Myth of the month: bullies want to climb the social ladder–because of alcoholic egomania, or a particularly abusive alcoholic parent. The studies look at the wrong thing; the “experts” don’t get it.
“Bullying is largely motivated by a desire to climb the social ladder.”
So reported a new study by the University of California at Davis on why bullies bully. As is all-too-common, this half-truth doesn’t get to the root of the problem.
One of the study’s authors, Robert E. Faris, an assistant sociology professor at UC, admitted there may be other factors, including trying to compensate for trouble at home, as many assume. However, he said “our study found that it was about social status, even more than demographics or socioeconomics.”
The question left unanswered is why do these kids, a small minority of children, need so desperately to climb the social ladder at the expense of others? And if there’s trouble at home, why?
The litany of reasons given by Jim Bisenius, a “bullying expert,” comprises many of the clues to addiction listed in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to Recognize Addiction in Its Early Stages. The three “types” of bullies include spoiled children without a sense of limitations (clue # 10 listed in the chapter, “Poor Judgment,” is “out-of-control children”), neglected children who lash out for attention and high-pressure achievers set on climbing the social ladder (the first clue to alcoholism listed in Hidden Alcoholics is “overachievement due to a need to win at any cost”). “Social climbers” are distinguished from normal popular teens by their need to control, using intimidation (clue # 21 listed under “A Supreme Being Complex” is he “intimidates others to get his way”) and politics (think: charisma and charm; clue # 4 is he is “extraordinarily charming”) over genuine likeability (the theme in the chapter “A Supreme Being Complex” is this overarching need to wield power over others). They use fear of exclusion to keep “followers” in line (think: cult leader) and suddenly break up friendships that threaten their authority (this capriciousness with relationships is common in many areas of the lives of alcoholics; those who are familiar with Ayn Rand’s personal life may recognize this sort of behavior). Bisenius seemed rather shocked that “these kids think strategically like little chess players…. [and bullying is] much more planned and plotted than I would ever have thought initially.” If Bisenius understood alcoholism, he wouldn’t be surprised. Alcoholics often get to the top socially, politically and professionally precisely because in order to wield power over others most effectively they must plan and plot—and they do so long before succumbing to late-stage alcoholism.
Faris hopes that “if” bullying is a matter of power, adults will discourage it. What he and Bisenius don’t seem to get is that teens often have already triggered an incipient alcoholism (the average age at which one triggers addiction is 13) and those who aren’t addicts themselves but who engage in bullying are often children of particularly abusive alcoholics. Since alcoholism tends to run in families, the alcoholic parents of bullies won’t likely discourage and may even encourage such misbehaviors in their children, through whom they may get a vicarious high. Other methods must be used, including every effort at identifying the alcoholics involved, whether parents or children or both, and inspiring in them a need to get sober by nipping such behaviors in the bud with logical, certain and painful consequences.
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