We really need an "Off-Topic" sub-forum.

You can't mandate people to be nice to each other.
Physical violence should, obviously, be forbidden (but isn't it already ?) but any attempt to crack down on people simply being "mean" are not only doomed to fail but are completely misaimed.

Let me quote my beloved stoic to elaborate on the rest:
"If you are pained by an external thing it is not the thing that disturbs you but your judgement of it. It is in your power to wipe out this judgement. Should anything in your disposition give you pain, who hinders you from correcting it?"

That's a good personal outlook on things, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. However, it's much MUCH easier said than done in this case. We're social creatures, and the need for acceptance is hard-coded into our interactions. And that's not something you can easily ignore. Most adults struggle with it, to say nothing of children and adolescents. I know even the relatively minor things I went through in grade school had (and still have) an impact on my social abilities later in life (or I believe so, at least. Who can tell?). I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who actually underwent real mental abuse.

And I wouldn't necessarily agree that the idea of punishing people for their actions is "misaimed." Quite the opposite, in fact. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

They're children, and you can mandate the behavior of children; in fact, you pretty much have to. Telling your kids not to be horrible to other kids (if you're a parent) or one set of kids under your supervision not to be awful to another bunch of kids under your supervision (if you're a teacher) is not misaimed.

Solution: stop that cutesy shit. Beating up people is assault and battery. Following people around and calling them names is also a crime, I forget the word for it. Taking personal belongings without permission is theft or robbery. Ganging up to do the above is organized crime. Then it's possible to work out which punishments are appropriate for children.

Nonsense ;P ! I've never in my life felt the need to get along with others and be accepted by them. Quite the opposite - I've derived great satisfaction from being different, being "myself"...
I don't want to spin any ridiculous indirect coercion theories but...

Agreed but there's only so far you can go with that. You can't force them to like somebody, to think well of somebody, to admire or accept somebody. You can tell them what to do but not what to think. That's the issue, though.
I assumed a situation where physical violence is not the problem (and if this is not the thing up for debate here - great). If this is true, there's nothing more we can force on people, regardless of their age. Kids don't want to talk to somebody ? Go ahead, try to change that. I dare you. You can force the most contrived of interactions, you can force people to do things like say "Hello" to each other - you cannot force them to grow fond of someone if they don't want to. And that's the problem. You cannot outlaw gossip without eavesdropping on every conversation a person might have with someone else. You can't outlaw meaningful facial expressions without outlawing faces. You cannot give someone a government-issued sexual or romantic partner.
Group A is being mean to person X because group A doesn't like person X. You can waste your efforts fighting this but it will only reduce public and overt displays of dislike, nothing more. Person X will still be alone and miserable... except that by interfering, you've pretty much eliminated the, already slim, chance of X finding a way to gain acceptance.

I know this is a very sad conclusion to reach but deviants (i.e.: people who act differently from what is assumed as the norm) never have it easy. In no society. They can either conform, find another group that will accept them or learn to cope with the situation. You cannot change a well-meshed group to fit an outsider, why would you even try ?

A degree of respect is needed, of course, but it cannot be forced. We should both try not to hurt other people's feelings (to a reasonable degree) and try not to let our feelings be hurt...

The very next sentence says that if there is something you can do to improve your situation... then why are you feeling bad instead of DOING IT ? Geez.

That's what I've been saying for a while now. It's horrible that a stereotypical American would push charges for 1/4 of what among children is simply glanced over. What the hell ? Apparently the main difference between being a thug and normal is AGE...

Not misogynistic. Men commit suicide too.

Otherwise, spot on.

+1

I agree. Misanthropic would be a more apt definition

I can say from personal experience that bullying damages you psychologically for life, especially when it is sustained throughout your childhood. I was a suicide risk for much of my late teens and early 20s, and it has made me very socially awkward, unable to properly engage with people and made it very difficult for me to make friends. This is because bullying makes you very self-conscious and gives you the constant feeling that you are beneath everyone else in this world.

The problem with trying to address the problem at its source is that the families of many bullies are themselves bullies or grossly negligent in the emotional upbringing of their children. They grow up in dysfunctional families who really don't give a shit what their kids are doing. Doesn't matter whether rich or poor (many rich families are notorious for just chucking money at their kids and failing to raise them properly in any way), the problem of emotional negligence is always there.

So the powers-that-be decide that to get results, they address the victim as if they were the problem, because the victim is a much easier target.

This in turn makes the problem worse. My mother, when I was school, bent over backwards to try and solve the problem of bullying, but the school just didn't take it seriously. Why should they trust the kid from the social projects being bullied by the rich village kids?

And when the school fails to take the situation seriously, it gets out of hand. After three years of constantly being bullied at school and hoping that something would be done, I did the only thing I could: I waited outside of the school gates with a stick, and beat the living shit out of the chief perpetrator.

And the sad thing? I don't regret it to this day, because I know in my heart that I tried everything to resolve the situation properly. It's genuinely sad when you have to resort to violence out of sheer desperation.

(Oh, and despite coming from a fairly wealthy family, he is now perpetually unemployed, only goes out skateboarding and has done prison time for drug dealing).

The point here is about bullying to the point of suicide in extreme cases. I would say that would call for intervention, and if the bully doesn't feel guilty for their actions, they are inhumane.

I get what you're saying, but prevention rather than cure is what is happening here.

While we're at it, let's get rid of all standing armies in the world, and instead get everyone in the world to agree to treat each other with dignity and respect. Surely all individuals can agree that war is a bad thing, and should not happen anymore.

That's about as realistic as what you said.

Human beings are individuals. You can't force them all into identical jelly moulds and expect it to work. Some people are assholes, some people have low self-esteem. You can help individuals when you come across them, but you can never eliminate all assholes from the planet.

Suffering in silence and dealing with it is less damaging ultimately than reporting it multiple times and finding that nobody cares enough to do anything. I think that's where things really go bad, not just that the bullies are doing it, but that the authorities aren't interested in putting an end to it.

People who commit suicide pretty much always get put up on a pedestal in my experience, I had a friend down a bottle of antidepressants in high school and you wouldn't believe the things people were saying about him. They of course left out the bit where he was doing drugs and anything that might be construed as speaking ill of the dead. Which led to a rather unhealthy view of who he was at the end and what choices he made.

As far as bullying goes, if you're not indemnifying people who intervene or providing an legislative solution, you're not going to solve the problem. Bullying is effectively a disease that tends to spread as long and as far as nobody pays attention to it.

I'm not sure why Licurg got downrepped for agreeing with the OP, that's some chicken shit right there, he's entitled to his opinion, even if I think the OP has serious issues with his view.

This sickened me more than all of the bullshit you typed...

It could be possible Licurg's clapping was sarcastic.