General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bullied Teen Stabs and kills tormentor [View all]tblue37
(68,444 posts)hung around with him and the other boys who ended up tormenting him. Then, according to the person quoted, the group decided to exclude him and then began to abuse him.
Maybe his psychological problems became noticeable and they began to view him as an outsider and potential victim.
We are, after all, hierarchical social animals, and hierarchical animals will "peck to death" an individual that is viewed as too weak. When kids are thrown into an unstable environment where adults do not live up to their responsibility to maintain order and to protect the weak and vulnerable, kids tend to revert to instinctive behaviors that we only relatively recently evolved social mechanisms to control or suppress.
That is what Lord of the Flies is about, after all.