The Rise of the Bully
When I was in third grade, my parents decided it would be a good idea to send me to join the Boy Scouts. It was the Cub Scouts actually. I think I lasted less than one year in the group before wanting to quit. Mostly because every time we had a meeting, our “den leader” would send the small group of boys outside for a break. During those breaks one of the other boys would punch, kick, spit on, or just throw me into a holly bush outside of the den leader’s house. The den leader, a parent who was ill-equipped to manage a pack of children, was oblivious. It was a pretty miserable exposure to scouting for me. I can’t say I was surprised as allegations of abuse and mismanagement have plagued the organization in the years since.
That was a fairly standard bullying experience back in the day. The kind you can see in many of the television shows from the 1970’s, 1980’s, and even the 1990’s about childhood, growing up, or school. Something the creators of Cobra Kai, the sequel to the Karate Kid movies, put at the center of their television show. Over the years, as educators, parents, and society became more aware, bullying began to change. As I write this we are in the middle of revelations about toxic workplaces and bosses who have ruled their arenas for many years through the use of textbook bullying and abuse. As we come to terms with the harmful impacts of bullying, I think there is the possibility that we may begin to re-examine the legacy of people like Steve Jobs, who the Atlantic called a “world-class asshole.”
Despite the progress made, bullying still exists. What’s worse, we don’t do much to address it except in the worst cases. Bullying has evolved these days and, when executed strategically, can avoid crossing the lines that seemed so obvious in the past. Steve Jobs, by most accounts, was a terrible person. He was actually a terrible boss and a terrible father. The belief that a person’s accomplishments outweigh any personality flaws—well actually let’s call it like it is: being awful to other people—is something that isn’t sitting as well as it used to. Prior racist acts, sexual abuse, bullying (sorry Chrissy Teigen, that applies to you too!), etc. are reasons to question if someone should be allowed to thrive and benefit in modern society (yes, the whole “Kevin Spacey will star in my film,” publicity stunt should be closely examined!). And yet, we are only engaging in half measures at best. Steve Jobs, for example, is someone who is still considered in high regard about a great many topics, including—oddly enough—his management prowess. One recent Harvard Business Review article, discusses his brilliant approach to fusing design with technology as an example. Do a Google Search on Steve Jobs and you don’t get a ton of negative articles about the alleged “world-class asshole.”
And that’s really at the core of why we still need to be worried about the rise of the bully. The ends justify the means is not something that we should ever feel comfortable with. It’s as misguided a notion that humans have ever created. And yet, we enable bullies everywhere we look, using that very same principle. Sure, there are times when a few brave folks who are willing to risk their reputation and/or career sometimes step forward and condemn someone—the case of Scott Rudin, for example—but mostly, people don’t. Ellen’s talk show will continue to run until 2022, last I heard.
It also leads me to why I decided to write this essay. The curious case of Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. The Dictator of Belarus who recently had a commercial airliner forced down while in Belarus’ airspace so that they could forcibly remove a dissident reporter and his girlfriend. Apparently, the government of Belarus used the threat of a bomb on the plane as the reason for forcing the jet down. According to the New York Times, the threat was sent after the plane had already been forced down by fighter jets from the Belarus armed forces. Reports indicate that most likely the reporter: Roman Protasevich, will be executed by Lukashenko’s government. Despite statements of outrage from other countries, the reality remains that, most likely, nothing will happen. My money is that there will be an accident or Roman Protasevich will suddenly and unexpectedly commit suicide while in prison under the watchful eye of the government of Belarus. And Lukashenko will continue to remain defiant.
Photo by Artem Podrez from Pexels
And that’s why the rise of bullying should concern us all. The dictionary defines the verb bully as:
habitually intimidate, abuse, or harass
And the noun as:
A blustering, mean, or predatory person who, from a perceived position of relative power, intimidates, abuses, harasses, or coerces people, especially those considered unlikely to defend themselves.
There is certainly no doubt that Lukashenko is a bully. Worse than that, actually. What should alarm all of us is the fact that there will be no repercussions for his behavior. He has behaved with impunity. And the impunity is derived from an excuse. In this case, one that was clearly fabricated. But we now live in an age where there is no accountability for not being honest or truthful, or for not following the rules—in some cases, the law. The fact that there is a lack of accountability, enables someone to be in a position of relative power. And that’s what should concern us the most.
Let me break this down for you. Steve Jobs, despite being dead, still has power because there are millions of Apple devotees (some of whom may be reading this essay and feeling like their blood is boiling) who believe that he, despite his faults, should be beatified (the Catholic Church version of the word). Those devotees confer on him a great deal of power. Power because they hold positions, have platforms, and can use social media to attack, shame, or just berate his detractors on his behalf. It doesn’t matter that most people who actually knew the man might agree that he really was a “world-class asshole.”
In that context, the events leading up to the presidential election in 2016 seem alarming, but also understandable. Trump is the personification of a bully as an individual, business owner, candidate, president, and, now, ex-president. He still wields a great deal of relative power. Not only that, lack of accountability has conferred upon him even greater power. From the moment he entered the race for president there was no accountability. False narratives about him being a successful businessman were actually not true. In fact, according to the New York Times, he lost money with most of his ventures going bankrupt, avoided paying taxes, and threatened lawsuits against anyone who spoke against him. Trump was, it appears based on the evidence, a very poor businessman. But he derived relative power from his ability to make people believe he was the opposite. As president, things went from bad to worse. Now that he is an ex-president, we are now living in a world where others are adopting the lies he started, such as a fraud during the 2020 election. The Republican party in Arizona is spending millions on an audit to justify their false narratives of wide-spread fraud. These lies give power to the individuals who continue to spread them. The lies make it easier for bullies to bully, by giving them a reason that justifies their actions. It’s really quite absurd, but it plays out almost daily in our everyday lives in families, work situations, and our national politics.
In the aftermath of the Trump era, where bullying was on display almost regularly, we now have a number of new bullies appearing. And these aren’t bullies who are operating out of the public eye, they are out in front being bold and completely in our face about it. With all the coverage by the news media enabling their bullying while social media gives them a platform to show that there is NOTHING BUT UPSIDE for being a bully. It will, most definitely, emboldened even more bullies to rise.
Take Marjorie Taylor Greene. Among her many acts of bullying, let’s just look at one. One that should be so egregious to our sensibilities it makes me wince as I prepare to write the words. David Hogg, a survivor of a mass shooting in his high school that killed 17 students, traveled to Washington, DC to speak to congress in an effort to get them to enact more restrictive gun legislation. According to CNN, Greene harassed Hogg while he walked to the Capitol building. At one point saying she had a gun which he perceived as a threat. She has, according to the same article on CNN labeled Hogg “Little Hitler” on social media in the past. It is safe to say, that she checks the boxes of bullying according to the definition above. Please, take a moment to consider that. A teenager who survived a terribly traumatic event, travels to Washington, DC to speak to lawmakers to urge them to do something to prevent future events like the one he lived through, is harassed and intimidated by an adult. The adult’s justification is that second amendment and her right to free speech enables her to do so. That adult is later elected to congress where, despite numerous other actions like that one, she continues to be a member of congress and the Republican party. Oh, and she continues to get lots of press too. That is what I would call a shocking lack of accountability.
That’s my point. We live in an age where the bully has learned to manipulate systems that are so profoundly broken to gain relative power. Then they use that power to abuse, intimidate, and/or harass others. While nobody does anything about it. Bullies are destroying the democratic values of the United States, using the notion of free markets and capitalism to manipulate markets and make money on the backs of hard-working Americans, preventing common sense gun laws that would make the country safer, and promoting agendas that use racism, sexism, and xenophobia to drive divisions between the citizens of this country. That’s just naming a few. Mostly though, they are using their bullying to gain wealth, fame, and/or positions of relative power. Continuing the cycle of bullying and showing the value of being a bully.
There are real benefits to being a bully. I guess we should all aspire to be a “world-class asshole,” and see how that works out.
As a former world leader and currently active bully used to say:
#SAD
The thoughts and ideas expressed in this essay are the opinions of the author.
Copyright © 2021 - Malcolm Bolivar. All Rights Reserved.