The latter tend to be deluded as to the nature of intimacy as well as influence, isolating themselves within an insular social setting and surrendering initiative.
People like that not only cease to compete meaningfully, but cut themselves off from the benefit of competition among others.
Women in such social circles can only have contact with men who insinuate themselves into such social circles in order to acquire contacts instead of simply approaching desired contacts directly and then networking from there according to one's own inclinations and motivated goals however put forth. Rather, the commonly recommended technique, even taught in courses for social success, is of behaving to appear "mellow" and innocuous like TV's Mr. Rogers, positive and never negative, in order to inculcate false sense of security, rather than taking social risk of being genuine, interesting or stimulating, showing the best one has to offer and honestly having a good time at play (defined as any uplifting interaction enjoyed for it's own sake) without the unremitting sycophancy of forcing or faking it in recreation (defined as the desperate struggle to recuperate from the mounting stresses of work, school or family life, at one's own expense and on one's own time).
Thus to allay Xenophobic unreasoning fear and avoid jealous rage rather than to entice or to reach out. To be circumspect, unnoticed and to slither in under the radar, furtively, without shedding any ray of hope.
This is all utterly phony and even unmanly. And woe unto women too bullied and insecure for anything better! At best nice intelligent people are repressed in order to fit in. But, far worse, the most abusive and exploitative people excel and advance to even to leadership, "popularity" even when actually detested, in this common and accepted chicanery of social hypocrisy.
An alienated and alienating process, a major turn-off arousing only to the deeply facile. Social hypocrisy stripped of it's former subtlety, nuance and the charm of desperation which remained somehow genuine. Mellow?? Better dead than mellow!!
Even worse, peer approval and status may require calculating exploitation and then casting aside of others as "stepping stones" in the crucial process of social climbing to a more desired mate! Indeed, that much is also common advice. Ultimately, dominance and preeminence among men is achieved by collusion to monopolize women.
However, to make matters worse, just as the German Feminists are fond of pointing out, even long after men have lost interest in dominating women, it is women, in competitive Patriarchic slave mentality, clinging to and jockeying for social position, that are most abusive, judgmental and controlling of other women.
Clearly what women respond to need not be at all the same thing as what women say they want even when women are completely candid. How sad, how frightening, when good men, in lonely desperation, seek bad men as social mentors, resigned that women will not respond otherwise, when women have gone insane, become corrupt in the Nietzschean sense. For "I call an animal, a species, or an individual corrupt when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers, what is disadvantageous for it." Such is the distorted alienation from the self resulting from twisted and contorted effort at coming to terms with society. Masochistic timid ersatz mediocre Conformism, passing by whatever is of individual rare and unique value, difference at all upon which true intimacy is predicated.
The problem is that no one can function at all without responses of both trust and mistrust. But when one is kept under constant pressure and suspense, self-confidence is shattered and judgment suffers as a result. Hence one is not only too paralyzed from stress for much initiative of one's own, but both too easily prone to unwanted hypersensitivity and suspicion, even of friendly overtures, unready to accept as true what remains uncertain, and, on the other hand, as well, too easily pressed to overlook undefined uneasy feelings warning of exploitation, rather than challenge a lie, no matter how hostile, unless there is the most blatant smoking gun, which would only only make for the more crushing a revelation anyhow.
Most honestly, this may manifest as a simple experience of distress and confusion, if not compounded with dishonest denial and rationalization. However, typically the vulnerable will find themselves bullied and Stockholm Syndrome brainwashed into the self-serving denials and rationalizations of their abusers.
In such a poor frame of mind one may consistently fail to respond to outreach while remaining pliant to exploitation. And this may be further exacerbated by isolation, conditioning and tradition, the more so where sexroles are a factor.
There is more to be said about the common debilitating fears of women, conditioning to all the wrong signals and against all the right ones, and how this is routinely exploited, particularly by way of devious and intimidating Pursuer-Rescuer headgames under the oppressive and hypocritical mimesis of the Honor-Protection Racket. That, alas, just as it is so often the most duplicitously evil even more so than just the spinelessly bland that become most adept at insinuating themselves into the lives and social circles of the women they so covertly pursue, that socially expected bogus non-threatening Mr. Rogers mask which anyone ought to see through where one not in conditioned traumatic denial, is often most skillfully worn by the creepiest most palpably Narcissistic self-involved two-faced hypocritically possessive "protective" bullies as part of the devious emotional hot and cold treatment by which they break down resistance and extort stunned compliance. For the icy calm of the abuser offers the desperate target of abuse some respite by which they can be bribed and become conditioned to.
Just as such Narcissistic character may be either criminal outright in their exploitation or just unremittingly petty and conniving, they may also be either self sufficient in their methods, or they can be tightly organized and collaborate closely to calculatingly fabricate and maintain a social environment tailored to support their self-serving abuse.
Such malignant counterfeit is never truly a secure web of close relations and connections. Safety and security will only be an illusion of connection where really there is only isolation and manipulation to the collective agenda, especially for women.
So it remains the
responsibility of women to master the overwhelming terror and knee-jerk response
that rises at the implicit and violent rape-threat of prudish judgment and
persecution, however "protective", and never, ever, to compete in so-called "virtue" with the
more-virtuous-than-thou in their own ranks, but, instead, to deflate them
decisively, continually and consistently.
And, always, however, without any of the opposing
sexually active social
climbing Catch-22 cooler-than-thou peer pressure, either, of course, which is
the true prostitution needing no less to be disrupted and defused than the
ubiquitous movable convent.
Rather, if women ever truly want equal respect, the genuine article and not the
euphemistic semblance of the Double Standard, to uphold, zealously, Do-Me
Feminism and the individual dignity of risk and of
sex for pleasure and
never to be conned, even as adults, into enduring as charity and accepting the
control of such malignant disrespect that even children, quite frankly, should
not.
Fear not, but always be glad to threaten the ignorant and evil, and make the
most of it. For as Winston Churchill well said it, those who will surrender
freedom for peace shall have neither and appeasers never prosper. Such
great truth seldom stays in fashion, yet it returns again and again.
As Adolph Hitler writes in MEIN KAMPF "Like a woman, whose spiritual sensitiveness is determined less by abstract reason than by an indefinable emotional longing for fulfilling power and who, for that reason, prefers to submit to the strong rather than the weakling - the mass, too, prefers the ruler to a pleader."
Hence, in chronic recapitulation of childhood experience of dysfunctional family, not only any such a woman, but any such masses, Masochistically romance, enable and support just the sort of jumped up little Fuehrer they deserve, effectively inflicting tyranny on all the rest of us as well.
This is precisely why Nietzsche abhorred any such involvement as might socially sublimate the entirely individual will to power, health and growth. And why the ideal of democracy is a society which distinctly remains the shared tool for the advantage and protection of each individual rather than merely a perverted collective outlet.
But while any personal relationship to society as an abstract entity remains as much dangerously deluded fantasy as personal relationship to God, interpersonal relationships certainly are emotional outlets, and should be, quite aside from tangible and practical benefit.
nevertheless, one may either accept such outlets as are sanctioned by tyranny, or else hold out for anything better. And this still proves not only a matter of individual personal responsibility, but democratic social responsibility as well.
Personal relationships are seldom truly apolitical. They all impact any immediate social network and contribute, for better or worse, to the interaction of society. Acceptance in any kind of relationship makes acceptance a factor and some sort of a commodity in society while any bullying in any relationship thereby manifests as a mode of discourse in society, both of wider influence for the bully and isolation and exploitation of the targets of bullying.
Life on every level may be
seen as the struggle to establish healthy give and take
connections, and against
the snares and mayhem of cynical co-exploitation compulsions and the domineering
imposition and
acting
out of emotionally brutalizing interpersonal
roles.
Where the Boys Are
Why play games? Generally, game playing is an obstacle, confusion and a distraction from real value. Instead, how can the desired behaviors and responses be elicited?
For example, honest answers to honest questions can be had from honest people to begin with. Whereas, unlike perhaps the deep rewards possible in effort at nurture and seduction towards the shy and withdrawn, the challenge of fencing and drawing out the truth from habitual liars seldom actually pays off in any way even when successful, at least in any relationship save antagonism and enmity outright. (Clearly, misplaced sympathy and deep identification with the undeserving, however laudable, will indeed often prove itself a snare, if there are ever any reasonable expectations in return whatsoever.)
And, likewise, for a desirable woman, fishing for complements is certainly just as easy as senseless bickering, at least with just about any man who does not actually withhold all manner of praise what so ever. Moreover, dalliance and flirtation are easy enough foreplay to pass the time pleasantly, given cooperation and barring all such manipulative and undue disruption that, as a requisite of dignity and Civility, must never be excused or tolerated.
Often, for women now a days, the challenge and discipline of applied self-knowledge, however, may be to identify from worldly experience and inner life whatever deeper and subtler inner needs from others, to then research and consider how next, by trial and error, to systematically recreate similar openings and effective triggers for whatever such similarly beneficial interactions.
Because emotional rescue comes quickest for those who actually and actively wish to be found. And such is the first step in the overthrow of unfortunate conditioning and maladaptation and the beginning of recovery from corruption in the Nietzschean sense by the reclamation of one's own vital instincts.
And in that light it should become plain and manifest that unlike the docile Mr. Rogers mask or the threatening ogre making "for your own good" excuses, a decent man should have a normal range of emotion and even free opinions of his own; and a circle of friends should be of mutual support, not reciprocal domineering exploitation and jockeying for manipulative advantage.
So, if you are a woman who's current social network is not optimal to your own best agendas, then whatever kind of men you are looking for, to find them, go where they are. motivated goal put forth
For example, just any any competent gold-digger becomes a trophy-wife by going where the rich congregate, then one need not be so mercenary motivated to be at all actively goal directed and genuinely selective, as, for example, to put forth and carry out the goal of finding a man with a sense of humor, find out where and when local aspiring stand-up comics get together to practice shtick. Or, for another example, to meet a professional and an animal lover, try the hotel bar during a veterinarians convention. Or for an outdoorsy type, why not hang out at a camping supply store? (Men are easy. We can be had!)
That is, of course, for the time being and in so far as anyone knows and can identify what one will best respond to in others. It is hoped that future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry will accomplish as much better and more reliably. In the interim, assertive common sense may be best for women, in order not to be bullied.
And even to break away from the herd and become more accessible, even, for example, just to dance more. Unless, of course, you are still just loitering to engage CubanJoe and his Wingmen!
The key is that while we are all needy, not everyone need be utterly self absorbed. It only makes sense, then, to actually test for the ability to relate and to be accepting.
Anyone attractive enough to childishly aggravate and toy with would be suitors and waste everybody's time, would be far better off to simply name their own terms, not only to their own best advantage, but also to cultivate such opportunity as to offer the world the best one has to give; and forego the extortion of withholdance for fear of rejection, an interminable involvement that saps vitality for all involved.
Never allow yourself to be steered by conditioned social reflexes and lead about by the nose by just anyone. Never be so quick to surrender the initiative. Don't be touchy and hesitant, and don't be malleable either. Bad men are often so slick because the are Sociopathic, with no feelings to perturb them, while good men more genuine and readily affected, not to mention more courageous and willing to undertake social risks, may consequently trip over their own proverbial feet of clay, especially when being bullied in sneaky ways by unscrupulous romantic rivals.
So, help break the ice. Make conversation. Hold up your end of the conversation. Look for good leads. And always consider the source. Interview each prospect. Even flirt.
Even if one does insist upon playing hard to get, one must nevertheless encourage the other party in order to keep them interested and persistent, lest they simply interpret no answer as an answer no, and then accept "no" for an answer, rather than shouldering uncertain social risk in a fruitless pursuit.
This is only what your mother should have taught you!
Never tolerate nor buy into to unasked "protective" possessive or hostile behavior, neither from strangers nor acquaintances. Even though passivity in such a circumstance does relieve one of the responsibility of active short term decision and dire choice. In truth, acquiescence to bullies is a dire choice indeed. Do not rationalize your own feelings of intimidation, as this opens the way to classic Stockholm Syndrome where in terrified hostages of criminals in their desperation for hope, are even known to convince themselves that their kidnappers are actually protecting them from the police!
However, on the other hand, while simply walking away from all such ugly posturing may seem like the more mature response for a woman, that may often be exactly how the devious Gatekeeper Relational Bully isolates rivals and scapegoats to thereby limit and control a woman's freedom and choice of association. That is why any such rival or scapegoat must always be defended and the bully humiliated by failure and exposure, every time they attempt such hypocritically manipulative pranks and headgames. Upholding of civility and fair play remains crucial in functional role modeling of legitimate moral authority. Otherwise self-serving possessive and controlling bullies and hypocritical lust crazed prudes will continue to actually seize the moral high ground via the emulation of the blustering moralistic tyranny under which we all live.
Of course, real hostage situations and the like alluded to here are extreme and mind-bending. But we are now only making a metaphor to more ordinary day to day life. And therefore, the following question is utterly begged of some people:
What, are you actually that helpless?? Don't you know your own mind? Aren't you responsible to speak for yourself? And how can one tell who would really respond, or who would just run away, if anyone ever actually cried out for help in any real emergency? Probably not some self serving posturing bully. Knee-jerk hostility has even less value and greater danger even than any other cheapened false sentimentality.
Munchausens are well
known for
manipulating and exploiting the sympathies of
the compassionate but unwary by the
ambient or stealth abuse
of deliberate exaggeration and/or fabrication
and/or inducement of problems, most straightforwardly onto themselves, or more circumlocuitously, at the expense of others. In particular, the misdirection of
Munchausen by Proxy, where in a surrogate is deviously exploited and
abused by a Munchausen type perpetrator in order to foment
melodrama and draw
attention among the kind hearted, is well
known.
In parallel, but instead among vicious uncaring bullies, in order to foment
strife and put themselves at the center of the action while remaining passive,
seductively play
acting to the hilt the role of victim or
damsel in
distress for
the manufactured and co-validated impunity of the most cultish and pimp-like
isolating and controlling cliques, enticing bogus knight-errants and self
appointed chaperones, malicious Munchausens typically love to deviously and
manipulatively instigate and frame vulnerable, convenient and opportune hapless
scapegoats as their proxies and targets of bullying doomed to face overwhelming
harassment, danger and threats of violence,
sexual harassment, Relational
Bullying,
evil gossip and
defamation.
Thus do the worst bullies seek one another out, in a desiccated teasing and
fraudulent courtship, a mockery of vulnerability and concern, directed only to
abuse, exploit and lash out at others more alive than they whom they so fear,
envy and resent.
Amazingly, the typical unfeeling two faced Sociopath, bereft of empathy,
moral
compass, analytic reasoning, self awareness and proportion, actually relishing
all taboo and hypocrisy, is irresistibly drawn to the forefront in just such
witch hunts in part, actually out of a desperation for missing
values,
involvement and
meaning. And victimization may even be their way of reaching
out. But it can only work at all on the most weak and cynical of targets, as
when co-exploitative bullies chronically back-stab one another or in the worst
manipulation, isolation and domination.
It is a common tactic of
evil gossip to disseminate hate speech in the hopes, eventually, that such messages
will eventually reach, validate and encourage someone at all who is sufficiently mentally imbalanced to act
upon it, destructively, one way or another, even to the extent of violence or
harassment, against the target of said hate speech gossip. And for bullies to
network thereby, deviously, emboldened by numbers.
From this it may proceed that certain forms of mockery and
demonization may
cross the line not only into provocation and harassment, but frightening
veiled threat, not only of ostracism but then followed by all manner of
abuse and even menace to life and limb, to sly open invitation to harm the
target of bullying such that is no less criminal in principle than actually
putting out some sort of a contract on somebody, the payment in such case being
the bribe of impunity and approval.
The above assertions are not Paranoid. Indeed, indeed this sort of thing happens
every day unless actively deterred within the culture. Short of that, the bad
simply drives out the good in short order.
We need a higher standard.
We need values of Civility!
Picayune
sexual innuendo also plays a particularly destructive role, evoking
vague taboo and bogus threat to society, and thence most virulent impunity.
Isolation tactics of course always also include
Relational Bullying. And
defamation also coveys not only bribery of acceptance and impunity but no less
intimidation directed against others than the target of bullying, to likewise
shun the target of
Relational Bullying.
The most damaging conceivable
innuendo may be such as will serve to mark the target of bullying as vaguely
sexual predator and somehow render haunting and hounding said individual into
some sort of public service, making trouble and
scapegoating the victim. This can
involve all manner of life style or orientation bigotry, but not necessarily.
Motivation need not be anything more distinct than whatever self serving jealous
rage. The
scapegoated target of bullying, made pariah, will be hated the more in
success than failure, an unwanted pest with every rebuff, dehumanized the more
in solitary retreat, but a worse monster with every encouraging contact that
must be invasively "rescued," in actuality, simply peer pressured, bullied, even
threatened and penalized away from the target of such ostracism. And all of
their own good, supposedly! Such the divisive
Honor
Protection Racket, since time immemorial. A massive and malignant pretension
ripe for Clique Busting.
The Honor Protection
Racket
Clique Busters is conceived of as intervention of empowerment against self serving controlling bullies, agitation towards a society of freedom and dignity, safe from shame and intimidation. And the Honor Protection Racket is just such a ubiquitous and neglected and destructive social hypocrisy needing urgent remedy.
A protection racket typically fabricates a threat of violence, and then markets a solution in the purchase of security services. But such are a thin pretext for simple extortion. Similarly, the Honor Protection Racket creates a threat to the reputation and security of women, and similarly proffers a mythology instructive of a solution, am approved code of conduct and social integration, likewise extortion of submission restrictive of lifestyle and social connection.
The ambient or stealth abuse of hostility among men towards women represents but also deflects a palpable threat of violence against women. And this makes for an inherently dramatic and perversely absorbing good news / bad news situation for women feeling trapped. Bad news in the danger, good news in that it may be appeased, averted, especially, if redirected, especially into the mimesis of bullying headgames and then validated. And that is all that may be needed for various degrees of Stockholm Syndrome behavioral conditioning of damsels in distress into the very worst Pursuer-Rescuer headgames, especially from early on in life.
Denotatively, the very term "sex object" is only supposed to mean,
whatever target, focus,
motivated
goals
ever
put forth
or not, objective, of
sexual attraction and desire for
gratification, or in a word, sheer allure. But, as to so being to the
exclusion of anything else, that is by no means implicit or necessary inference.
Indeed, objectification in terms
or sense of helpless brainless passivity, is another matter entirely, and an
unfortunate connotation, the true applicability thereof happenstancially
pursuant to whatever courtship selection process, decision making, filters, just
who else involves themselves, invited or not, and in precisely what
capacity.
The problem, yet again, is one of society, frequently with it's own
agenda, as
interpersonal intermediary, giving rise, once again, to alienation, painlessness
and anomie, enabled from frequently misguided and misplaced questing for any
sense of security. The ugly truth is that real safety depends upon control and
regulation of one's social environment rather than being incessantly controlled.
Extortion is relatively straight forward. Intimidating threat, implicit or explicit, is applied to compel compliance. But a protection racket may turn upon more devious modes of ambient or stealth abuse:
A threatening problem simply appears, and, presently, with the needed coaxing, so does a particular singular and validated solution. But, as it may come to pass, said solution will typically demand whatever crucial and exacting requirements in it's implementation. And since the trouble makers ( even if not any scapegoat) and the bogus problem solvers are one and the same, in typically manipulative exploitation of the typical wishful thinking in whatever degrees of Stockholm Syndrome, compliance is extorted under pretence of any sort of legitimate transaction. -Or even as if it where a great favor, guidance, protection from oneself, lest arise the displeasure of others, rescue from looming faux pas, not to mention, whatever emotional risk life may ever present.
Indeed, it may easily seem preferable to be regarded, treated and conditioned as a lifelong helpless witless milquetoast than the alternative, to be scapegoated and exploited as a slut.
Any peer pressure seeking to regulate entirely consensual networking of sexual conduct, is instinctively yet correctly recognized for what it really is biologically, deep down at the primordial level, an implicit violent rape-threat. But, remember, it's all for your own good, dear! We know what's best...
Frightened appeasement as a knee-jerk response must then be rationalized, even unto kinky fairytale false hope, if only in order to preserve self esteem. And, subsequently, social climbing in the face of conditionality amounts to the desperate attempt to negotiate the recovery of any shred of the dignity that thus has been stripped away by sly intimidation along with autonomy, and all without resistance.
Culturally, fantasies that are constructed for the resolution of such inner conflicts as those between innate desire and inhibition of conditioned shame and fear may often serve, also, to perpetuate situationally inherent social contradiction. A cynical exploitation of conventional wishful thinking.
Feminine virtue is a concept
of domination. Behaving as if it all went without saying or question, cliquish
prudishly judgmental bullies "naturally" keep alive the threat to reputation and then
"graciously" offer
standards of compliant behavior by which reputation allegedly can possibly, but
not reliably, be safe guarded.
Because, of course, even this remains uncertain and at the discretionary pleasure of
the evil gossiping judgmental bullies
and anonymous back fence Yentas. And
this sort of
conditioning procedure fearful uncertainty and instability is really nothing more or less than
intimidation, terror and extortion, a classic Protection Racket, among the
oldest of the all, the
Honor Protection Racket!
That's the one where helpful hints are dropped, making a great favor of intimidation, offering as it does, opportunity for compliance. Because one would not care to dwell upon the social consequences of deciding one's own mind, heart in order to own one's own body!
The motivated goals, even if never openly and explicitly put forth, of these hypocritical tactics is to limit contacts and options for women and leave them vulnerable to exploitation within a relationship and/or the limited social circle of the bullying clique.
Standard Pimpology, isolate and dominate!
So, always watch out for third party manipulation and intimidation. Social circles match making often have their own cynical agendas. And this goes especially for divisive intrigues, hostility and subterfuge, running interference even between strangers and newcomers, not to mention actually conniving and conspiring to drive wedges between long standing friends and couples and then pimping off the newly available desirable women onto blind dates to incur prestige and favors owed.
Such tactics and practices, the power over men by influence and domination over women, monopolizing connections no less than any other vital resource, is sometimes known as controlling the honey pot.
And the dirtier they play just to draw others in and keep them in their orbit, the more manipulative and codependent will be the relationships and peer interaction that accrues therefrom.
Do not be a people pleaser, an approval seeker, especially not from abusive or indifferent high status individuals who don't really need you.
To yield, sexually, is slatternly. But to abstain from sex is uncool and even stuck-up. Like Goldilocks' porridge, indecisive, always to hot or too cold, but never just right!
Thus, anyone can be vulnerable to ridicule and defamation. Unless, of course, they are popular and thus can do no wrong either way. Of course, it is no accident that popular girls can get away with far greater sexual activity and even range of partners, reputations unblemished. Otherwise, no conceivable extreme of lonely "virtue" can ever stand beyond reproach. Even virgins are routinely defamed for want of popularity and influence by which to deter such abuse!
Do not put out in order to be accepted, as that is only entrapment for prudish judgmental rejection. But do not become sexually repressed or distant, as this often renders women unable to function sexually except with unfeeling consummate liars more than willing to play such games and de-emphasize sex simply in order to get sex. (Because courteous and/or caring people, by contrast, are too honest for all of that, and won't sink to all of that, or know how.) Nor withhold sex in order to extort approval, because of the conditionality of said approval, a snare into becoming dominated, frustrated, exploited, discouraged, held back, taken for granted, an emotionally distant mother substitute.
Catch-22. You can't win, so don't play. Avoid both prudish Sexism and cooler-than-thou with extreme prejudice!
Would you ever want to have a friend who hates your ethnic group, but makes a special exception in your case? Would you ever seek to tone down your ethnicity for their comfort and approval? No? Then why become demure, restrained and conditioned by dysfunctional unmanly men who actually loath women and fear the very sexual expression and acceptance that they also so badly yearn for?
"I have worked in MANY offices, and what's sometimes called "sexual harrassment" goes on CONSTANTLY in ALL of them. However, it's USUALLY what's also called "flirting" and "teasing." Some women and men don't like to be flirted with or teased, and so we DON'T PESTER THEM. But some of the other men and women (the smart, friendly ones) are sort of HURT if you don't flirt and tease back and forth with them a little. (It's an ancient primate grooming thing, you wouldn't understand.) "sexual harrassment" or "flirting" can become almost interchangeable, depending on which way you're out to GET somebody." rants the notorious Reverend Stang of the Church of the Subgenius.
Indeed differing expectations, if even they are at all clear, may co-abide in any willingness to live and let live. But, alas, all such good will and good sense so often be found in short supply must indeed be prized and cultivated.
Alas, the prospect of collusion is an overture to sex as a subversive act (as defined by Orwell), the consummation of the deepest wish for acceptance obstructed by the worst fears of entrapment and persecution manifestation of positive and negative transference, respectively.
And so, it is only prudent to adopt strategies of social politics that will turn such vulnerability into a strategic advantage. And so, it is high time to begin by confronting the lies and the truth as to the nature of popularity, social prominence, and the strategic ramifications thereof:
In School, for example, "Certain factors determine who belongs," According to Sociology Professor Patricia Adler. "For boys it's their athletic ability, 'coolness,' toughness or social skills, while for girls it relates to their looks, kinds of clothes, how much freedom they have and their socio-economic status. Girls have an ascribed status, where boys have an achieved status."
But ascribed status often amounts to status by association or affiliation. Status that is conferred by one person or persons upon another or that rubs off, or such is hoped for. But in this one will be wise to consider the warning by Machiavelli to his Prince against ever calling upon stronger allies "who calls them in they are always disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive."
For a woman, popularity can either be the same thing as social prominence, or else popularity can be a reflection of demand as evidenced by competition.
The popular person is not some pathetic hanger on hoping that popularity will rub off on them. Rather, the popular individual is the one others turn to in order to improve their own social standing and/or to network, professionally, socially and sexually. Whether such "popular" individuals are even well liked, even spinelessly agreeable or actually loathed and despised as oppressive and destructive bullies!
Machiavelli held that it is better to be feared than to be loved, even if it is also important to be feared without actually being hated.
Thus, the way for a desirable woman to become influential, is networking by facilitation, by lending her public support by paying attention only to such others as who will respond positively and appreciatively and who's own perception and standing will be seen to be enhanced by the affiliation, and all such value lost without impunity, to anyone who so ever whosoever would find the sheer temerity to metaphorically bite the proverbial hand that feeds them.
For such is the practical and public demonstration of popularity, of status, all via the acclaim for the manifest and obvious ability to confer upon others elevation in their own social standing and/or to open doors for others, socially, which additional latter power and opportunity must arise as a by product of the former.
In this case, it truly is better to give than to receive, in order to be sought after. Then it may be hoped that sex among other things, may even reside in the domain of entirely personal elective and free choice, as it should be, not a matter for consensus approval. That core privacy and autonomy may be regained and preserved.
Even thus to flout the trumped up authority of whatever Alpha clique with impunity, because she remains in demand. And a woman with the initiative and in demand will not be such a vulnerable target for bullies and cannot so easily be made "cheap". Particularly not so long as men even compete for her favor.
But this will only be possible for a woman who neither diminishes herself by relying upon artificial scarcity nor depends upon popular bullies for social introductions and networking. Which no even remotely desirable woman really actually does, unless she's pretty much been conned and/or intimidated into it. Don't be.
Antithesis
for the Pursuer-Rescuer
Headgame:
And hence such bullies leave themselves wide open to devastating and
paralyzing public scorn and ridicule, from women, if ever, who emphatically
decline to be chaperoned, particularly unasked and out of the blue. By women who reject, first
of all, their intimidation, and then their bogus "protection" of
psychiatrically disabling notions of "virtue", let alone the
scapegoating of whatever hapless third party. Whereas children nowadays are taught, in case they are snatched by strangers, to struggle and scream: "this man is not my father!" by analogy, the absurd picture suggests itself, of women, should they find themselves however "rescued" unasked, by macho hostilely, domineering over protectiveness, or jealous rage and pranks, best conditioned even from childhood to blurt out something perhaps in the manner of: "this jackass is not my champion!" Or more succinctly, and in heavy sarcasm: "My Hero!" Or even Lt. Uhura's immortal: "Sorry, neither!"
However, whereas the imperative with the menace of children being snatched is to sound a danger alarm in case of however innocuous the appearance, with women and self appointed chaperones, the problem is the reverse, to deflate the self importance of bullies feigning a noble public service, with the most devastating ridicule possible and establish the crucial boundaries of autonomy.

While there are, undeniably, those out and out nasty bitches, female bullies who just thrive on being the center of strife with no accountability, not to mention those perennial victims, clueless over aged silly little girls, suckers desperately insecure and eager for the first or any false sense of security they can find (only to then face exploitation and rejection in cruel practical jokes and viciously malign gossip), many more average men and women, on the contrary, tend to be badly intimidated by self appointed chaperones and their disruptive ambushes of masculine conflict, especially unasked self serving hypocritical bogus knight errant "protectiveness", out of the blue even by complete strangers. Or just caught by complete surprise!
Worse, should she erroneously judge the target of disruptive bullying, mistaking the vulgar bullies as the company that he'd ever keep by prefer ace or by any free choice whatsoever!
Ordinary people are often simply too civilized for the needed quick decisive response to such shocking conduct. And any silence will be taken as assent, without any follow-up consultation later on.
After all, any potential target of bullying intimidation exhibits social constraint or responsibility, never mind intimidation outright, and the bully quickly realizes that he or she can safely maneuver the situations to the very brink of disgrace. Counting on the integrity of the victim's constraints to keep them both from tumbling over, the bully stands on the crumbling edges of socially acceptable behavior, agitating and pressing the ultimate target of bullying either to misstep and cross the line or else to effectively submit to intimidation, humiliation and manipulation.
Follow up counterpropaganda must also be carried out, defending the targets of bullying, attacking the bullies, denouncing all forms of bullying, and celebrating as moral and tactical victories the Clique Busters sting operations. Such is no less than our moral obligation to the truth.
The low guile, in particular, while offering wonderful bragging rights to embolden one's allies and encourage uprising, must always be extolled as practical demonstration of the bullies' blatant malice and it's relentless predictability as an unhealthy compulsion that calls for open-eyed curtailment, and how a higher public standard of Civility can promote change for the better.
|
Undisciplined Mentation |
Critical Thinking/Reasoning |
Insecure Impulsiveness |
|
Guessing |
Estimation |
Reaction |
|
Non Epistemological preference |
Evaluation |
acting out |
|
Grouping |
Classification |
Impression and reflex |
|
Belief |
Assumption |
Presumption |
|
Haphazard inference |
Logical inference |
Projection |
|
Associating concepts |
Grasping principles |
Grasping for excuses |
|
Noting relationships |
Noting relationship among other relationships |
Stimulus then response |
|
Unexamined cognitive memetic habit |
Hypothesis |
Confabulation |
|
Offering opinions without reasons |
Offering opinions with reasons |
Emotional extortion/bribery |
|
Assessment without criteria |
Evaluation with criteria |
Passing judgment without criteria |
Engineers refer to "normalization of deviance" when an at all tolerable glitch, however dangerous, becomes known and routinely expected. But then, if the underlying defect is not corrected in a timely manner, complications with other factors may arise, even catastrophically. In any context, we often come to accept exactly such as we ought not, specifically, society even accommodates and coddles behaviors and expectations we ought not.
For example, don't you just hate jerks who never consider the position they put others into, and then resent the response, even in sheer self defense? But that's only an extreme case of an all too common phenomenon:
One quite naturally resents the sheer irresponsible clumsy arrogance of another driver who so dangerously veers into your lane of traffic and forces you to brake suddenly, never suspecting that perhaps they did so, and under conditions of poor visibility after all, only in order avoid a collision with a car directly in front that veered suddenly to avoid running over a stray dog or cat!
So, is whatever the true story caused or motivated, plot driven or character driven?
Life can only be lived forwards, but only understood or recognized in hindsight. Indeed, do we consider our options and consciously take action, or do our actions simply come upon us as we react, and only then rationalize afterward? People often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually. Hence, Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into hypocrisy.
The Fundamental Attribution Error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) alludes to how in seeking to understand and explain the behavior of others, one often makes the particularly human mistake of exaggerating people’s responsibility for their circumstances while underestimating the contribution of situational factors, of tending to attribute too much to character and disposition of others doing what they always do simply because of who and how they are, and too little to response to situation and context.
Whereas, in accounting for ones own behavior, the tendency is exactly the reverse, explaining away behavior situationally rather than confronting character. Particularly, we often attribute our successes to talent and ability, but our failures to circumstance!
Excuses and justifications enjoy the awkward position of being ‘universally condemned while being universally used’ (Schlenker, Pontari, & Christopher, 2001, p. 15). Central to the new notion of criminal thinking or the criminal personality is that, ‘Criminals do not think like law-abiding prosocial people’ (Sharp, 2000, p. 2). Yet, the psychological literature on excuse making is clear that taking full responsibility for every personal failing does not make a person normal, it makes them extraordinary – and possibly at risk of mental illness.
Given more severe Empathic Failure however, underestimation of situational factors often engendering Fundamental Attribution Error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) may then go further to motivate in turn, such defamatory rationalizations for harassment as the Hostile Attribution Bias typical of the Reactive Victim type bully, and, as a generality by extension, Anti-Critical Bias, Ad Hominem Abusive, and dishonest peer pressuring emotional extortion against controversy expressed in the perceived right never to be challenged in any views or statements whatsoever a quite frankly loony hyper-fragile imperative of personal comfort.
The Reactive Victim's
opposition to any responsible attitude of Critical Thinking, the
Reactive Victim's very refusal to accept the
genuine existence or very possibility and sincerity of the attitude of
Critical
Thinking, consists of two principle elements; first, by subjectivity
unrestrained, poor self-knowledge, by the projection of their own response into
whatever deed or statement itself, and second, by the
Ad Hominem
imputation of
or
appeal to
motive. (That's like saying that the potential stomach ache is actually
contained in the very essence of the food, and also that the chef did it on
purpose. Whereas, plainly, a stomach ache is a unique reaction to the food of
the organism that ate it, and though likely causally linked, nevertheless distinct from the particular substance and
composition of the food itself, as are whatever intentions of the chef.)
From the
Anti-Critical Bias of the
Reactive Victim arises the dysfunctional social expectations of
taboo, peer pressure and guilt tripping emotional black mail, wherein any
question may be begged, but dare not be asked, for fear of giving offence or
hurting the other's feelings. After all, even bullies have feelings. And calling
bullies to task is insensitive to their feelings! And exactly this is how
Politically Correct demands for sensitivity are used to rationalize oppression
by conniving bullies unopposed by timid silent social loafing
apathetic
bystanders lacking the assertiveness to be more
direct and
honest.
Best for the attitudes of Critical Thinking, is genuine interest, even amid the
most heated disagreement. For there are no
values without
honest truthfulness, first, before even tender
compassion. Sugar coating and sidestepping the issues is seldom really the
caring thing to do. Let never even the most artful tact take precedent before
fundamental
honesty. All of these
values must be cultivated,
but can never be extorted. And to protect free speech in the meantime, serious
criticism, no matter how harsh, must be distinct from abuse, by
objective
criteria of pertinence rather than
irrelevant
hostility, of signal to noise
ratio.
But given little distinction between potential and probability, an allegation suffices for proof positive and hearsay is taken for gospel. If you let cliques of bullies lie to you, they will! Instead, be responsible to verify the truth independently for yourself.
What plausible, fair and dignified recourse if any has however the accused?
Is there any attempt at mediation or substantive direct communication, or only
action behind the back of the accused and without consultation?
Is the grudge or complaint fair, clear, explicit, proportional, substantial or
credible? -Or are merely petty slights and impositions evoked? Is there foul and
is there harm? Threat Assessment? Or are there only
melodramatic transgressions with no name?
Who has the power? Who exercises power? Is anyone impartial and have they any
say? Are the sides evenly matched on any sort of level playing field at all? Who
is being gotten into trouble and how so? Which side is truly the intentional
aggressor? Where is the sense of
crisis really? Are all the proverbial
cards on the metaphorical table, or are there ulterior
motives and
transactions in the air? Who's and what interests are actually at
stake and how so? Is it the putative victim or actually any third party? Has the
putative victim even been seen, ever consulted, even commiserated whatsoever,
much less by any means held to account for truth and fairness? Heck, can their
very existence even be confirmed?
Who seems to be in charge? Indeed, is anyone really being gotten out of whatever
sort of trouble? Who really troubles or assists whom? Is anyone really getting
help, or simply being intimidated and dominated possessively? -No matter the
connection or relationship, direct interaction or indirect as via
gossip,
social, professional, romantic, familial, or by whatever sheer presumption,
actually complete strangers! (Yes, really.)
Is whatever socially perceived or assumed privilege of relationship or broader
affiliation evoked? Taboo? How
so? Is the
situation
emotionally charged? And with what emotions? What are all the real power
relationships?
Are friends helping one another to be safe and comfortable, or are violent or
merely
manipulative possessive serial bullies and
chronic instigators collaborating, however closely or loosely, in surveillance,
subterfuge and control? -Then, of course,
scapegoating to rationalize...
Holy shit! Are sane folk at all only striving not to be noticed? Because, on
whatever the
real terms, is being included actually any more
wholesome reassuring or pleasant than being excluded? Is this truly the nurture
up in arms they pretend, or merely the same sorry depraved
Relational Bullying as ever?
Will the truth out? Who needs
voice, and who needs
blessed silence? Who truly needs to be separated for peace, and whom brought
together if only at least to compare notes at long last?
All such must ever comprise the true and salient investigation of the CliqueBusters.

Free thought and expression
are rightly to be prized, especially the candid and impersonal exchange of the
most brutally
honest
criticism and even however
controversial, but also the frivolous gossip that is such a
part of human "grooming rituals" of consensual validation, the
corroboration of
reality by comparison of one's own perceptions and concerns
with those of others, even
anecdote so revelatory of
character. Everyone
gossips, but malicious gossip, in particular, has
special conspiratorial and
anticompetitive adversative mode of Memetics. And here is the rub.
Because the most vulgar gossip partakes of the same
ambiguity
as teasing, that in good humor either
are harmless (not to be taken seriously by anyone of sound
judgment or good
character mindful to the recognition and modification of
distortions) and even caring and inclusive, but, just as with actually
hostile teasing, in malicious evil gossip
via any medium or in any context,
slander against
reputation,
Cyber-libel,
internationally
ubiquitous or closer to home,
all constitutes
exclusion by means of
Relational Bullying, raising ugly
passions, sowing confusion and instigating harassment outright, even violence.
In plot, "unity of action," Sequence and Logic, but according to the Zen, distinctly from dharma, dealing in morally neutral physical problems and classifications of causality, karma is the psychological and sociological causality pertaining to human interaction, neither so universal nor measurable as to qualify as an actual physical law, yet nevertheless, the highly consistent and observable tendency for good effects to result from good causes: skill, prudence and benevolence, and bad effects to result from bad causes: malice, incompetence and stupidity. A rational percept of compassionate responsibility grounded in foreseeable consequence, taken no less seriously in Judeo-Christian thinking. -In modern terms and context, that bullying is unsafe. And this is in no way limited to such abuse as violence and harassment outright, but applies to the entire range of underhanded Relational Bullying and even ordinary thoughtlessness, all profoundly karmic.
Any medium so vulnerably unguarded as the proverbial grapevine, is so easily subverted by power mad attention craving liars and instigators without scruple, no values of truth or justice, no sense of responsibility and not the slightest concern for the awful damage they bring about.
A concise scriptural selection
on
evil gossip is further elaborated in
The Mouth that Roared and the calumny of evil gossip, particularly as false witness
received into bureaucratic due process, is testified to in
FAMILY ABUSE!
Indeed, Confidentiality in Jewish Law and "OOPS! I SHOULDN'T SAY THIS... OR SHOULD I?" specify the distinct moral obligation neither to receive nor to transmit bad-mouthing for fear of the destructive and unclean fallout, ever, except in such case of clear and present danger wherein the prudent moral obligation becomes actually to make and/or take heed of any warning altruistically motivated simply in order to actually guard against real harm.
But an untrustworthy society tends exactly to the reverse, brutally enforcing modest silence regarding genuine problems by clamorous alarm over trifles and lies, as well attested in Deviant Women in Early Modern England.
Gossip is the medium of reputation and accountability, the means by which one hopes to know what to expect of others. The problem is, however, that the individual listener is still burdened with the responsibility to filter such inputs, to search out reliable sources at all, and to judge and observe when gossip is telling us more about the speaker than anything else!
For in order to advance their standing, bullies may lay in wait for others to slip up. Ah, but bullying itself is no faux pas, precisely because it is maliciously deliberate. Of course, this flies in the face of the opposing ideals of civility, where in, on the contrary, honor and esteem accrue in actually helping one another to save face, especially in matters of little moment.
When a cult-like clique of bullies engages in mass opinion making, building themselves up and targeting scapegiats and rivals for defamation and the entire syndrome of "mobbing" and shunning ostracism and isolation via ongoing Relational Bullying, such cliques of bullies only disseminates selected (dis)information at such time and circumstance as they choose, and lead the target of propaganda indoctrination along in a group environment they control, so that one never is availed of any opportunity to look too closely at the big picture, particularly such that no one in their right mind and good conscience could ever fall for!
No less than any emotional vulnerability, such uncritical acceptance as above once achieved may tend to leave one vulnerable to well known and standard Methods Used in Brainwashing.
Undisciplined mentation simply follows the pattern of whatever habits and ideas have been absorbed first. And bullying simply exploits insecure impulsiveness, going even deeper into coercion, manipulation and lying, only magnifying the specious illogic of insecure impulsiveness from sheer projection. Projection on the sense not only of the specific classic denial mechanism of seeing one's own flaws only in others, but more generally, the somewhat unthinkingly Solipsistic propensity to simply assume that the nature of all things and people reflects whatever one's own self centered reaction and self serving concern, and acting out from thence.
And Sociopathic patterns such as bullying color perception and behavior even further by adding to such Narcissism an even more deeply depraved indifference to others, which is also so helpful in lying convincingly.
However, Critical Thinking, by contrast, seeks better judgment by striving to take everything into account, including itself, in order to be self correcting.
Critical Thinking rests upon sound interpretation of written text; the well-balanced, coherent composition; the lucid comprehension of all what one hears about and experiences oneself; and the persuasive argument. Critical Thinking must rest upon proficient reasoning skills that can assure competency in inference, as well as upon proficient inquiry, concept-formation, and the cognitive skills to render ideas from one form, function, or context to another, and also to recognize that which may be lost in translation thereby.
Of course, as the saying goes, always consider the source. All manner of self serving should also be questioned, as a perennial motive for slander and abuse. For, as the old saying goes, "believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see." Indeed, there may even be surprising insight buried amid the spewing bile of sheer spite, beyond just (quite rightly forbidden) acceptance at face value, for the careful and analytic listener to follow up and investigate for themselves.
If encouraging Critical Thinking can improve life, it will be because Critical Thinking increases the quantity and quality of meaning that individuals derive from what they perceive and also that which they will be apprised of second hand, that they express, and how they then will actively respond, to Relational Bullying, evil gossip or anything else.
The proposed 'Vulcan Master' TV game show is conceived as an effort to help popularize Critical Thinking.
How to spot common logical inconsistencies in Character Assassination by the application of fundamental Critical Thinking:
"The great enemy of clear
language is insincerity."
—George Orwell 'The Lion and the Unicorn'
1941
After all, a petty peeve may often incorporate some partic