Standing up to the bully: does it make one into a bully, oneself? - YouTube

Standing up to the bully: does it make one into a bully, oneself? - YouTube







S Fleurette 6 hours ago (edited)

I suppose it depends what "standing up" entails. Clearly absolute pacifism is a kind of madness, if not mere cowardliness ( itself an ignoble trait to the ancients but deeply misunderstood by modern people). Life is perpetual struggle all the time  , right down to the cellular level. If your immune system was to suddenly stop fighting , you'd become gravely ill very soon. Life fights to perpetuate and maintain itself constantly, yet many people seem to believe the nature of life is peaceful or ought to be.

There's an unconscious  fear that  in using aggression repeatedly , regardless how noble  the ultimate  purposes, one may develop a taste for sadistic pleasure.  It is the case that when we repeat behaviors we can create alterations in neurological thresholds and hence behavioral changes ensue. The brain is so malleable but once it makes certain neuronal pathways well utilized , they become difficult to reroute (and entropic irreversibility is always looming).All manner of things can become pleasurable or addictive.

I think it takes a certain kind of discipline and insightful awareness of what thresholds not to cross. It reminds me of the samurai code or aspects of martial arts where getting angry and emotional when carrying out aggressive maneuvers is seen as dangerous and undesirable. Perhaps there's an intrinsic understanding that if one is in an angry or emotional state it can foster addiction to those states, then you've crossed the line into becoming the thing you are fighting.

Interestingly that could also be misinterpreted as being cold-blooded and calculated, which in the west is seen as much worse than  impulsive aggression. It's okay to practice self-defense in angry uncontrollable outbursts but don't dare be controlled and disciplined about it.

Show less

Reply  · 1



 ▼



Jennifer Armstrong 1 second ago

+S Fleurette Yes--interesting.  That complete fear and antagonism toward that which is controlled and disciplined, as if it smelt of inauthenticity and a dangerous capacity for efficacy.  I do come from a more ancient regime, so I do not experience this moderner's sensibility as my own.  I find the impulsive rage that moderners sometimes exhibit, (usually after they have failed to communicate effectively what they want from you, and so you haven't read their minds), to be disgusting to the extreme.

Reply  · 1