I've had some diverse experiences of bullying and ponerization in a couple of different cultures. I'll try to summarize them as concisely as possible.
I was born and lived in Soviet Armenia until 8 years old, at which time my family moved to the U.S. (NYC metropolitan area). From an early age, I experienced/witnessed ponerization and occasional acts of random/incomprehensible violence in one mature pathocracy (Soviet Union) followed by the same in another mature pathocracy (U.S.). The following are some of the more memorable events, in more or less chronological order.
When I was around, I think, 4 years old, I was playing by myself in a sort of play ground/soccer field/courtyard in the middle of the the 4 buildings, in one of which we lived. I can't recall everything in complete detail, but at some point an older kid, maybe 16 years old or so, came up to me and started bullying me and beating me up while I tried in whatever way I could to somehow defend myself. A few minutes into this terrifying and traumatizing event, my father happened upon the scene (coming home from work). He started to run toward us screaming, picked up about a six inch or so rock or piece of asphalt from the ground, and threw it at the kid beating me up, just missing him but certainly close enough to get his attention. The kid got scared from almost being hit by it, and my father running toward us full of adrenaline and anger. He ran off, while my father chased him for a moment, and then came to me to see if I'm alright and take me home. At this point another adult (he may have been related to the kid or just knew him, I'm not sure) asked my father if he had hit the older kid with that stone/piece of asphalt, would he be able to "come out from under such responsibility?" My father still full of adrenaline/emotion calmed down enough to get hold of himself, but in still somewhat of a confrontational tone asked if that teenager would be able to "come out from under the responsibility" of having caused serious injury to me or worse. Or if this adult would be able to -- for standing by and not doing anything about someone so much older visiting so much violence with reckless abandon on such a young child. The whole thing was totally incomprehensible and very traumatizing for me, to say the least.
Then a bit later, I started kindergarten. My older brother was one "grade" higher, as this kindergarten had two "grades" -- one for children around 5 and one for those around 6 years old. During the very first days, which both my brother and I hated, my class was outside during something like a "recess." A whole bunch of kids were around an unused swimming pool with about 10 inches of dirty rain water and a bunch of frogs. Most of them were throwing rocks and brick fragments into the pool full of frogs. I was standing near the edge of the pool, but not right up to the edge, watching all this activity. Then someone from behind me -- farther away from the edge -- threw half a jagged brick which landed right on top of my head. I was in somewhat of a shock, as I didn't know what had happened and then sensed what felt like cold liquid pouring down my face and head. I don't know why the sensation of the liquid felt cold. Obviously, it was blood pouring from the nearly two centimeter gash the brick had made on the top of my scalp.
They rushed me to the nurse's office and put some kind of white powder on the wound and then some other stuff (probably disinfecting the wound). Then they put a couple of stitches on the wound, wrapped my head up in bandages and called my mother to take me home. It was not that big a deal, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or just a young child unthinkingly trying to throw the brick from too far away and accidentally hit me in the head -- I never found out who threw it, anyway. But it was another pretty traumatic episode from that young perspective.
Around this same time there were other bullies and pathological characters in the different entrances to our building, also the surrounding buildings, that caused havoc in the playground/yard in a variety of ways. There was one really pathological character who was around 16 or 17 years old at the time, who, among his many disturbing behaviors, used to grab pigeons in the yard and snap their necks. The whole family was rather pathological and connected to/benefited from the pathological networks (that were of various kinds in Soviet Armenia), as well. He had a younger brother around my or my brother's age. Just as another example to illustrate their state of mind, one day this younger brother was digging in the dirt with a shovel while my brother and I were playing in the yard. My brother went up to him and asked him what he was doing. He answered, "digging your father's grave."
There were a bunch of other crazy episodes of violence and dangerous people -- teenaged and adult. But I don't want to make this too long so I think this sampling is enough from Soviet Armenia.
When we moved to the U.S., my brother and I were bullied the first couple of years of school. One kid about two grades above my brother, began regularly to bully us when walking on our way home from school. He mostly started taunting and confronting us in a menacing way, and then started hitting/punching mostly my brother, etc. We tried to defend ourselves the best way we could, but this kid, besides being older was physically pretty big. I felt pretty helpless, as I watched my older brother being hit and bullied (and neither of us able to really do much about it until this kid had enough of his "fun" and moved on until next time).
We didn't speak English at first, and also were ostracized by many for being from the Soviet Union. Also, we wore those big Russian fur hats that our parents brought for us during the first couple of winters. Many referred to us as Russians, and some as "commies."
Outside of school, when playing outside in our neighborhood and trying to make new friends and acquaintances, we were also bullied by the neighbors across the street and their friends (who were all in high school) and others. After a while we made a bunch of friends in the neighborhood and also quickly learned English (being that young, one tends to pick up a new language pretty fast).
But there was a lot of really out of control bullying in that area. There were a couple of groups of really pathological and violent teenagers that roamed the neighborhood and caused havoc -- beating, terrorizing, and humiliating a bunch of the kids. They usually targeted the same kids, having an extended orgy of terrorizing and all sorts of pathological behavior every week or so in our neighborhood. For example, what they did to one kid who was at the time around 11 years old was to beat on him, wrestle him to the ground, take down his pants, take off his underwear, and throw it down the sewer/drain on the corner of the street where the street and sidewalk meet. This was a repeating occurrence for more than a year. The kids in the two groups of bullies ranged from around 14 to 17 years old. The two groups sometimes merged and then separated again, and every once in a while fought amongst themselves. They also beat up and terrorized other kids in the neighborhood (and other nearby neighborhoods) and seemed to have a particular repeating scenario (like the above, as one example) for some of the kids, besides general bullying, terrorizing, and violence.
Around this time, my brother and I also encountered some bullying in the courtyard of the school during lunchtime. We soon learned that the best thing to do is fight back as best we can, when physical violence was involved, as you really had nothing to lose even if the bully was older and bigger. This proved to stop the bullies from picking on us pretty quickly, as most of them don't seem to like it if someone fights back and isn't totally paralyzed by fear. The vast majority of bullies seemed to want "easy victims."
A couple of years later, two brothers moved to our neighborhood and started hanging out with us. We had seen them in and around school before they moved to our neighborhood from another one around 15 minutes' walk away. The older brother was one grade above my brother, and the younger one in the same grade as my brother. They were Greek (most of our new friends were either Greek, or Yugoslavian -- from different parts and ethnic backgrounds/religions -- either first generation born in the U.S. or born abroad). One of the bullying groups started to chase and beat up the older brother pretty soon after they arrived in our neighborhood. The leader of these bullies (the most violent and pathological, and I think, the oldest) really had it in for the older brother.
It turned out that they used to bully him in their old neighborhood too. But the Greek brothers' best friends -- two Cuban brothers who lived next door -- were involved in this ongoing war. Apparently, the older Cuban brother (who was quite a fighter and extraordinarily strong) stood up for the Greek older brother and during the first couple of confrontations, basically beat the heck out of the leader and some of the other bullies.
So, now that the older Cuban brother wasn't always around to protect the older Greek brother, they started to go after him with a vengeance to settle the old score. But soon, the Cuban brothers occasionally started coming to the new neighborhood to hang out with the Greek brothers (as the Greek brothers sometimes went to the old neighborhood to hang out with them). One of the early times the Cuban brothers came around, so did the group of bullies, and not expecting the older Cuban brother to be around, having seen the older Greek brother from afar and beginning to run toward him for the usual episode, started in on him, and were confronted by their Cuban nemesis. After a moment of confusion, and starting to retreat, the older Cuban brother basically beat the crap out of the leader and a few others, but kept it short, as they were only too happy to run away.
This changed the neighborhood's kids' outlook on this pathological and dangerous gang. As they were seen to be beaten up by one guy (around 15 or 16 years old), and running away in defeat. My brother and I soon became close friends with the Greek brothers and a few other kids in the neighborhood.
A little more than a year before I was going to start high school, my parents bought a house (just across the Hudson River from Manhattan -- less than 10 minute's drive to the George Washington Bridge) and we moved. I still attended my old school until graduation. So I started high school not knowing anyone at all in the new town. Freshman year, there was a bully who kept harassing me in science class. Basically, if the teacher called on me or I spoke for any other reason, he would repeat everything I said in an exaggerated way and a derisive tone. I really didn't know what it was all about. But it continued for many months.
The teacher never intervened, and most of the other students either remained quiet or some joined in laughing/thinking it's funny, etc. He was physically a big guy and a star (American) football (not soccer) player. So after many months of this, I was really getting fed up. He was also in my gym class ("physical education") which was the last period before going home for the day. So he had started harassing me in gym class too, but again just verbal / trying in different ways to make fun of me.
So one day in gym class, he started again with the derision and taunting and I just flipped out and started running for him in a fit of rage. I was around 10 yards/meters or so away from him, but the gym teachers (who were also his football coaches) saw me and intervened getting between me and him. But he was REALLY scared of my reaction, and had started running away across the gym even before the teachers were between us to make sure no fight breaks out. I must have looked really angry and probably all red faced, etc. when I went after him in a fit of rage.
By that time it was almost the end of class (and of the school day) and the teachers/coaches made sure to keep us far apart so we could change and go home without incident. There were a bunch of other kids in the gym class that were also in the science class and saw the whole incident. Right after school, as I was walking home, as I was getting close to the street where I lived, I saw him and about 5 or 6 of his friends/football buddies (about 3 of whom were in our gym and science class too) walking about 100 to 150 yards ahead of me. By this time I was still full of emotion/anger, but had calmed WAY down compared to my outburst of rage. I made a conscious, strategic decision to start running toward him, knowing that he'd be scared and run away -- just to make the point that he's just a big coward, not that I was going to start a physical fight. As they were all walking through a field ahead of me some of them turned around and saw me from afar walking in the same direction as they were. So I took that opportunity to make sure this guy and his buddies don't dare to mess with me anymore and began to run as if I'm still so hot with emotion I want to fight. He began running as fast as he could. His friends were disoriented/confused and ran at a slower pace and kept looking back, as I slowed down and let them "get away." This was the only way I could think of to make sure the harassment/bullying stops or it might continue for who know how long (maybe all through high school).
There was no single pattern to the bullying I've encountered/witnessed over those years until graduating high school. In Soviet Armenia, there was a large variety of types of bullies/bullying and just violent, crazy, and/or pathological behavior. In the early years in the U.S., it seemed like a lot of it was directed at immigrant kids (or those from immigrant families even if the kids were born in the U.S.) but certainly not all. In high school, quite a bit of it was along peer groups (e.g. "jocks"/athletes, "book worms"/honors students/geeks, popular/high profile, rebels, etc.) I never fit into any of these peer categories and tended to somewhat overlapped in most of them, with the strongest being rebel/outsider, as I always hated formal education (although I was always getting the highest grades -- which I never put much value or effort into).
I've wondered about many of the issues discussed in this thread, as well. Why didn't we all stick together when these bullies were shown to back off when stood up to. For example, in the first neighborhood in the U.S. when we saw that these dangerous gangs of bullies who were terrorizing our neighborhoods could actually be stood up to if we all pulled together and used our fear (and ANGER) constructively to stop their pathological and unacceptable behavior toward any other kid. Granted, this bunch were pretty extreme and dangerous. Also, it had somehow become an unspoken rule that nobody alerted any adults about what was going on in the neighborhood (and no adult seemed to ever witness what was going on, or if some did, they didn't do anything about it).
I actually did stand up for a friend of mine in the seventh grade. He was being bullied by a couple of "jocks", one in particular, for months on end, and nobody in the school was doing anything about it. One day in gym class, this jock started to harass my friend again, pushing him and then slapped him in the back of his head. Again, I flipped out as I saw this from across the gym, and started running toward the bully in an uncontrollable rage. At the last moment, the bully saw me heading right at him and tried to punch me in the face. His punch just grazed my face, as I think I instinctively swayed away from it. The head gym teacher had been running to get between us. At the last moment, before the teacher had reached us, I actually threw a punch, not having noticed that the gym teacher is running to get between us, and ended up punching the gym teacher in the chin, instead of the bully -- the teacher literally ran into the punch. He fell on the ground, as I realized what had happened in shock, the rage turning quickly to fear and befuddlement.
After the commotion died down as other gym teachers ran towards us and made sure there was no more physical contact and that the teacher I punched by mistake got up and was OK, I was taken to the office of the head gym teacher I punched. After apologizing to him (I was still shaking, overwhelmed with emotion and on the verge of crying, my chest heaving/strange breathing pattern), I explained to him about the bullying of my friend that had been going on for months. Fortunately, he let the issue go after warning me of not letting my anger get out of control like that again. Obviously, I would be the most grateful if that never happen again than anyone else, but just as obviously, by this time I had a problem with explosive rage that could blow up with no control on my part or warning when the limit is about to be reached. This was the first time I exploded like that and the violence to which I reacted was not against me but my friend.
I abhor violence and have never started a fight in my life, so this was more than disconcerting, to say the least. Luckily, over the years, things settled down, and there were not many more incidents like that, although for several years (into my early 20's) I still had that unpredictable danger of exploding into rage if faced with violence. But the thing that has stumped me when thinking back about these things is why my responses were not consistent. Sometimes, instead of the explosive rage, I would freeze. I think I began to fear my uncontrollable, explosive reactions, as much (or more) as the threat of violence and injury. I've also wondered if there were certain unconscious triggers that resembled/reminded of previous situations that made the difference between explosive rage and freezing.
One of my best friends of all time was also very similar. He was almost 5 years older than me, and after several years of friendship, we became really close when I was around 16 years old. He was probably the most sincere and trustworthy person I've known. He was quite emotionally inhibited in some ways. But he was a really honest guy, never pretended to be something he was not (which a lot of my other friends at the time did), and would never betray anybody. He was a gentle giant -- over 6 foot 3 inches and huge hands and feet, arms and legs.
If he lost his temper, it was also an unexpected explosion from someone who was quite inhibited and very laid back most of the time. He took a lot of nonsense and then he put his foot down firmly when he'd had enough. For example one of our "friends" at the time was really cheap and manipulative to not pay his fair share in whatever activities we did together. For example, he'd always try to get us to drive our cars to go somewhere so he doesn't put wear and tear on his car or have to pay for gas, etc. After a couple of years of occasionally bringing this up to him, we really got sick of his games and confronted him about his ongoing using and abusing his "friends" and basically stopped hanging out with him. All that really had a big affect on my best friend, and he got very emotional and angry -- in a healthy way -- about this guy's constant manipulations and attempts to use us and not share fairly in everything as true friends naturally would.
But just before I had first met my best friend a few years before, there had also been an incident I heard about later, when we first started befriending each other. His older brother was pretty close friends with the neighbors across the street from us when we first arrived in the U.S. and their large entourage from other neighborhoods (these are the same who used to bully my brother and I those first couple of years -- though it wasn't really physical abuse, but much more psychological). Anyway, there was a big betrayal of my friend's older brother that's too long to get into, and a big emotional eruption, leading to yelling and screaming and then a physical scuffle, into which my best friend had jumped in to protect his older brother and ended up punching a few of the guys out who were trying to gang up on them.
So my best friend, who was, as mentioned, somewhat emotionally inhibited (and even socially in some situations) also could get very angry when taken advantage of/manipulated and even erupt in something of a rage if there was a situation of physical violence -- although he was a very gently and laid back person usually. It seems that when emotions aren't processed in a healthy way, they lead to uncontrollable explosions at a later time.
There were many episodes of bullying I witnessed in the U.S. in grammar school and high school that I left out as not to make this post any longer than it's already gotten. The points I wanted to make include that I had a very negative impression of formal education starting from kindergarten all the way through high school. This included the brain washing/programming that was to the same extent in the Soviet Union and the U.S., just different flavors of indoctrination.
Another impression is that bullies and others abusers were generally protected in both countries. These seemed to be part of the system to traumatize and dominate the general population. And it infected a wide part of the population into internalizing the pathological values and attitudes, in addition to large numbers of people being traumatized for long periods of time. Things seem to have only gotten worse since 27 years ago when I graduated high school. I actually liked the first two years of college, then felt very oppressed by a different, more sophisticated corruption of learning. I guess all this is par for the course in this totally pathological world in which we live.
