Kevin Spacey has been described in court this week as a ‘sexual bully who delighted in seeing other powerless’. This caught my attention, not because I know anything about sexual bullying, whatever that is, but because I have long been fascinated and repelled by bullies - who I think can be found in every walk of life.
I myself was the victim of bullying as a child and have been a victim, at times, of workplace bullying and domestic bullying. What was hardest about all these occasions is that I couldn’t understand what motivated the bully. Why would you delight in hurting or humiliating someone? I could make no sense of it.
This is one of the reasons that bullies are so successful. Because the victim, - and bullies can sniff out victims from a mile away - not being able to make any sense of the behaviour are likely to blame themselves, and this adds to their powerlessness. It is the root, I am sure, of much depression.
To me, as a past bullying victim, the horror of being bullied is the spectacle of witnessing malice and power-seeking in its raw form, It is so ugly as to be literally nauseating - at least to me. But I have no doubt that such behaviour is extremely common.
Are bullies always people who have been bullied at some point in their lives? I don’t believe that - although it may sometimes be the case. Yes, it makes a sort of sense that if you have been rendered powerless as a child, you might want to assert power over someone else. But that’s a choice. You might equally decide that you will never, ever behave in such a way yourself. Being bullied is no excuse for becoming a bully.
Bullying lies deep in one of the darkest recesses of human nature. The simple enjoyment of power over another human being not for any particular end but for its own sake. Or over other human beings, collectively. All dictators are bullies, who love to humiliate and coerce, in this case, entire populations, Vladimir Putin being just the latest of a long list of them.
Are bullies mainly men? Certainly not. I have often come across female bullies, most painfully when I was at school, where several of my female teachers were vile bullies, who loved to exert their power over children. And my daughters all confirm to me that bullying among girls in the schoolroom is just as common as it is among boys. It just takes a more subtle, more cruel and psychological form.
Have I ever bullied someone? I wonder. For all my horror at such behaviour, I am aware that my natural verbosity has occasionally got me carried away in an argument, so I can feel I am bludgeoning someone with facts. I would justify this to myself as rigorous argument, but in the end, it wasn’t far from bullying. And this is why bullying is quite often male - you certainly see it in the House of Commons and the boardroom and the City where men dominate - because bullying can masquerade as the sturdy exercise of male-fetishised reason, whereas in fact, it can be an attempt to humiliate someone into submission.
Debate can definitely be a form of bullying - perhaps that’s why from the millennials downward, rigorous argument seems to be devolving into various forms of tribal agreement. Are you with us or against us? In other words, individual bullying is being slowly replaced by group bullying. Anyone who has been involved in a Twitter pile-on, with some kind of sectional interest or pressure group behind it - as I have - will know how disturbing it is to be turned on by the mob.
In a way, I can understand collective bullying much more easily than individual bullying. The feeling of collective virtue that can result in persecution of The Other, whoever The Other is that day or week, can be intoxicating. And the fact that all the participants in the bullying agree with one another makes it all the more enticing and leeches out some of the individual guilt that group members might otherwise feel.
It also explains that when you see bullying in the schoolyard, how quickly weaker members of the group tend to line up behind the bully. Partly because they are adjacent to power, and partly because they can enjoy the delights of guilt-free cruelty. Hence the willing henchmen of the political Dictator of whatever stripe.
One way or the other, I feel that the world can more or less be divided up into bullies and the bullied. Or at least those who try and bully ( you have to be subtle about it as an adult, or you will attract condemnation. Deniability is all, which is why bullies are often very charming at a surface level).
Which brings us back to Kevin Spacey - undeniably a very charming man, if his screen persona is anything to go by. I am drawn irresistibly in this trial to my memory of his performance in the film ‘Swimming With Sharks, in which he brilliantly portrays a bullying Hollywood producer who delights in humiliating a young trainee. One should, I suppose, never equate an acting role with an actor. But it is tempting.
The strong prey on the weak. That is a terrible fact of human nature and of human history. Bullying will always be with us, however many anti-bullying initiatives appear in the school or workplace. Why? Because people get off on it. Once you understand that, you already have a significant piece of armour against any attack, because you won’t be seeking some kind of explanation within yourself, something you may have ‘done wrong’ in order to attract punishment.
How do you stand up to a bully? Put as big a distance between them and you as possible. If you don’t have the option of doing that, you are in a difficult position. At school, I turned and punched the person who was bullying me. He stopped. But that’s not an option if the workplace, and you may lose your job if you make a stand against someone more powerful than you. Likewise, if you are in a relationship, or married to, a bully, the price of escaping the bullying is very high.
The best you can do is learn to spot them and run. I can’t say I’ve always been successful at doing so, simply because they can be so subtle and charismatic. And because I have a tendency to blame myself when things get ugly. But once you know what they are, you need to get as far away from them as possible. Because they will hurt you if they can and they won’t stop. Why?
Because, for them, impossible though it is for me to grasp, it’s fun. A malevolent hobby. 'All you can do, if you are not the subject of the bullying yourself, and you see it happening, is refuse to join in, or, better still, challenge the bully. Intervening puts you in the firing line - but even if you keep quiet, you might be next anyway. And you will set an example to others - not least to the bully themselves, who might think twice next time before they start to pick on someone when they know they can’t rely on the mob to support them or at least keep their mouths shut.
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As someone who worked in teaching for many years, the problem of bullying was always at the forefront of my mind. First of all, kids are experts at bullying, particularly as a mob who will turn on an unpopular teacher, or even one who’s worn what they consider the wrong kind of clothes! Chilling. (A colleague of mine wore some Capri pants once and was then pursued for several terms by kids shouting abuse down the corridors. )Then, of course, they will pick on an individual kid they perceive as different/weak etc. I can’t say I ever found a brilliant solution to all this, even though I tried to explore such issues in my drama lessons but I did feel that, while bullies need to be dealt with firmly, there’s also much to be gained by teaching victims (and anyone can be a victim) assertiveness strategies.
On a different note, as someone who went regularly to the Old Vic to see Kevin Spacey’s acting and adiree hin
As a victim of both bullying and sexual bullying, what you write resonates with me. Lately, I have also been thinking of gaslighting and medical gaslighting or in my mind bullying, especially of the gendered type, towards women and mothers.
E.g. how endometriosis is diagnosed so late and little because the medical institution doesnt believe female pain, my experience as a mother trying to convince doctors my child was crying so much due to reflux for a cow milk allergy because doctors believed that a first time mother is making a mountain out of a molehill because she diesnt understand that a child must be crying a lot. What does one call such instances of institution wide power dynamics aimed at controlling women into submission if not bullying? Bullying can be subtle and psychological like that too.
I think all bullies are damaged in some way. They lack self confidence and self esteem, kindness and empathy, and are psychopaths or sociopaths. They havent resorted to murder yet. Just murder of the soul.