Bullying as American Industry

SCHOOL YARD BULLYING is among america's strongest traditions; millions of americans could comfortably lie on their backs, relax, subject themselves to the allure of a swinging pendulum gold watch, and unload to a trusted shirnk the roots of career stresses, marital turmoil, and premature hypertension.

In George Washington's day students  rose and bowd to teachers entering the classroom, but as westward expansion shaped american culture and interpersonal behavior, stiff british behavior loosened considerably, tom sawyer saw fit to dip becky thatcher's pig tails in his ink well, out came the slingshots; all in a day's fun before walking back to the farm for yet more daily chores.

If it hadn't been the white man's manifest destiny to conquer the continent, our school children would still be bowing before their school masters, and we'd be clustered in pubs on the east coast, paying for our stout with chilling and pence, with english accents, praising our well behaved children, well on their way to harvard, swarthemore, or even oxford!

Welcome to the world of school bullying, twenty first century style. We are told that one of every three kids in grades one through twelve is a victim, which must mean that a fairly large part of the under eighteen age group is a member of bullies unlimited, or that bullies in general are quite busy, with a full docket, and a high number of victims per capita. Do they all sit in the back of the classroom, sneering at the over achievers up front? They did in my time, what few there were, until they were rotated forward alphabetically.

In Madison, Wisconsin, the bastion of upper midwestern  idealism, the city council enacted an ordinance allowing for fining of parents whose kids are multiple offenders. Madison police have announced their intent to enforce the new law with discretion. Cooperative, repentant parents will get a pass; if the parent is defiantly in denial, out comes the pad and pencil. Stay tuned for lawsuits and court challenges in the land of perpetual litigation.

Today's bullies are not lacking for role models, what with hundreds of cable channels spewing out thousands of hours of intensse psycho-emotional confrontational melodrama on millions of american flatscreens. Every adolescent demands their sacred right of privacy, and a computer screen is the perfect shield behind which to hide while dispensing regurgitated anger and alienation.

IN a nutshell, american children are not likely to refrain from torturing each other until american adults set an example of restraint. And that, dear citizens, aint likely to happen anytime soon. So fortify thyself for inundation of online anti bullying leagues, group discussions, conferences, guidebooks, and a whole new under thirty generation of smartly attired neo yuppies, with degrees in the psychology of bullying plastered on their business cards, ipods at the ready.