The fearful always preyed upon your confidence.
Did they see the consequence? They pushed you around.
The arrogant build kingdoms made of the different ones,
Breaking them til they've become just another crown.
-Lifehouse
You may have caught the recent news about the death of Tori Swoape, yet another teenager who committed suicide because of school and online bullying. It's sad, sad news.
Bullying is a difficult problem in today's world. We hear the arguments left and right that because of the advent of social media, we are empowering each other to say things one might not have said face to face. Aspects of a changing cultural scene play into another one, making the issue of self esteem and bullying a more complex one that ever before.
My heart is saddened by these stories of bullying. My heart aches for the children who literally think there is no other way out of their difficult situations. I struggle a lot with the concept of bullying, mostly though because I'm convinced its been around for ages. Bullying, as I see it, is not a new thing.
Bullying, as I see it, is no more than a power play. Bullying is not about being cool or lame, smart or dumb, black or white, gay or straight, fat or skinny, or any other way that we distinguish ourselves from some other person. Bullying is simply a play of power in an effort to attain more. It is an attempt to use whatever assets I have to make you feel worse about yours.
It is an effort to draw upon the emotions of others using the skills, talents, and resources at your disposal in order for yourself to be made higher. Bullying is simply power at work.
Isn't our entire society shaped around bullying? Isn't the goal of American society to win over someone else? Isn't the goal to be the most powerful? Isn't that the reason that we continue to have one of the strongest militaries in the world? Hasn't the history of the world involved strong senses of nationalism and power?
The opportunity to surrender before entire annihilation in war is an example of this. The reason one might wave their flag of surrender is because they've been intimidated enough to the point that they can now acknowledge that they cannot win. They cannot go on. The other military has then used their resources to convince you and your military that it is weaker, insufficient, and likely to lose. Resources used to intimidate so that surrender happens and the fight for power is over.
It's no different on the schoolyard. A girl can call another girl a 'slut' because she knows it is a degrading word that others will associate with her enemy. If the term catches on, the girl will no longer be the cool girl anymore, she'll be the 'slut.' When the population turns against you, your own acknowledgment of who you are changes. Your confidence is lost. The power is removed from you.
The same is true of the current rush of gay children committing suicide because of bullying. They're just a normal kid until those who are against them use some sort resource (language, popularity, Scripture) against them so that they draw upon an emotional reaction.
Once someone has lost confidence in who they are, they've forfeited all power. And that power is left for the taking.
I see the attention that the media, social media, and school systems are giving to bullying as more than just an acknowledgment that bullying is wrong and must be stopped. In a very real and tangible way it is an acknowledgment that something is wrong with how we live together. Something always has been wrong with the way we have been.
Nevertheless, bullying is our history. If we believe in a cause, we march for it. We stop traffic. We boycott. We sing hymns to stop meetings. We use our resources to beat down those with power to get our side heard. We can and do (both rightly and not rightly) paint it with the brush of 'justice' but we bully...back and forth, left and right. When we use our resources to force even something as worthy inclusiveness and fairness, we are simply using the same tactics on others that were used against us.
I'd wager that some disagree, but I don't read Jesus as having used resources to draw emptional responses in order to win power. He took the authority that God gave him as his guiding light. With that, he was unwilling to submit to a power play. I'd encourage you to study his trial before his execution to see what I mean. It was (and is) I am very sure, a different way of looking at the world.
As we continue as a society, the trick is to remove the power. The trick is to remove ourselves from a world where power is at stake. We must remove ourselves, perhaps humbling ourselves to death...even death on a cross...because we are unwilling to give into the need for power in this world. If we could approach our disputes as people from an attitude of humility, surely some sort of attitude worthy of God would prevail.
If anything, the attention being given to bullying is bigger than it perhaps realizes it is: it's an acknowledgment that something has to change on a large scale or we are to suffer the devastation of centuries past. Worse, it's likely going against God's will.
We cannot continue fighting violence with violence. We cannot continue to fight bullying with bullying. We've got to change society's understanding of power. Hopefully, that will end the battle. Hopefully, that in turn, will end the suicides.
-B