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I was at a high school that laid down a zero-tolerance policy against bullying.

In practice, zero-tolerance turned into a blanket "we don't want to put up with any disruptions" policy.

Provoking an outburst out of a target meant consequences for the victim that could be as bad or worse than the aggressor's.

It's hard when adults do the same thing. I mean not just to the kids at school, but in all of life. How different in essence is using your power to artificially increase the price of healthcare, such as with insulin or in a hundred other examples, for your profit different than stealing someone's lunch money, or making jokes at their expense?

> I've never understood why schools seem so reticent to enforce zero-tolerance policies against bullying.

It's pretty simple, this has a political answer: people believe that life is hard and that "it's tough out there", hence it's important for school to "toughen up" kids. It's as simple as that. Social darwinism is a creeping ideology that nobody really questions or talk about, but it's there, despite the presence of social programs.

If you ask people "should we protect the weak?", at the end of the day, people will answer "no, it's too difficult to protect the weak, if they can't survive or toughen up, they deserve to die or suffer, they cannot pull other people down".

Everybody knows that sending their kids to school generates a lot of anxiety for parents, because parents cannot protect their kids anymore, since bullying and "justice in the classroom" are difficult to do, but also hard for kids to talk about.

School is an excellent description of its society. Kids never lie, and their behavior naively precedes and envision the real spine of society. It's also where values and beliefs are taught.

Bullying exists because society not only tolerates it, but doesn't want to fight it. The "school of hard knocks" meme proves this perfectly.

> If you ask people "should we protect the weak?", at the end of the day, people will answer "no, it's too difficult to protect the weak"

Isn't "protecting the weak" the whole point of civilized society over barbarism? Life is hard enough already, why make it even harder by tolerating aggressive and violent behavior from others?

It's not "toughening up" anyone, it's creating an environment where the worst offenders are precisely those who perceive themselves as "winners" and as "stronger" than others. Surely that has to be totally misguided - the only people who would support this are those who are themselves inclined towards bullying, and towards developing contempt and hate for their perceived outgroups.

Not until individualism and anti-government sentiments kick in

I'm not saying that those things I described are good, I'm just saying they make sense in our current time.

> why make it even harder by tolerating aggressive and violent behavior from others?

> Isn't "protecting the weak" the whole point of civilized society over barbarism?

You're right, civilization matters more, but it doesn't change the fact that human nature will always easily re-surface. Free markets, competition, individualism, money, those values sound very dangerous because to me, because they contradicts and almost negate the entire concept of civilized society.

The fall of the soviet union and acute capitalistic dogmas have exacerbated the sentiment that it's "everyone for himself".

har har Godwins law and all that, but this comparison is pertinent

The Nazi's didn't seek to destroy Civilization (at least not in the sense that a Primitivist would), but they absolutely affirmed the ideology of "we should not protect the weak" [1] while attempting to preserve some form of "Civilized Society".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4

> It's pretty simple, this has a political answer: people believe that life is hard and that "it's tough out there", hence it's important for school to "toughen up" kids.

I wouldn't necessarily put it that way; but there is 1) a sense from adults that kids should learn to "sort out their own problems", 2) a sense from kids that you shouldn't "tell" ("snitches get stitches").

But the question is, how would you "sort out" a similar situation as an adult? Well if you were regularly physically threatened by someone as an adult you would call the police, and or you would stop going there. And if someone was an emotional bully at your workplace, they would be fired or you would find another job.

But most of these options aren't really there for kids. Nobody is kicked out of school or demoted for being jerks, and often they're not kicked out of school even for regular physical intimidation. Kids have very little opportunity to change their environment. And often the authorities who are supposed to be protecting them look the other way.

I don't have kids yet, but if my kid experienced physical intimidation, and the principal / teachers in the school had the "kids need to sort it out" attitude, I would be severely tempted to say in response: "From now on, everything that is done by bullies to my child, I will do to you. If my child finds bullies waiting for him as he leaves the school, you will find me waiting by your car. If my child has their head put in a toilet, I will put your head in the toilet. We'll see how you manage to 'sort it out for yourself'." (Obviously that may not actually turn out to be practical -- the point is to highlight what we expect kids to put up with vs what we expect adults to put up with.)

>I would be severely tempted to say in response: "From now on, everything that is done by bullies to my child, I will do to you.

>Obviously that may not actually turn out to be practical

I like this idea. For it to work, you probably need an accomplice, and to make sure there's no witnesses. Have an accomplice provide an alibi ("no, he was at home with me at that time"), and make sure there's no witnesses when you beat the crap out of the principal late at night.

Honestly, since schools are simply not willing to do anything about the problem, I don't see how this is a bad solution at all.

It wouldn't work - you would just get arrested. I think that's part of the point - there are consequences for adults exhibiting this sort of behavior where there are arguably very few/none for children.

As much as I love watching the "Ray Velcoro Beats Up Bully's Dad" bit, it's just Hollywood. If someone pulled a stunt like beating up a principal, or an abuser's father, you would immediately be a criminal and you'd be legally destroyed to the full extent of the law. You'd likely lose your job, etc etc. These same legal consequences just don't exist bullies - and I think they should (with obvious due process and clear evidence).

Well keep in mind that Ray got a way with it because he was a detective. It isn't like he was just some guy.

> Nobody is kicked out of school or demoted for being jerks, and often they're not kicked out of school even for regular physical intimidation.

Ding. You're often forced to sit there with your aggressor to "sort it out" - or at least that was how it worked in my situation. This just made things so much worse to the point that I almost immediately stopped trying to get adults involved (parents, teachers, staff).

> "From now on, everything that is done by bullies to my child, I will do to you. If my child finds bullies waiting for him as he leaves the school, you will find me waiting by your car [...]"

This really spoke to me. As someone who's been through both of those situations as a child, I never thought how much more recourse an adult would have in the same scenario... you'd end up with a restraining order, you'd get arrested - that's just a fact.

These bullies would work in the system and often play the victim themselves when they were ran up the chain of authority to the point that the schools just enabled them. I believe that if any teacher actually _did_ something about it they'd put their career at risk, ergo: the victim gets the short end of the stick because that's how the system is designed.

Due to this I feel like we just condition them to be better jerks because they get to learn how to manipulate a system to lessen their consequences + get away with things... this tends to be a "school" all it's own for these bullies.

We should treat assault and abuse with the same weight for children as we do adults, especially in an educational setting. But we don't... we just coddle them because that's the easier thing to do, which just puts the onus on the victim to solve (typically by violence).

Yup. The two real things adults would do is a retraining order and weapons. Kids get neither. (And, yes, sometimes it rises to that level. There was one incident in grade school where firearms would have been an appropriate response.)

I don't think most of the adults knowingly look the other way. They try some little measure, the problem appears to go away (the victim got a beating and is afraid to talk) so they think it worked.

The problem is inconsistency, geographically and also over time. Up until perhaps 10-20 years ago, it was a beat down in the school parking lot. That was the only way to deal with bullies. Make them bleed. Today in large part to "no tolerance" policies, the victim gets equally punished for defending themselves. A beat down in a parking lot gets the police involved. And the school can expel both bully and victim if there was a fight.

I never had the imagination for shooting up a school when I was a kid. But now that I'm an adult, I totally get it. When trust and civility break down, there are no more rules. Child victims have already been betrayed, and have had normal coping mechanisms inhibited. Sorta like punishing a dog for growling, all you do is teach them to be silent until they bite without warning.

Why shoot your classmates? To make the parents suffer. All of them. Why? For raising bad children who are bullies. For having created such a perverted system of adults with no meaningful arbitration or advocacy or fairness. Make them suffer forever. It's a permanent, enduring, ultimate vindictiveness. It is intentionally disproportionate. From the child's point of view: I don't trust this system and neither should you, let me demonstrate betrayal to you. The idea that school shooters don't know what they're doing, or is temporary insanity, I think is absurd. For sure they lack mental discipline and coping mechanisms. But then, I'm not an expert in the psychology of it all, but I was a victim. Parking lot beat down pretty much solved it for me. But who advocates for those who can't or won't?

>But who advocates for those who can't or won't?

The answer is literal leftist "SJWs" which is a slur to all but those who agree with the policies. Radical liberation, equality, and compassion for the weak.

Negative Utilitarian ethics about reducing suffering above all else is frequently the implicit ethical decision calculus used by: Communists, Socialists, Liberals, Harm-reduction activists, Intactivists, Feminists, Disability Rights Activists, Humanists, among others.

If you are in the role of a bullied individual, your best friend is the one advocating for a more systemically equal and just system.

I think the problem is difficulty defining bullying. Fighting is easy, if you hit someone then you broke the rules, but bullying has a much more blurry line. At my school there was some attempt to crack down on bullying, but instances of bullying were regularly dismissed or reframed as "just banter".

Punishing kids is not answer on itself either. For one, it does not deal with victim at all.

In one school I have seen, they had problem with bullying in a class. What they did were regular meet ups of whole class with psychologist and year long programs about communication.

Kids were taught how to express what they feel (what and who makes them angry), were taught to listen to other kids, were taught to care about each others feelings, were taught what is big deal and what is not big deal.

Slowly over time, situation got better. The point is, solution was not punishment nor seeking who is guilty. It was working with all the kids, bullies, victims, bystanders and teaching them new behavioral patterns. Repeatedly saying the same things, reinforcing same values, playing similar games etc.

That sort of thing will help with the minor stuff, it won't deal with the serious stuff.

It was serious. If it would be minor, no one would call specialists. They cost money and time. The bullying went down and there are no permanent victims now.

It is not rosy, but much better then in classes where teachers opted for punishment only or ignore it methods. There issues only grew. Yes in one case the problem kid had to leave school. Guess what - he is in another school and I don't think he magically stopped.

If someone's banter is making someone else's life worse, it's not just banter.

How is that different than just saying anything you don't like is bullying?

Zero tolerance ends up punishing the victims, often instead of the bullies. Furthermore, it doesn't even work. If the bully gets punished then the victim will likely suffer worse. The victims very quickly learn that there is no help, the victimhood must be hidden even from well-meaning parents and authority figures. Their blundering efforts to help only make the problem worse. They think they solved the problem when they really just drove it underground. It "works", they keep using that strategy rather than doing something effective which would be very difficult. Parents, understand that you probably have only one chance to address it, if you fail to solve it you won't know unless your child suffers injuries they can't hide.

>> My friends didn't have such support and suffered from it

Could the real difference maybe be the homelife? The act of supporting you in spite of bullying and school administrators in some sense communicates to you that you are worthwhile and ought to be confident. Maybe the bullying in your friends lives compounded a lack of confidence unintentionally fostered in their homelives?

Teachers are often the ringleaders of the bullying in my experience.

Can you impart some of the lessons your parents gave to you as a child?