Punching the bully out doesn't bring about any good. Okay, maybe the bully is a little less quick to pick on that particular kid. But does the bully necessarily stop being a bully? A huge majority of the time, bullies are only bullies because of other issues that cause them to project their power. That doesn't get solved by being punched out. Either the bully's just gonna pick on other kids, or they're gonna resort to craftier means to beat down on other people.InfiniteSingularity said:That shit doesn't work, man - it just doesn't. There's no way around it, okay? Get your head around it. If a bully is bullying someone, they're not going to stop because they're given a few detentions, or suspended from school, okay? They just won't, because more often than not the bully is the sort of person who doesn't care about that stuff. I would love to see you try that, I was bullied heaps in primary school, we used to tell the teachers and other schools staff, they tried, it did shit all. So don't act all high-and-mighty by saying "violence is never the answer, we should deal with our problems respectably through the proper procedures", that's all bullshit. It just doesn't work.
I don't appreciate you acting like you're better than everyone else because you're "more moral" because you don't believe in violence. And yes, you are acting like that. We're talking about what actually works, and what is effective, not about trying to keep an arbitrary "moral high ground" which only makes things worse. You HAVE to play by their rules, and if you don't, you lose. Simple as that. Understand that this is how school works before you act like you have the solution. It has been tried and failed over so many years.
And all the same time, the "victim" either gets hailed as a hero for punching some guy out (I wouldn't call that a good situation,) or they just get further degraded. It could turn into "oh, that guy's so creepy. didn't you hear? he incapacitated this one guy." I've seen it happen plenty of times.
And what happens when we bring these same values into adult lives? Is it a good thing to have adults beating the crap out of each other because they feel like they've been wrong done?
Perhaps this kid had a right to defend himself. But basically everyone here is taking that as a strike against bullying, a "yeah, that'll show 'em!" which is the totally wrong type of mindset to have, let alone encourage. If he was getting beat up and there was nobody around to help, you should probably give a few wallops to the guys who are doing it to get them to let off. But taking violence as a solution to bullying isn't just immature, it's unjust, dangerous, and may well not even be a solution in the first place.