Since the dawn of time, people have encouraged (mostly) their sons to be “rough” and “tough”. So it doesn’t surprise me that it took several deaths exploited in the news to make this issue become a hot topic. Everyone seems to have been bullied as a kid. It was always by either someone being abused at home, someone with insecurity issues or just plain “trailer trash”.
Here’s the problem, though. The reason that TV and Movies allow violence more than language or sex is because our government wants a nation of military-worthy bullies. You can turn on the television at any point of the day or night and see someone shooting someone else, or someone beating another person up. I am waiting for a PSA for bullying to come on in the middle of something like “Fight Club”. And don’t hand me the idea that fighting in a boxing ring is a different message to our children. They don’t know the difference. How do they get to act out this sport? At home, with other kids, in an uncontrolled environment.
Reality TV has been the quick decline of our nation, and part of the reason is the arguing/fighting aspect of the show. This trend started with the talk shows in the 80s. Jerry Springer’s show (love the opera, though!) was the pinnacle of trash tv. The more intelligent you are, the less you are attracted to other people’s drama, fighting and trash.
Now the PSAs are telling kids to find an adult when they are being bullied. You are having to rewind millions of years of evolution. It’s going to take some time (since this country is run by Christians and they love violence), but it can be done.
From what I went through as a kid, I always said that if my child had one incident of bullying (especially by an authority figure), I would go off.
I think what might be fueling this trend of no bullying is that more than half of all marriages end in divorce. This usually leaves the mother to take care of the children, and they would be more responsive when their kid is being bullied. An old-school father would just tell the kid to toughen up and teach him how to fight – creating another bully.
You also have to consider that any male coming out of the military is going to try to instill the same core military training into their own kids. This means the core of bullying and being aggressive.
Instead of military “force”, let’s try to outwit the enemy. But who goes into the military willingly? A 17 year-old high school drop out or someone who can’t do anything else and are trying to “straighten their lives out”.
Did you know there’s a video game called Bully that came out just a couple of years ago? Sick, but no one really protested it then, did they?