Bullying in School as a Precursor to Social Injustice in Adult Life

Tolerating Bullying in Schools Leads to Tolerating Social Injustice and Even Fascism in Adult World

‘If you tolerate this, then your children will be next’ as great but much underrated band Manic Street Preachers are singing. This might be equally applied to bullying and to fascism.

From yesterday's chat with a dear friend I realized the important truth about bullying in schools and why it might be even more harmful than we think it is. The fact that bullying is harmful and might be even lethal to bullied kids is well-known, same as its toxic effects on the social climate in schools overall. However, the fact that school bullying might continue to affect our adult lives in more than one negative ways often eludes us. And I'm not speaking only of bullied kids getting potentially traumatized by bullies for life or of bullies themselves potentially growing up into criminals. No, I'm speaking mostly about how bullying affects majority of kids who are neither bullies nor bullied but are silent witnesses of bullying acts.

Let us analyze this pattern in more details. Majority of kids in schools are usually neither bullies nor bullied. They're just regular kids. Bullies are usually minority - most frequently pretty popular guys or girls drunk with their authority at such an early age. They torture and molest other, usually unpopular minority - all kinds of misfits and weirdos, gender non conforming and gay boys, etc., who are easy targets. But majority of kids are neither bullies nor bullied. They're just silent witnesses of bullying. Now, that's very important to understand. If this 'silent majority' would have interfered and stood up for the victims of bullying, then bullies would have been instantly overwhelmed and outnumbered, shut up and put to shame. After all, bullies are always a minority, and they can't really stand up against majority. But the problem is that majority of kids, even if most of them despite their early age do still realize that they witness something WRONG going on, still don't interfere and stay silent. Bullies count on their silence and hence torture their victims with impunity.

Why doesn't majority of kids stand up to the bullied ones? Well, multiple reasons. First, bullies usually pick up a really UNPOPULAR minority like gays, gender non conforming kids and other misfits and weirdos for which many kids wouldn't even like to stand up. Bullies themselves are, in the contrary, usually pretty POPULAR. So why do kids go against popular guys to defend the unpopular ones? Bullies count on that. Then, there's ofc indifference and fear. Many kids think like that - 'as long as I'm not bullied myself, it's not my business'. Indifference is really a very huge problem there. And those kids who would still dare to stand up for bullied, are usually minority as well, because they'd need to be pretty brave and have strong moral principles already at an early age. So, if these kids would stand up for the bullied, they might become bullied themselves, to discourage others from doing the same and to spread fear before the bullies among kids. So the toxic circle goes on and on.

Now, doesn't this pattern remind you of what's going on in our adult societies? Minority drunk with power (governments and elites) choose to torture certain unpopular minority (gays, Jews, unvaccinated, Russians, etc.) and do it with impunity counting on the silence of the majority. Again, just like in schools, if majority of people went to the streets and said loud and clear NO to governmental abuse, elites and rulers would have been instantly overwhelmed and overpowered. But, again just like in schools, majority chooses to be silent, and allows fascist governments and elites to torture their victims with impunity. Why? The reasons are again exactly similar to those in schools. Governments and elites always choose an UNPOPULAR minority, so most of people won't feel much pity for it anyway (gays, Jews, unvaccinated, Russians, etc.) and wouldn't even want to stand up for them, thinking that they're just 'getting their toll'. Those who still would want to stand up for justice, would be either afraid to do it so not to become targets themselves, or not care enough to stand up. Position 'it doesn't affect me personally so it isn't my business' is really toxic and one of the main enablers of all social injustice and all fascism in this world. But again, patterns are strikingly similar to those in schools. Why is it so?

I think I have an explanation. In schools kids learn to tolerate and ignore injustice unfolding in front of their very eyes - bullying. They all see that something wrong is going on, but still stay silent and don't interfere. So, they learn this attitude and keep it when they're grown up as well. If something wrong is going on in front of my eyes, it's not my business as long as it doesn't affect me personally. There. People learn toxic behavioral patterns in schools and they keep sticking to them in adult world.

Now do you realize why bullying in schools is much bigger problem than we think and why it should be addressed much more than it is addressed currently? It is not only for the well-being of our kids. It is for the well-being of all our adult society as well. Because yeah, those who learned to tolerate bullying in schools, would tolerate fascism in adult world.

I'm actually also surprised that many psychologists working with kids don't pay much attention to the problem of bullying either. Their main focus set up by old Freud is on kids relations with parents but not with other kids, and I consider it to be a mistake. Kids spend a considerable amount of time at schools and parents have no control over this time whatsoever. Also, schools and kindergartens are the first socialization platform for kids, their first society, and hence it's extremely important. Social climate and atmosphere established in schools and kindergartens would be the model for our adult society, and in this way I believe it's much more important than kids family relations. Family relations and parents might model our personal life in the future, but schools and kindergartens model the whole society. So the mere fact that such huge and serious problems as bullying in schools are largely neglected by adults, both by parents and teachers, and even by kid psychologists, is a huge shame imo.