Bully for Every Single One of Us!

Many readers will be familiar with the viral video showing Tea Party Protestors, outside of the U.S. Capitol, showering abuse and invective at a man with Parkinson's Disease (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFOnG9a1Pzw; Health-reform rally heckler says he's sorry and scared | The Columbus Dispatch).

I suspected, even before reading an account of the bully's remorse, that he probably had not awakened that morning with the intention of humiliating a fellow American, who was stricken with a devastating, degenerative illness; chances are that he would provide succor to a friend or neighbor similarly afflicted, and might well join a community or employer-sponsored event to benefit others with the disease. After the rally, the man publicly apologized for his offense, but the ugly reality will never disappear.Chris Reichert fears for himself and his family, despite his repentance, while bloggers and commentators on-line have ranted against him. Others have assailed Robert Letcher for leaving "his side" of the protest lines, thereby inviting the attacks from opponents of health-care reform. The mob's toxic rancor proves more potent than any individual core of decency.

We Americans like our good and bad guys clearly, even cartoonishly, identified. We forget that the greatest, most cataclysmic evils have been perpetrated not by lone psychopaths, but by compliant mobs, comprising a lot of "nice guys." I sincerely believe that species homo sapiens has evolved through the ages, and that our collective yen for cruelty has diminished - we don't rejoice in burning witches, heretics, and Jews in our public squares anymore; we fail to eschew cruelty as much as we can or should, however. We all enjoy a measure of schadenfraude, while hoping to find safety in the bosom of the crowd. When the crowd grows ugly, some members will hasten to prove themselves the ugliest.

We like to identify bullies as anti-social misfits, but much more devastation is wrought by groups of "good kids," whose behavior goes unchecked as long as they select their targets wisely. A former Senate Majority Leader extolled his boyhood home in Mississippi for exemplifying community values of kindness and compassion, failing to note that those virtues were never practiced toward the descendants of African slaves living nearby. He, or any white, could manifest cruelty, barbarity, and perversity beyond imagination, provided they treated their own kind with respect and courtesy. Most war criminals do not conform to typical serial-killer profiles; they have been respectable citizens, loving husbands and fathers. Similarly, bullying persists despite avowed efforts to curtail it, simply because we fail to identify bullies and bullying accurately.

Absence of empathy is recognized as a symptom of psychopathy in individuals, but we have no comparable diagnostic category for groups or communities who lack an "empathic affect." Instead of attempting to identify and isolate the possible miscreants in a community, we should probably do more to celebrate the beneficent outliers. The infamous Milgram experiments at Yale (and similar projects at other universities) revealed an appalling willingness to inflict suffering on others, yet we forget that roughly one-third of the participants declined to "push the button." I was somewhat disappointed to learn recently that, contrary to some allegations, the Ronald Ridenhour who publicized reports of the My Lai massacre in Viet Nam was not the same Ronald Ridenhour who had supposedly been among the unwilling in a Milgram-affiliated group at Princeton. I should, instead, embrace the notion of two Ron Ridenhours: one, who might have remained anonymous among the righteous minority had his namesake not waged a more public struggle for common decency.

Perhaps schools should nurture their students empathic skills as much as they do their athletic or academic ones. President Obama was widely derided for suggesting that empathy was a desirable trait for Supreme Court Justices; we've seen the alternative, unfortunately, in a Court increasingly prone to favor Goliath over David regardless of the wake of destruction he may leave.

I know a few people who have never exhibited any cruel instincts...to me; I imagine we all have too many carnivorous predators in our ancestry to lack atavistic urges to subdue or devour those we perceive as our inferiors. We expect civilization's institutions to, well.....civilize, rather than institute. There's no need to devalue competition and rigor, but there is a need to elevate the value placed on kindness and compassion. The kid who stands up for someone who has been unfairly accused should never be told to "stay out of it," regardless of how inconvenient he or she may be for teachers and parents. Parents should listen to their children, and never dismiss or trivialize their cries for help. We've heard too many horror stories, by now, to assume that the adult authority is necessarily more credible or responsible than the recalcitrant child. Above all, we should tirelessly remind our children, and ourselves, that real heroes stand up for what they know, in their hearts, is right, not what the prevailing voices in a particular place or time tell them is right. Standing up for what they know is right can sometimes mean standing up for themselves, regardless of the cost among their peers or elders. Schools love to talk about "character" - our district has even implemented a "character education" curriculum, but they define character more as respecting boundaries than questioning them. It is the families' responsibility to cultivate empathy and conscience in their members.

More to come...

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