That has just a whiff of “The Abolition of Man” about it I think.
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I’m regularly puzzled about the difference when I went to high school: no one could get away with being a consistent bully for the simple reason that the Lettermen’s Club didn’t approve of bullies. The occasional bit was tolerated but only within limits, and those were enforced by the varsity athletes. If nothing else, getting dissed by all varsity athletes meant you were an instant non-entity, which bullies couldn’t stand. And bullies who decided to attack an athlete ending up in things like being tied up in their own jockstrap with pep squad pom-pom stuffed up your ass and dumped in the school foyer during a class change (don’t know if this ever happened but people believed it did).
Bullying should ALWAYS be reported because bullying in education doesn’t mean someone being mean one time. Bullying is generally defined as unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is repeated over time.
There is a caveat of “or with the potential to repeated over time” and this is generally a loophole or a cya in case a single instance of peer to peer abuse is very severe or has the potential to cause continued harm (like a single post or sharing of nude photos of someone online). But anyways, the repetition and potential act are both contentious points.
The authors under discussion here nowhere suggest allowing bullying to go unreported (caricature). They appear to be arguing the threshold for what qualifies and the quickness parents/authorities step has been lowered to the point of a “victimhood culture.” They would probably agree (I haven’t read them) that the zero-tolerance policies that came into effect after the 90s expanded bullying to include minor peer conflicts, teasing, or simple arguments. And zero-tolerance is akin to using a cleaver for a job requiring a scalpel or like using a 500mL beaker to measure out 32.0 mL of water instead of a graduated cylinder.
My knee-jerk advice to a child being bullied: Punch the bully right in the nose. Spare not the bully the rod. But this is not helpful because bullying involves a power imbalance and this should ALWAYS be reported in a scholastic setting. But kids tease and are sometimes temperamental and jerks (how many parents have been told “I hate you” or something to that effect by their teenage children?). Children should learn to handle minor conflicts on their own (sticks and stones…).
Vinnie
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I remember learning plenty of lessons on my own. As a kid I had a bit of a mouth on me considering how skrawny I was. (Think: arms and stature like Calvin’s in Calvin & Hobbes, and with a head almost as big!) I was not a physical threat to anybody, whether I wanted to be or not. Despite that I remember talking back to one of the meaner kids in a lunch line once - I don’t even remember the provocation; whether he said anything mean to me or not or whether I just thought something he said or did couldn’t be left unanswered. In short order he had me pushed up against the brick wall in a stare-down to see if I was inclined to mouth off any further. I wasn’t. And nothing came of it. But this was in a large and noisy cafeteria and I’m sure there were plenty of adults in the room. It wasn’t such a huge fracas that it grabbed the attention of everyone in the room - just those nearest us in the line. But I certainly took note that I should probably be more careful about what I let come out of my mouth. I never did get beat up or abused in any seriously physical way, though there was plenty of “psychological / social warfare” that went on in those middle school years. I was no stranger to the feelings of insecurity. But I never feared for my actual physical well-being. Maybe that says something about the adults who I knew were “in the room” so-to-speak, even though I don’t remember them intervening much. I don’t remember wishing that they would (and a good share of the time, if they had - I would have been the deserving recipient of any needed discipline).
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We call that FAFO. “Fool” around, find out. I’ve learned plenty of lessons in a related fashion.
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Interesting! I am divided on that. My grandpa (born about 1918) told me that in a small town of 3000 or so, there were actually boy gangs that would jump each other frequently–they would beat each other up if you were part of an ethnic group (Polish, Dutch, etc), if you were not accompanied, even on a trip to the theater.
I don’t really have so much empathy with Haidt; I feel as though if we are the adults and oversee children, we should enforce maturity –but not only that, also propel them to maturity in proactive goodness. Maybe that stems from my personality, though–I’m more liberal, and one of my sibs, for example, is extremely libertarian, and would likely prefer his approach.
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What Jesus adresses in the harm you do to yourself and not the harm you do to the victim. The perverted phantasies in ones mind corrupt the self and do not directly harm the victim but if tolerated will corrupt the society in the long run. If you can talk about them in a positive sounding context they will become socially acceptable. Remember that in the beginning was the word - not the stick.
The problem with the institutional corruption is a reflection of what Rudi Dutschke coined as the “long march through the institutions” as a way of the left movement to undermine society - and they have arrived. The aim was the same as in the fall, and as in puberty, the destruction of authority over the self. It culminates in rendering words meaningless supported by woke institutions as there is no better way to undermine the authority of others. Instead of teaching children that God as the authority has put upon them the responsibility to look after others and creation at large we teach then that authority is bad based on corrupt peoples abuse of authority instead of teaching them about humans being sinners. We are however taught to revert to the authority of individual rights, upheld by the authority of social media which is a celebration of self idolisation, now institutionalised in the “third party authorities” of universities which is a declaration of self destruction of those authorities. And that was the aim all those years ago.
If one declares oneself a victim it automatically gives one rights, particularly if one becomes a victim of discrimination, especially of sexual ‘freedoms’ as having sex is everyone’s right as long as you can find a consenting competent person. So to teach them to call upon your peers for social punishment or the “authorities” if they oblige, is that coddling them or teaching them to protect their rights? Is it not the desired way of conflict management? If we do not give them an education that leads them to critical thinking and intellectual discourse but only stuff them with information, who would want them to have an “argument” to manage their conflict? 
Another interesting tidbit from “Coddling…”:
(My paraphrase)
Apparently research has shown that when the young of more predatory mammals play with each other (e.g.foxes or cats), there is a clear preference to be the chaser rather than the chased. So in their play, they like to practice their hunting skills. But among prey (think mice), there is a preference to be chased, and not the chaser. They prefer to practice their hiding skills. It is interesting to look at young children on the playground then, and the tradition to not want to be the one who is “it”! Apparently we like being chased more than chasing. And yeah there are many exceptions to that… most of us can probably remember wanting to be “it” at least occasionally too. Which probably says a lot about us. The authors though, were just pointing out the importance of unsupervised play with others in our social (and evolutionary) development. If we are denied that, we fail to have some basic life skills baked in during our formative years.
And while the authors make much of all this needing to be “unsupervised” peer activity (which probably needs some critical examination), it seems to me that it can also happen in parent-child play just as well too…”I’m gonna get you!”…followed by playful chase and fits of giggling. Maybe later among peers the same sort of thing happens but at more seriously competitive levels.
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Hmm, several things, not necessarily in their proper order:
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You state yourself that what is contained in the book is their “thesis”. Their explanation of what the problem is and how to fix it. It is just that…a thesis.
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It is just one book on the topic; others might have produced research that can clearly demonstrate their assertions are incorrect. That doesn’t mean it is inaccurate, just potentially not supportable according to the consensus on the topic.
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or 2a) It is an 8-year-old book; is there a more recent book or claim that can reinforce this premise?
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All good observations and questions! “Thesis” was my own choice of words, I think. So don’t read too much into that. I won’t die on the hill of defending it as the most fitting choice.
If you encounter or are aware of challenges and/or any more recent updates on these “theses”, then for sure bring them here for us to discuss! I personally have the vague impression that some of their arguments seem more relevant than ever now, and I can’t imagine Haidt (the one of those two authors I actually know a bit more) seeing that there is any more recent reason to back away from what they proposed then. But so far, the most serious challenges to it have been arguments that would apply both then and now.
But say more if you’ve got developments in mind from subsequent years that you see as relevant.
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