The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America’s Schools

Conclusion: From a Bully Society to Compassionate Communities

233 Conclusion From a Bully Society to Compassionate Communities On the first day in one of my criminal justice classes, I asked my students to tell me why they thought school shootings occurred. One student said something similar to what many of the Columbine jocks said about Eric and Dylan after Columbine. “They couldn’t take the bullying . Why didn’t they let it roll off them?” and then, “Something had to be wrong with them.” The boy later shared that he had been a victim of bullying for most of his school career and that this was how he coped. “No one was going to help me,” he said, “so I just had to try not to let it bother me.” Another girl said something similar: “All my girlfriends were called ‘sluts’ and ‘whores.’ Get over it.” Many other students nodded in agreement: “It has always existed. It’s everywhere.” They talked about their own bullying experiences in school, in the workplace, and in college. One student declared, “It’s a competitive society, survival of the fittest—and that’s how it’s going to be in schools too.” We had a long discussion about the mental health of the shooters. Why couldn’t they withstand the abuse like everyone else? Why couldn’t they just suck it up? And then someone suggested that perhaps it was the jocks and other tormentors who had the mental health problem. “Why do they get pleasure from hurting other people? What’s wrong with them?” We discussed these questions: Is it necessarily the shooters who have a mental health problem? Was there something wrong with the “jocks” who were the most common bullies of the shooters? Or is there something wrong with our society so resigned to the school violence revealed by school shootings? Is there something disturbing about the fact that 234  Conclusion children expect that their schools will have high levels of gay bashing, slut bashing, violence against girls, racism, and violence against those who are less able or otherwise “different”? What does it say about our schools, our workplaces, and our society, that everyone thinks it is so normal to be tormented, abused, harassed, stalked, threatened, and beat up, on a daily basis? This seems like an unhealthy way to live—yet millions of children, as well as adults, feel that they simply have no other choice. I was startled by the student who matter-of-factly said: “It’s a competitive society—‘survival of the fittest’—and that’s how it’s going to be in schools too.” I had somehow thought it was more hidden—that our culture had so normalized issues related to competition, domination, and power that they were invisible to anyone raised in its midst. My students confirmed that this was no secret to them. They understand that their world is cutthroat. They know that they have to compete to survive and that they will be judged for nothing short of how powerful they look and how much influence they wield. That’s clear. What is more elusive to them is that it doesn’t have to be this way. When we study political theory we study multiple ways of organizing a society and different models for getting our needs met. The sociologist Talcott Parsons famously describes the functions a society needs to address— how a society distributes necessities like food and clothing, Adaptation; how we come to have similar Goals; how we maintain solidarity among one another Integration; and what he calls Latency, creating and maintaining similar values among people in a given society (AGIL). Any political or economic framework needs to address these functions—but the way we address these concerns can vary significantly across societies and cultures. Yet most of my students cannot even imagine a society, much less a school, founded on principles that prioritize community, compassion, and cooperation rather than individual profit, self-interest, and winning at any cost. I understand why, as they tend to learn these lessons at almost every turn. Always Alone Our hyperindividualist, hyper-self-reliant, hypercompetitive culture causes students to often end up alone and lonely. Their attempts to combat the loneliness—to find connection, support, and belonging—often end up feeding the bully society. Students tell each other their secrets with an interest in gaining closeness, a special friend, advice—yet in many schools Conclusion...