Am tired of it...

[textualdeviance]

How/when did our culture decide that being mean was cool?

I feel like there's this entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that you either bully or get bullied and now we have this vicious circle of everyone afraid to be nice to other people because they're afraid they'll be the next victim for the marauding hordes. It's kill or be killed. The best defense is a good offense. Strike first.

Defending onself is one thing, but meanness for its own sake, or the sake of amusement, especially when directed at people who have equal or lesser power than you do, is reprehensible.

I wish everyone would make the choice to have the courage to just stop. Stop bullying, stop making fun of other people who are different, stop hurting other people for sport. I don't care if you think they're silly, I don't care if you think they're pathetic. None of us is in a position to piss on other people's weaknesses or differences. Even if someone else is doing it, that doesn't give you the right to do it, too.

I want it to stop. I want meanness to stop being recreational.

Comments

[realdaisygamgee.livejournal.com]

*STANDING OVATION*

Exactly so, dear. Exactly so.

I agree.

[indiwise.livejournal.com]

Just my opinion:

I think that so much of it comes from the media and the home..especially current music that is being rammed down our throats, and film/television lauding violence as power..and from frustration over social circumstance and position and a growing distain for education..and mostly, from the total breakdown of the family as a unit...Not meaning the 'traditional' family..I mean any family AT ALL.

No one is being taught to love each other anymore. No one is being taught that hard work = success. No one is being taught to accept others' differences and celebrate them.

WHO'S MINDING THE FUCKING STORE?

They are being taught that money is everything..Parents don't listen to their children..they hand them a twenty. They are not home to guide them, as they are out chasing that buck, that next rung up the ladder. They don't bother to get involved with what is going on within the school system...as long as 'Chad' and 'Britney' come home in one piece, no questions are asked..no dialogues are even begun, unless there is a glaringly VISIBLE
problem--and, by th en? It is usually too late. The flip side of that are the parents that don't even bother...that deal in violence and drugs themselves as a way of support, as a way of life. These scenarios go back at least a generation..it has become ingrained.

We are left with children that are not equipped to process the messages being shown them (IE: the glorifying of trash a'la Springer and 'Cops'...and the constant pounding of the ads screaming 'You MUST have this/be this to be cool! To be accepted!)...and no reasonable outlet for frustration, no alternative VALUES.

As much as it pains me to say it, I saw violence as a separate culture begin in the 70s (at least that is when it was shoved in my face)..with the Punk Subculture. I agreed with it at the time, sad to say, because at that age..I identified wholly with the rage at the government, the rage at the sleepwalking status quo of Suburbia (I still do, really). It was the blind rage of the 'have nots' exploding..but it brought no progress, no change. It was just drunken and drugged violence and destruction for its own sake in the end, and expellation of useless energy. (Anarchy is nothing but a mess, let's face it.)

But anyway, kids are forced to JOIN a GROUP, to FIT IN (with hopefully, the 'strongest group/gang/clique'), at ANY COST. At the cost of each other. At the cost of themselves.

Sadly, the 'US VS. THEM' mentality is alive and well. And it is everywhere.

Rant over. Flame away.

[foxykc.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that the people doing the bullying have suffered a major disconnect from humanity somewhere along the way. Ignored by parents, their child minder is the TV set or a gameboy or a computer and they band together like African wild dogs. Safety in numbers.

Being civil means laying yourself open and being vulnerable. A defensive organism strikes first at a perceived threat. And threats come in all forms, especially from peopel who are "different" because they challange fondly held beliefs and they're outside the comfort zone.

The real target is not the intended target. The real target is internal. Fear causes people to do any number of unreasonable things.

And when you don't feel like a person, it's damned difficult to treat other people as if they had humanity either.

Sometimes these people grow up and realize what they've done. And sometimes they just grow into mean adults.

In total agreement here

[abandonada.livejournal.com]

It makes me sad to see all the meanness and cruelty going on in these times. I try to distance myself from it. All of it. Online and off.

Sometimes it's very hard to stay positive.