Bullying - the untold story

What makes bullying so different from other coercive interactions between people is its one-sided character, and that goes for both parties.

Contrary to the old joke bullies may be sadists, but their victims are not masochists. And anyway, sadists and masochists are not the perfect match.

What's so insidious about the bully and their victim is the expectation they generate within the group.

Bullies do not present instantly. They feel their way forward, slowly but surely absorbing the characters surrounding them. An initial assessment period if you will, and when they got the picture they pounce.

That absorption takes place in tandem with those by everyone else. Those first hours of getting to know everyone, of subconsciously creating an inner imagery of who is who.

From then on the expectations take over. Once the picture has settled people will respond according to what their mind tells them, any further assessment is hardly considered.

Bullies play their game and everyone knows it. The victims play the role in line with the commonly held script.

Now comes the really bad part. Once a victim, the experience a game shared by all, the group expects that scene to be repeated over and over again. That includes authority figures such as teachers and bosses.

The perpetrators could not ply their craft were it not for their wily skill understanding cause and effect to a fine degree. They know when to begin, when to stop, and how to remain within the bounds of convenience accepted by the rest. As long as the respective roles are adhered to, the situation will continue unabated.

But let the victim take charge, let them step outside the assigned territory, and retribution sets in. When a child can't stand it anymore and hits back, hits back so hard that the bully melts away, the space is suddenly in the glare of everyone's attention. It's an empty space, except for the victim who has nowhere to go. The bully is gone, but the victim is left standing there ready to cop it.

Scale up the scenario to the adult world and the same happens. Does the boss look kindly upon retribution, an act that brings in the unfamiliar and thus unseats the harmony? Hardly. Would the courts give the green light to those standing up for themselves? I don't think so.

You are victim, don't you understand?? How dare you upset the natural balance!

And so it goes. Unctuous sermons are held about the phenomenon of bullying, reports are written, statistics compiled, but they don't mean a thing for those on the ground.

Gimbal animation

No real reason for this video except there has been some talk about gimbals lately, with the usual problem how to visualise the rotating parts.

It reminded me of the little animation I did some time ago for my grandchildren. So here it is.

The innermost part is something like a chair with two of its edges corresponding to an axis. It helps to observe how the mutual relationship among the objects changes.

One play covers a 360 degree rotation.

Free Will? Yes and No

The question has been around for centuries. Thomas Aquinas fought with it, so did John Locke, Nietzsche, and may others in between and beyond.

From the technical perspective there is an answer but it is, well, technical. We're talking about neuronal dynamics, and how they lead to the phenomenon of mind. Too big a topic for this blog.

But there is one scale at which the problem becomes easier to handle. When looking at the relationship between the individual and society the issue is more transparent.

Let's assume the individual has free will (whatever this means to you), and even if you deny that it has no bearing on what comes next, as you'll see.

All of us make decisions on any given day, and they have an effect. Sometimes the decisions are unique, sometimes they are common to many: I may decide to climb Mt Everest, or I may decide to see a movie. One is more common than the other, and the difference lies in the facilities my society has provided for me.

And that's the point. For a movie to be shown in a cinema many people have to have come together for a common purpose (if I want to watch the film "XYZ" I can't because nobody has made it, and so I won't).

If I want to start a political party that in itself may be new, but in order to attract others they need to have some affinity with the cause and so again I am tapping into something which is already there.

So a society may sway this way or that, but the ability to sway in the first place depends on individuals who have provided it with the possibility to do so.

Society therefore, in other words the sumtotal of many people bound together by commonly perceived elements (values, priorities, infrastructure, art, education, transport, technology, etc etc), cannot escape the precepts determined by its members.

The members may or may not possess free will; but even if they do, their society doesn't.

Sounds trivial? Perhaps, but it means that the group, small or large, only ever acts according to its own content. If 'free will' means making the conscious decision to step outside one's boundaries, a group will never do that.

No use complaining, or weeping, or protesting on the streets. Unless some individuals see a reason for change (and act on it!), nothing will happen.

Affecting change becomes a matter of efficiency. Who or what needs to be targeted, how or where are resources to be employed?

And once the new has become part of society, this sumtotal will play itself out - it cannot do otherwise.

Whether the result is wonderful or scary depends on your personal disposition.

Nicknames

There is a government department charged with the task of synchronising public morale with the aims of society: Little Voices.

People whose lifestyle puts them more than 200 years behind the rest are assigned to special autonomous regions. Such an area is called the Garden of Eden.

All drugs are legal, but they have to be bought from official dispensaries called Wormholes.

Before attaining the right to vote young people undergo a comprehensive training course, the Barbershop.

The choice of sex is up to you. But the more people you affect the higher your tax. Successful claimants are Seedlings.

Those who take their religion too seriously can't vote. They are the Free Agents.

Want to be a criminal? Fine. To the rest of us you are now The Blood Bank.

Someone who works for the intelligence service is the Quantum.

And finally, if your work contributed to the advancement of society, what should we call you? Whatever you want.

Why this blog

From the very beginning only two reasons brought this blog into existence. At this point in time they may be worth mentioning.

One relates to events or situations where the Otoom mind model has something to say. Not so much in the more technical sense (the pages on the Otoom website are reserved for that), but as the index page there states, to put the flesh on Otoom.

The other is quite different.

There may come a time when these posts are subjected to scrutiny. Like the critiques of essays, novels, or tracts in general serve those who want to build a picture of the person behind, the writings on this blog could equally become the source of similar uses.

Except here the steps leading up to such interest are somewhat reversed. Usually some essays or a novel have made their mark first, then comes the curiosity.

In this case there was no impact; in fact, the very obscurity of the writings has been a result of a scenario which is in the process of coming to a head.

There is the lingering problem, the build-up of pressure, the release. Then there is the interest.

At this point the information contained in these posts will be one of the references from which the picture is constructed by the observer. Therefore the content matters, and it has to be truthful.

Not only must it be true to the source, it must also be true to the particular subject matter. Even if it should be controversial then sooner or later its validity must be confirmed.

Because no matter how probing the investigation, in the end the result has to be free of errors. There is a risk therefore, but it is worth it.

To fully understand the value of that risk requires engagement, my own as well as the reader's.

So show me!

Nothing quite wakens the beast within the ideologue like a confrontation with reality. The steady glow of conviction splutters into a spitting flame, the quiet face of false certainty contorts, and mellifluous mews turn into daggers.

As a traveller to countries where phantasies abound you begin to tread warily once you get close to the nerve. A mercurial debate dons the straightjacket as soon as the other ego feels challenged. It helps to be informed beforehand.

The fates of Galileo, of Giordano Bruno, of Martin Luther attest to the sheer ferocity we can expect from the owners of beliefs whose cherished monsters are exposed to the light.

Nor does it help if the usurpers have their own foibles. Even thieves practise a certain collegiality but not here. From the purveyors of religion to the officials of authoritarian governments, the instruments of coercion are brought to bear upon those who threaten. Even the mere perception of a threat evokes the hatred.

Think of the security forces during the French Revolution, the police under the tsars and the communists, the watchers of the Reich, the spies in Islamic countries.

The only calming influence - and really the only one - comes from the culture of the times. The sheer size of the state lends a certain inertia to the fever of individuals provided it is their environment which is more measured by comparison. Turn it around and the opposite is true.

Nothing has changed. For the present the stake may be relegated to history, but every age has its own dungeons hidden from the common view.

Those who find themselves in the Family Court will know what it means to question the tenets of feminism; those who are untouched by heated moralism discover the perils of the human eros; and so many agendas in the name of peace are anything but when put to the test.

"So show me!" - the mere asking for evidence - is enough to loosen the hounds.

Indigenous tribes the reservoir of wisdom and harmony - where is the evidence? No collective character of a people - where is the evidence? The wide range of sexuality determining the life and death of society - where? The wrath of some god - really?

True democracy is for those who don't mind loosing. So far our houses of parliaments are still only shells.

Of gangs and book clubs

One of the more intriguing exercises is predicting behaviour under stress. "What will they do now?" has been asked by many, from philosophers to politicians to planners. It goes with the intellectual territory our minds colonise.

The main stumbling block has been to guess what actions people perform when there is less, particularly much less, of something.

Concentrating on functionalities however - the functional properties of minds - at least prepares the stage for the moment when the object-related content starts to come into focus.

We can begin by conceptualising the mind as a general attractor, with one's identity at the core. Moving outwards we meet thought structures - thoughts that form associations with others - which exist further away from the centre the less attractive they are in relation to the core. What they are precisely depends on the person's history and their cultural and social environment, together with the mind's processing capacity and emotional intensity. There are no absolute rules, but there are patterns of dynamics to be found.

A generic definition of 'pressure' would be 'anything perceived as a potential modification to one's current identity'; which means 'pressure' can be positive or negative.

Pressure can also be asserted as a constraint on resources, and under that perspective the analogy with money serves quite well. Clamp down on the funds available and suddenly formerly common items turn into luxuries one can do without. Essentially it is a matter of energy and the same goes for mental associations, right down to the events at the synapses.

The result is that under pressure thought processes become more compact, in direct proportion to its degree.

Suppose alternative energy sources (including the nuclear kind) do not fulfill the civilisational equation as expected. The consequences will be dramatic.

Whether Christmas lights go or a revolving restaurant is a matter for object-related predictions, precarious at best. Cognitively speaking however more compact, because more constrained, mental dynamics are a realistic scenario.

The activities of many interest groups at any level will turn into peccadilloes society can no longer afford. What sort of activities? A good rule of thumb is to find out which ones have emerged over the last couple of generations or so - we can safely tick those off the list.

The behaviour of individuals will show a commensurate shrinkage. Here's a question: with whom would you rather associate - a member of a gang or someone from a book club?

If you prefer talking about books you might have to readjust your values.