There was a "fight-or-flight" feeling, or sensation, that I remember from my childhood days. It happened rarely. But when it did, it was decisive in putting me on a high state of alert. It kind of froze you. There was an urgent thought, that in the next few moments my chances of being beaten up, or just punched and bloodied a little, had just spiked up into the "Imminent Threat" zone.
There were a few kids in the neighborhood that found it too easy to land a few punches into the face, or stomach, of a smaller kid. And they would do so, on a whim: they were having a bad day; A bigger kid had just bullied them; or maybe they just wanted the experience of being "king of the hill," simply for being the only one bold enough to inflict physical harm on a peer.
Now don't get me wrong. My childhood was wonderful. It was classic. Golden. In fact, I never was successfully bullied. Not by anybody. There were a couple of attempts. But I always fought them off. But casual violence committed for the sake of meanness was a reality in my suburban neighborhood. And all of us . . . all of us . . . knew the low-grade dread that, maybe today, you would find yourself on the wrong side of a bigger, tougher kid that just wants to punch somebody.
I came across bullies throughout life, and that same sensation came back, when the bullies went on the attack. In the late 1990s I worked for a company that put a Boston Bigmouth over me as my manager. If anything wasn't close enough to perfect, he would call me and ream me out. Or send emails laced with invective. He worked all the time, and his emails would be sent out at bizarre times like 3:30am. The schoolyard feeling of dread was a constant companion during those months that I was under this manager.
Society claims to abhor bullies. But in reality it celebrates and ennobles them. People that talk against bullying are the biggest bullies of all.
I wonder how many other middle-aged adults are walking around, slightly on edge because of some other adult with power over them, causing them heartburn and blood pressure spikes? I wonder about the cumulative effect of all of this emotional stress, upon society as a whole?
Adults are going around, with money and power, acting like kids on a playground, unsupervised; ganging up on each other. Mocking and ridiculing that poor kid that, this week, is in the "doghouse." From Washington politicians down to small town Main Street mom and pop shops - we seem to love when someone from "our side" puts it to someone from the other side.
It's demeaning. It's humiliating. It's dehumanizing. But it seems to make us feel good. Or, at the very least . . . makes us feel "safe." So we encourage some leader, or standard-bearer, to do the school-yard bully treatment against someone on the "other side."
That's what "cancel culture" is. It's what riot destruction is all about. It's what policies that remove people from society are all about. It's "My Gang" versus "Your Gang" on steroids. It's childish. It's unbecoming. But it's what adults have been doing to each other, more and more, especially since the mid-2010s.
We had rules to prevent children from acting this way, fifty years ago. Today we expect adults with power and money (on our side) to do the same, and more, to "The Other."
It has become habit. It's becoming our culture. And it's very dangerous.
