Talking About Bullies

My six-year-old and I had a long conversation the other morning about bullying. The conversation arose from events I heard from my bed as a conflict between the six-year-old and his little brother escalated. The older brother was telling the younger how a game was going to be played and what he was expected to do. The elder's voice got loud and then, as I was about to intervene, the unmistakable hollow thud of the fist of one striking the chest of other. Now fully awake and involved the six-year-old quickly attempted to hug his brother and say that he was sorry. That, I explained, was not enough.


As we processed what had happened I introduced him to the concept of bully. "A bully," I explained, "is a big kid who is mean to little kids in order to control them." To bring the idea home I leaned on his current fascination with Spider Man. "Peter Parker," I continued, "uses his powers to help those without powers. He does not use them to get his own way. That is why he sometimes says, 'with great power comes great responsibility.'"

I was a little surprised at the impact the conversation had on him. "Bully" has become a new word in his vocabulary. It is a good thing that it has. They, and those who would be, will always be with him.

I have long taken issue with the stream of liberal thought which in the process of favoring some victims over others legitimizes the violence of preferred movements while denouncing that of incorrect movements. Chang-Kai-Shek is vilified while Mao is justified. Castro is hero of resistance. Batista was an oppressor. The crimes of the Shah must be publicized. The tendency of the mullahs to execute rape victims for adultery or homosexuals for existing is overlooked or, at worse, construed as justifiable response to the excess of the Shah (and the CIA).

Stepping aside from the ideological ax sharpening of the right or left we should acknowledge that bullies come from all walks of life, from all nations and movements, and from all political inclinations. The temptation to tyranny is present in the human soul, as evidenced in the tyrannical attempt of my oldest son that morning. If we are to be moral, we must guard ourselves. If we are to be free, we must resist it in others.

Aristotle taught us that we become brave people by acting bravely. Likewise we become the kind of people who stand up to bullies by standing up to bullies. Only if we are individually practiced in this virtue in the challenges we face in the microcosm of our everyday lives can we hope to become a people who practice such resistance when faced with societal challenges whether they be foreign or domestic or come from the right or the left of the political spectrum.

Bullies will call us un-American for being imminently American. Bullies will accuse you of being racist for seeking accountability. Bullies will threaten to withhold economic cooperation for speaking out against human-rights abuses. Bullies will threaten to kill unless we prioritize their piety over our right to be profane. If the key philosophical problem facing the race is the problem of suffering, the most important pragmatic concern is the resistance of the tyrannical.

Contemporary pedagogy has focused on the inherent righteousness of the individual (if only we protect and nurture them properly) to such an extent that it must deny the inherent flaws within us all. Instead of training men and women to resist the school yard bully we equate the assertiveness of resistance with the aggression of tyranny. Young women are not taught to stand up to the "mean girls" and young men are not instilled with the self-confidence to emotionally resist the taunts of the strong boy or click.

I am not advocating a return to the schoolyard scuffle (though I do not fear it) but am attempting to emphasize the importance of its internal corollary: the willingness and the ability to say "No" in the face of physical or emotional blackmail or threat. In dictating a "zero tolerance" disapproval of violence that makes no distinction between victim and bully, between tyrant and freedom fighter, we are undermining the training ground for the virtues upon which the best of Western Civilization stands or falls.

The presence of children committing suicide in response to bullying is a personal tragedy but should also serve as a social warning. We are not building young people with the resilience to face-down their tormentors. We do not need to teach them to kick their opponents in the knee. We do need to train them in the confidence to say "No" without fear of the consequences because they will then grow into adults able to say "No" to the oppressors that will come later in life. To say “No” to those who would enslave the populace to anything other than our national covenant to respect the rights of one another. That training begins in our homes and families. We need to foster it in our schools. We need to honor it in our public space. We need to confess when it is we who are guilty of acting the tyrant in our home, nation or world.

It is time to say "Enough!" to the cheap shots.

Bishop Gene Robinson, in the Huffington Post claims that religion, and by that he means traditional Christianity, is driving young homosexuals and those who are perceived by their peers as homosexuals, to suicide. 

You have to dig deep into this essay to find the connection but we seem to hit at the idea here,

You don't have to grow up in a religious household, though, to absorb these religious messages. Not long ago I had a conversation with six gay teens, not one of whom had ever had any formal religious training or influence. Every one of them knew the word "abomination," and every one of them thought that was what God thought of them. They couldn't have located the Book of Leviticus in the Bible if their lives depended on it yet they had absorbed this message from the antigay air they breathe every day.

The Bishop has no argument or facts but rather an ax to grind.  Was the Rutgers roommate who filmed and publisized the gay encounter which led a young man to kill himself acting out of religious conviction?   If so I haven't heard that fact (and I think we would have heard about it by now).   In the tragedies of the last few weeks, has the Bible Belt or other religious communities been over-represented?  The Bishop knows they have not,

With the exception of Brown in Texas these suicides are not happening in Bible Belt regions of the country, where we might predict a greater-than-usual regard for religious thought. Instead, they are occurring in states perceived to be more liberal on LGBT issues: California, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Yet this does not need him to question his premise but rather speaks to the supposed pervasiveness of traditional religious thought in America.  We were not at the scene of the crimes, we have a good alibi but like all good scapegoats we remain responsible due to are secret and pervasive hold on the mind of America's youth.  Dear Bishop Robinson, we are not that powerful.  We can't stop our own kids from having premarital hetrosexual or homosexual intercourse.  I assure you we can not compel non-churched youth to bully gays in the secular schools, public Internet and private text messages. 

If Bishop Robinson were attacking any other group with such imaginations of subliminal power, he would be roundly (and properly) criticized by the political left he represents.  If he painted Muslims in such broad strokes with such a corrosive power to drive teens to suicide, he would be branded an Islam-ophobe.  Despite having and stronger conservative monotheistic perspective on homosexual issues, he is, however suspiciously silent on Islam.  He thinks we have some deep cultural power.  I'm sorry sir but we have tried to outlaw abortion for nearly forty years without success.  I think the weapons of mass destruction you think we possess are a mirage.


What is likely at work is that Bishop Robinson, like all of us, is a product of his biography; a biography which has taught him that the enemy of gay and lesbian youth is traditional readings of Scripture.  I would observe that while the Bishop and traditional Christians may have very different readings of Scripture it does not mean that traditional Christians are the only "enemies" (I do not think Bishop Robinson is my enemy, let alone gay youth, but he seems to treat me like one) gay youth have. 

It will not help young gay men and women struggling with their identity to attack the straw man of traditional Christianity and Judaism.  We do not run the world anymore (if we ever did), and we are, I would wager, just as or even more appalled by the youth culture from which bullying and taunting sprouts.  It is in identifying this youth culture as the threat to gay youth, a culture which has nothing to do with religion, conservative or otherwise, that we begin to address the real problem.

If we are to help these young people (and I think we should) than we need to get beyond the easy digs of the culture war.  I think one place to start, a place that I think serious liberals and conservatives can agree is to resist the extended and indulgent adolescence which has come to characterize the youth culture which ostracizes and attacks young people who are different.  By dumbing down the expectations of responsibility and civility we have of young people we actively contribute to the acceptance of the culture of the bully and the silence which pervades those young people who would speak up to support their bullied peers.  We have extended Jr. High antics into High School and Sophomoric behavior into College.   

When we do not expect them to act like adults; they do not.  When we tell them that it is expected that they will act with youthful disinterest in the consequences of their actions on others, they will.   We should not be too surprised that youth who are the victims of that behavior become convinced that it will never end; it gets longer with every passing year, not because a person or group is advocating it but because the culture has drifted into extending adolescent behavior.  We have me the enemy, and he is us. 

Like all generals, Bishop Robinson is fighting the last war.  Traditional Christians or their cultural mores is not killing young gay men.  A youth culture which could only with great imagination be more hedonistic is killing them.  He could find in Traditional Christians a great ally in the resisting of this youth culture, if only he could take the time to stop the cheap and flimsy shots at them.