NYT opinion piece "Defining Bullying Down" = concern trolling?

[alp227]

This article by Slate editor Emily Bazelon from Tuesday's NY Times is getting a lot of flak at the comments section. Although this article generally takes an anti bullying position the comments concern passages like these:

All the misdiagnosis of bullying is making the real but limited problem seem impossible to solve. If every act of aggression counts as bullying, how can we stop it? Down this road lies the old assumption that bullying is a rite of childhood passage. But that’s wrong.

...overly broad legal definitions of bullying — for example, ones that leave out the factors of repetition or power imbalance — can lead parents to cry bully whenever their child has a conflict with another child.

Sorting through the accusations is a burden for schools, especially when state laws straitjacket their response to a bullying accusation, rather than allowing them to use their judgment and take account of context. And the “bully” label carries a stigma that’s hard for a child to escape. It makes a child seem permanently heartless, rather than capable of feeling empathy, which almost all are.

Crying wolf about bullying isn’t good for the children who play the victim, either. Those who hold onto that identity are less likely to recover from adversity. Bullying victims need sympathy; they also need help learning to be resilient.

Are her concerns legitimate or just to be a troll? Are parents REALLY over-playing basic human conflicts between their kids as bullying?

I think a "tl;dr" version of Bazelon's argument is like: "well men get raped too and women lie/make false accusations about rape"; "racism is bad but so is political correctness"

The top "NYT pick" comment:

This column is all over the place, and, I think, completely wrong-headed.

What is so wrong with helping children understand that bullying takes many shapes. It is bullying to name-call, it is bullying to gather a posse and threaten to beat somebody up. Is there anyone who can't appreciate degrees, do we really need other words? And bullying IS everywhere. The sooner we recognize it, the sooner we can attempt to make massive changes in our culture. We're all sickened by the culture of politics, by gotcha journalism, and by the everyday putdowns of the workplace.

And here it comes, that dismissive term, "crying wolf." People who grow up in households where there is low grade "bullying" going on all the time are not happy. And they shouldn't be left with the impression that they should just brush it off. A steady diet of sarcastic put-downs is corrosive.

When kids use the term "drama," they say something is , "just drama." And by that, they mean that living in a toxic environment is perfectly acceptable and normal. Just wait until they grow up and bring it into the workplace.

So sure, let people figure out what should be prosecuted and not. But let's not stop using the very accurate word for what is going on all around us -- abuses of power--bullying. Sure, let's help kids understand that bullies are capable of empathy too -- and let's be clear about the alternatives to every sort of bullying-- kindness and respect.

[freakydeeky]

1. meh, misguided all....

Its like the self esteem movement from the past, misguided. Told us bullies had low self esteem, turns out it was the opposite. All the self esteem movement did was create narcissists.

Now its the bullying movement, the actual result of labeling everything bullying is probably to create obnoxious and manipulative people who will work the system to get others in trouble for "bullying", thats the only real result i think that will come of this. The rest is missing the point.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. I call bull on both of your points

My son is autistic. He is socially awkward. Thirty years ago he would be bullied and nobody would have said anything about it and my son would be responsible for bucking up and being stronger. That is bulls**t. I have spent his whole life building his self esteem and it has worked. He even received a trophy in wrestling for most improved. He is so proud of that trophy. His school actually teaches general education kids to encourage the special education kids instead of bullying them and that works too. His wrestling team mates were wonderful to him. They always said encouraging things to him even if he didn't win. Because of all of this anti-bullying campainging and self esteem building my son does have a good self esteem. He is bright, funny, and often thinks outside the box. He has a gift for thinking of things no one else thinks of. He is creative and is a problem solver. The truth is if people do not actively participate in anti-bullying campaigns at school and at work, bullying usually does run rampant. People think they can just treat people as bad as they want and there is no consequence for it, and with the society we live in there often isn't any consequence for it such as internet message boards. I am encouraged by the fact that my son's school participated in this anti-bullying and self esteem building campaign. It gives me hope that maybe we can help curb this trend towards being hateful towards everybody we come into contact with and hopefully teaching people instead to treat people with kindness, compassion, and respect.