Hatred of Bullies Turns Smart People Into Idiots—Installment Two

When we hate, we become stupid and dangerous as our base, violent instincts replace higher-level thinking. And this is no less true when the object of hatred is bullies. What is so convenient about bullies is that we can hate them without being accused of racism. And the reason it is so easy to spread hatred of bullies is that we all think the bully is the other person. But hatred of bullies makes us just as stupid and nasty as does hatred of any other group.

My previous blog entry highlighted an article showing how smart journalists become idiots when they hate bullies. I recently encountered something closer to my own background.

I obtained an Orthodox Jewish education, attending Orthodox elementary and high schools. Jews learn to take pride both in our intelligence and in the morality of our way of life. Jews have been literate for thousands of years, while the masses around us often could not read or write, and we follow Biblical commandments that are meant to elevate people to a higher level of moral existence. From the age of nine or ten we study the Talmud, the Jewish books of law that employ a combination of logical principles and Biblical teachings to solve the problems of life. Unfortunately, the Orthodox Jewish educational world has not been immune to hatred of bullies, and has been sucked into adopting foolish policies that violate its own moral principles.

An Orthodox friend of our family emailed me a copy of the anti-bully policy just adopted by the Orthodox Jewish school he had attended as a child. This document is not unusual. It is similar to anti-bully policies adopted by schools throughout the country.

The following are excerpts from the policy:

“Courteous behavior is a prerequisite to Torah [Biblical] living….Bullying of any kind is unacceptable at our school. If bullying does occur, all pupils should be able to tell and know that incidents will be dealt with promptly and effectively. We are a TELLING school. This means that anyone who knows that bullying is happening is expected to tell the staff.”

As the policy states, the school requires “courteous behavior.” Since when is telling the authorities on people courteous behavior? It is despicable behavior. Getting people in trouble is one of the meanest things you can do. The Bible commands, “You shall not be a talebearer among your people.” [Leviticus 19:16]. Yet teachers of the Bible are instructing kids that they must tell on each other, and they see nothing wrong with it!

One of the most famous stories in the Bible is the saga of Joseph and his brothers. He would tell his father, Jacob, on them. Did they like him for it? Of course not. They plotted to kill him because of it, and they almost did!

Nowhere in the body of Jewish law and wisdom are people instructed to tell on each other for not being courteous. (“Bullying,” as defined by the academic experts and used by anti-bully policies, includes all behavior that is not courteous). When we witness people doing things that are wrong, the Bible commands us to tell them directly, not to run to tell the authorities: “…you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.” [Leviticus 19:17]

The most revered Jewish book on the ethical use of words is called Ha’Chafetz Chaim, which means, He Who Desires Life, by Rabbi Yisrael Meir (HaCohen) Kagan. It is perhaps the most detailed manual you will find anywhere on avoiding hurting others with our words. But never does he instruct us to tell the authorities on others when we feel hurt by their words. “Telling” is not a Jewish concept. For that matter, it is not a concept in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other major religion or system of philosophy. It is simple foolishness and even leads to evil.

There is a prayer that Orthodox Jews say three times every day: “My Lord, prevent my tongue from speaking evil, and help me ignore those who curse me.” This recognizes how difficult it is to keep ourselves from speaking ill of others (yet we expect kids in school to always speak nicely) and that the correct response to the evil words of others is to ignore them. But now, rather than ignoring, we are supposed to tell. We no longer need God’s help, and Jews can now get rid of this prayer. Human authorities will solve the problem for us!

When schools order students to tell on each other, the school staff puts itself in the role of judge. But playing judge is a terrible thing to do both to the students and to school staff. Judges, at most, can make only one side happy. The two sides end up hating each other even more, for the winner feels justified in hating the loser, and the loser hates the winner for defeating him/her in court. And the loser hates the judge, too. Judges do not win popularity contests.

Moses Maimonides, the foremost Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, and perhaps of all time, said the following about judging:

The Sages of old were extremely reluctant to be appointed [as judges]. They avoided sitting in judgment unless they were sure there was no one else as qualified as they, and that the judicial system would collapse if they did not serve. Even then, they only sat in judgment when the community and the elders pressured them, pleading with them to accept the appointment. (Mishneh Torah, Yad Hachzakah, 3:10)

Wise people are not in a rush to play judge. But anti-bully policies require us to become fools.

Jews revere the Ten Commandments. Forcing kids to “tell” inevitably leads to gross violation of one of those Commandments: Do not give false testimony. A Jewish principle tells us that we are not supposed to put people in a position where they are likely to be tempted to commit a sin. But that’s what happens when we make ourselves judges between kids. They discover they can get other kids in trouble simply by telling on them. Some kids will resort to outright lying, or at least to exaggeration or fudging of the truth, for the purpose of getting kids they don’t like in trouble with the school. But even more common, kids who are accused of being bullies will naturally try to defend themselves from the charges, and often give less than objective versions of the truth in order to avoid getting punished. Thus, “telling” policies practically guarantee that there will be an increase in violations of the Commandment not to give false testimony. (For more detail on this phenomenon, read my article, A New Kind of Bullying: Bearing False Witness).

I was a young adult in the ‘70s, and the major Jewish political movement of those years was obtaining freedom for Soviet Jews to emigrate. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of life in the Soviet Union was that the government ordered everyone, including children, to tell the authorities on anyone who spoke against the Communist Party. Many people, not least among them Jews, were critical of their despotic totalitarian government, but they had to keep their mouths shut. They couldn’t trust anyone because they never knew who would turn them in to the authorities. There were many stories of parents who were sent to prison because their own children told the authorities on them. Apparently, hatred of bullies has given the staff of today’s Orthodox Jewish schools amnesia, for they no longer remember the conditions from which they were trying to free Soviet Jews, and are adopting totalitarian policies, ordering their own student body to be informers against each other.

I attended Orthodox Jewish schools long before the days of anti-bully policies. Were kids always nice to each other in those days? Of course not. There were kids who got picked on more than others. There were lots of play fights. And once in a blue moon there would even be a real fight. But the situation was certainly no worse and probably a lot better than it is today, with all our no-tolerance-for-bullies policies. Yes, our rabbis taught us the importance of being nice to others, but they never, ever told us that we should inform on each other when we weren’t nice. No one–staff, parents, or students–were foolish enough to expect that a school could guarantee that kids kids would always be courteous to each other. And if we want our schools today to have less bullying, we would be wise to get rid of this expectation, too.

But of course everyone loves to hate bullies, so even teachers of religion abandon their own religious principles to join the anti-bully witch-hunt. They fail to see that their anti-bully policies turn them into bullies. And the truly ironic thing is, as the evidence from all over the world is showing, the more they fight bullying, the more bullying they have to fight.

Hatred of Bullies Turns Smart People Into Idiots

When people hate…when they are on a crusade against a group…they become irrational. Their higher level thinking functions disappear as their crude, violent emotions take over. And they not only turn into idiots, they often turn into monsters. Intelligent, educated, cultured Europeans attempted to exterminate their hated Jews, foolishly believing it would make them safer. Intelligent, educated, cultured Americans tried to wipe out their hated Indian (Native American) nations, foolishly believing it would make them safer. They burned their hated women at the stake for being witches, foolishly believing this would make them safer. White supremacists believe that wiping out their hated Blacks and other non-white groups would make them safer. And we all eagerly embark on campaigns to eradicate our hated bullies from our nation’s schools and workplaces, foolishly believing this will make us safer.

Consider the following scenario:

Government (to parents): We can no longer ignore the evidence that children are tormented by their siblings in almost every home in our nation. Sibling rivalry affects many people for the rest of their lives. Children have a right to live in safety and dignity at home, so we have decided to make it a national priority to protect our children from the scourge of sibling rivalry. Sibling rivalry will now be conbatted with full force of the law.
Parents: Thank God! We have been waiting for this blessed moment from the time our second child was born! We are made miserable by our kids’ constant fighting and can’t wait for it to stop. How will this happen?
Government: You will inform your children that tormenting their siblings will no longer be tolerated.
Parents: Great idea. We have been doing this anyway. What else?
Government: You are going to keep a constant eye out on your children and will immediately stop them whenever a fight begins.
Parents: Good idea. We’ve been doing that, too. What else?
Government: You are to investigate every complaint your children make. You mustn’t let any incident go unaddressed.
Parents: Good idea. We’ve already been doing that. What else?
Government: You are to punish any child who is guilty of tormenting their sibling.
Parents: Good idea. We’ve been doing that, too. What else?
Government: That’s pretty much it.
Parents: Well, we’ve been doing all of these things, and our kids still fight all the time. There must be another part of the plan?
Government: Yes, we have one more secret weapon. A truly powerful one. This will definitely make sibling rivalry something no family can afford to tolerate.
Parents: What is it?
Government: The sibling rivalry law holds you legally responsible for making your kids stop tormenting each other. If you fail, we will sue you.
Parents: That’s a wonderful idea! How much will we have to pay if our kids continue to torment each other?
Government: If the torment is verbal, it will probably be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If there is physical injury, you are looking at millions.
Parents: Wow! That will surely do the trick. Thanks, government! Finally, a weapon that will make our kids stop fighting!

What would you call these parents? Absolute idiots, to put it mildly. No parent would agree to such a plan. Yet this is exactly what is being done to our schools with our anti-bully laws. Now, you can’t blame parents for being excited by these laws, because it enables them to sue their schools. But the truly amazing thing is that educators and school administrators eagerly welcome these laws! These laws require them to perform anti-bully interventions that are bound to make the situation worse while giving parents ammunition to sue them for failing to make the bullying disappear! They are literally inviting parents to sue them! So why are they so excited to have these anti-bully laws passed? It is because they are blinded by their hatred of bullies. They so mindlessly support anything that’s called “anti-bully” that they don’t bother to notice that it is not bullies that are endangered by these laws, but the schools themselves!

And it’s not only intelligent, educated teachers and principals who are blinded by their hatred for bullies. Reporters are generally highly educated (though not usually highly paid) people who tend to see themselves as moral guardians of society. They are trained to look for truth and examine all sides of a story. Yet reporters are also blinded by their hatred for bullies. Get a load of the following news report out of Florida, a state that has recently passed a super-tough school anti-bully law: Broward County schools ready to take on bullies.

The first two sentences of the article are consistent with the title:
"Bullies beware.

"When school starts today, Broward County schools will be armed to take action against you.

"

The next paragraph tells us about “the new range of punishments” for bullies. What do you think comes next? Stories of bullies being punished for their crimes? Right?

Guess again! The entire remainder of the article is about a 17 year old girl who is suing her school because her boyfriend cyber-bullied her after they broke up! That’s right! She is suing her school (and the court is obviously willing to spend our tax dollars to try this ridiculous case) because of her difficulties with a former boyfriend! This is not a joke. Read the article.

Doesn’t the reporter realize that his article is completely different from the title and introduction? Instead of beginning the article with, “Bullies beware,” it should have read, “Schools beware.” Schools, not bullies, are the ones who are truly endangered by these anti-bully laws. The article is about the use of this insane law to attack a school! Why doesn’t the reporter see this? After all, he wrote it. And how about the editor? Didn’t it occur to the editor that there is something very wrong with this story. Apparently not. Because, like everyone else in the civilized world, reporters and editors hate bullies. And hatred turns smart people into idiots.

Florida Archdiocese Permits After-School Cyberbullying, Then Brazenly Blames Parents

Thanks to Florida’s tough new school anti-bullying laws, which earned that state a rating of A++ with Bully Police USA, parents are now able to set the Miami Archdiocese straight about another one of it’s areas of perverted morality. As though condoning the sexual abuse of children by priests weren’t enough, the Catholic Archdiocese allows students to bully each other after school hours, according to a new lawsuit. Click here to read the full story. Apparently the Catholic church, that bastion of archaic morality, has failed to realize that once a student is enrolled in a school, that school becomes legally responsible for the student’s behavior round-the-clock. And to make matters worse, the Archdiocese had the gall to suggest that parents show some accountability for what their children do when they’re at home. “At some point, the parents must kick in and know what's going on,” the Archdiocese spokesperson and lawsuit defendant, Mary Ross Agosta, brazenly asserted.

According to the article, the school, Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, has an anti-bully policy forbidding kids to use cell phones during school hours. As the Archdiocese spokesperson Agosta explained, “Students must leave their cell phones in lockers and the school does not have Internet access.”

Since the bullies were not permitted to cyber-bully in school, the bullies requested permission from the school principal to use their cell phones and computers to bully their victim after school hours. “Sure, you have my permission,” said the principal. “And my blessing. That snotty little witch [referring to the teenage plaintiff] has been doing nothing but snitching on kids for picking on her. She is a female Judas, and I hope you kids give her what she deserves. Do you need my permission in writing, or is my spoken word sufficient?” Unfortunately, the bullies said they did not need her written permission, so the above factual account is conveniently being denied by the Archdiocese.

What shocked me most, though, is the paltry sum that’s being requested in the lawsuit: a miserly “more than $15,000.” Perhaps this is because it’s a Catholic school. If it were a Jewish school (and I can get away with saying this because I am a Jew) they would have sued for millions, as the financially savvy parents did in a recent bullying suit against a Jewish school in Florida. Is the suffering of a Jewish child really worth so much more than that of a Catholic?

[7.28.08 Addendum: Some people who read this blog took me too seriously. It is strictly satirical. I am not criticizing the church. I am making fun of our absurd anti-bully laws.]

[For a deeper understanding of anti-bully laws, read my articles, The Insanity of Workplace Anti-Bullying Laws and The Insanity of School Anti-Bullying Laws.]

Kentucky Murder-Suicide Highlights Danger Posed by Victims

I'm sure many of you heard the news last week of an angry young employee, Wesley Neal Higdon, who killed five people at a Henderson, Kentucky plastics factory where he worked, before taking his own life.

Such murder-suicides are not uncommon. A recent study by the Violence Policy Center found:

"more than 1,100 Americans died in murder-suicides in 2007. The murder-suicides included in the study range from high-profile mass shootings like the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech massacre to familial shootings claiming the lives of spouses and children."

These horrific actions are committed by people who feel like victims. They are furious about the way they are treated and their anger builds up till they can't take it anymore. Finally, they lash out at their perceived tormenters, then take their own lives to end their misery. And these are only the statistics about murder-suicide. Many more people who feel victimized kill without taking their own lives.

But the modern world does not have a campaign against people who think and feel like victims. Society is only going after bullies. But bullies don't commit murder and suicide. Victims do. However, the worst thing anyone can do today is suggest that victims have anything to do with the way they are being treated. So we go after bullies instead, with the hope that if we can just get rid of bullies, there will be no victims, and these horrific murders and suicides will stop.

But, if anything, our anti-bullying policies are encouraging disgruntled workers to commit these horrible actions. If we are repeatedly bombarded with messages about how terrible bullies are...that bullies should not be tolerated...that bullying is a crime...that terrorism, rape, murder, slavery and genocide are acts of bullying, how should we react when we feel bullied by our employers and colleagues? Don't terrorists and rapists and murderers deserve to die? So we feel justified in wanting to kill, thanks to our ceaseless anti-bully education.

I often say at my seminars that no one gets insulted and criticized as much as I do. Because I dare to criticize the anti-bully movement as a misguided and counterproductive witch-hunt, explain how victims unwittingly reinforce their bullies, and teach victims how to stop being bullied all by themselves, many victims and victim-advocates want to see me dead. Don't believe me? Read the following email I recently received from D.T. (he does not want me to give his full name) with a nice email address of gofuckyourself@yahoo.com. Note that his gripe is not only against me, but against Jesus, as well. After all, we give the same advice. (By the way, I get many letters like this, but most are more inhibited in expressing their sentiments towards me.)

You disgust the Hell out of me. I hope you spend all eternity getting picked on in Hell. ____You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. You obviously were never the victim in school. If you had been the victim you would know what shit your advice really is._____From Bullies to Buddies_ is the stupidest advice I have ever heard. Would you tell a girl that is getting raped that it is somehow her fault? That_s what bullying is. A form of rape. What the victims need to be told is that they have the right to defend themselves. Enroll the kid in Martial Arts classes. Teach the kid how to fight. The bully will find another target. ____I am 48 years old. 35 years ago I was picked on unmercifully in High School. I didn_t fight back. I had the bible beating _turn the other cheek_ parents. That is the worst advice you can give. LEARN TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. Bullies always pick out the weakest target. Teach kids not to be a target.____If all else fails, BREAK THE BULLIES NOSE. IF BULLIES GOT THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF THEM, THEY WOULD LEARN SOME MANNERS.____THE ONLY GOOD BULLY IS A DEAD BULLY

And we're worried about bullies?

Best Wishes,

Izzy Kalman

Proud Victim Outraged at Charges of Being a Bully

The international anti-bully witch-hunt could be quite laughable if it didn't have such deleterious effects, such as promoting a victim mentality in society, and helping destroy the lives of countless kids who get accused of being "bullies."

Several weeks ago, I signed up for Google Alerts for the terms "bullies" and "bullying," so I receive an email notice when articles appear with those terms. I get dozens of links a day, and can't possibly read all of the articles, but I do try to glance at the headlines, and when there's one that sounds particularly interesting, I take the time to read it.

One that recently caught my eye was a British story, "Emmerdale actress 'shocked' at bullying claims." (By the way, the anti-bully witch-hunt seems to be even stronger in Britain than it is in the U.S.) As the story indicates, an English actress, Roxanne Pallet, who was a victim of bullying in school and is now an anti-bully campaigner, was accused in the Sunday Mirror of having bullied a couple of kids in high school. In other words, this woman who claims to have been a victim was herself victimizing other kids. She, of course, became outraged, insisting that as a virtuous victim she could not possibly have made other kids feel bad.

These conflicting accusations are possible because we have been brainwashed into believing that there are certain people in our midst called "bullies," who are evil and quite different from ourselves–who are not bullies–and there are people who are victims, and they are innocent and virtuous. We have forgotten that "bully" is not a diagnosis, but an insulting term we use against someone who makes us miserable and we don't know how to stop them. And we conveniently ignore the fact that victims are not necessarily virtuous, but actually are the most dangerous people both to themselves and others. They are often angry and hateful, and they believe that anything they do in revenge is justified.

Bully and victim are not objective diagnostic terms but subjective judgments. Most of the people who get called bullies insist they are victims, and from their point of view they are right. Roxanne Pallet thinks of herself as a victim and gets outraged at being called a bully. She is only aware of the misery that others caused her, but she can't fathom that she might have caused anyone else misery. Victims, after all, are virtuous and harmless. (Why, oh why, do all these frickin' victims have to periodically shoot up schools and tarnish this angelic image?)

Ms. Pallet also apparently takes pride in having been a victim, as though it's a badge of honor. What it really means to have been a victim is that she allowed herself to fall into the trap of getting upset by other kids, and didn't have the wisdom to successfully solve her social problems.

When will society wake up and realize that these categories of bully and victim are foolish and counterproductive? Few of us are saints, and just about all of us feel victimized by some people, and other people feel victimized by us. The bullies aren't other people. The bullies are us.

School District Proud of Anti-Bullying Program that Didn't Work

Have you heard about Austin Moore, the 13 year old boy in Deland Middle School in Florida who planned to commit a Columbine-type shooting, with the help of a couple of friends who were also being bullied? You can read about it here: Teen: Bullying Led To School Murder Plot

The article states, "The Volusia County School District said it prided itself on its anti-bullying program, but Moore said talking to school officials as dictated by the program failed."

The Florida State legislature is currently in the final stages of passing an anti-bullying law requiring schools to protect kids from bullying. While everyone seems to support anti-bullying laws (they only disagree on the details), they don't realize that these laws cannot make bullying disappear because anti-bullying programs generally don't work or make the problem worse. All these laws do is give ammunition to parents to sue their schools for failing to protect their children from bullying, a process that will bankrupt schools if enough parents take advantage of them.

As the article tells us, Austin Moore did what anti-bullying policies tell kids to do: to tell school authorities that they are being bullied. Unfortunately, as almost any kid can tell you, telling doesn't work. It just makes the kids angry at you for telling on them, so then they really want to beat you up. And when the school tells you repeatedly how terrible bullies are, that they are the moral equivalents of murderers, and that you must tell the school on bullies, what do you do when the school fails to live up to its end of the bargain and the kids keep on picking on you? You may very well decide, as Austin Moore and friends did, that you have no choice but to take justice into your own hands and shoot up the school.

Why is the Volusia County School District so proud of it's anti-bullying program?

Middle-aged Director of Anti-Bullying Charity Born Yesterday

Middle-aged people were usually born several decades ago, but it is possible to be born middle-aged yesterday. As you can see from the following news story, 'Apprentice' slammed by anti-bullying charity’, Claude Knight, director of the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape, was born yesterday and, turning on the TV for the first time in his fresh life, watched The Apprentice. To his great horror, he discovered that it showed public humiliation. As newborn director of an anti-bullying organization, he declared that The Apprentice was making it seem like public humiliation is acceptable, and condemned the show for encouraging bullying. It’s a good thing that he hadn’t tuned in to American Idol, or his young brain may have suffered a stroke.

The article didn’t mention the fact that Mr. Knight was born yesterday, but the astute reader can readily deduce this. Had he not been born yesterday, he would have seen the public humiliation that Eliot Spitzer was put through a couple of weeks ago, to everyone’s glee. If it is okay for adults to enjoy former Governor Spitzer’s humiliation, kids will certainly get the message that it’s okay to publicly humiliate kids for their faults and weaknesses.

And Mr. Knight may have noticed the public humiliation that our former President Clinton experienced for his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. And let’s not forget what was done to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

And with all the humiliation that gets dished out on a daily basis to President Bush, Britney Spears, and the endless series of people who adorn our newspapers, tabloids and TV screens, kids will certainly think it’s okay to humiliate the ordinary kids they see every day.

And Mr. Knight certainly would have come across the most egregious show of all, America’s Funniest Home Videos, in which members of a live audience laugh their heads off while watching people falling off roofs, getting hit by baseball bats, kicked in the balls, and being victims of all sorts of humiliation and violence. Imagine, a “family” show implying that it’s okay to laugh at human misery!

In fact, had Mr. Knight, who is so sensitive to aggression and humiliation on TV, been born decades ago, he would certainly have noticed by now that there is hardly a show on TV that doesn’t feature aggression and humiliation. With so few shows portraying people always being nice to each other, he would have concluded that the entire media is promoting bullying. Lets hope that Mr. Knight continues on his noble crusade and gets all our beloved entertainment pulled off the air.

And when he gets done with TV, let’s hope he’ll tackle movies, radio, newspapers, magazines and literature. And the Bible. Bullying must be stopped at all costs!