Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellion
If there are so many people that would help and be supportive, why does one have to learn to essentially not attract 'bad' people, why is there never any effort in society to quite encouraging nasty behavior. I wish it was just a few bad people but it's really not that simple at least in my experience. Good people might go along with ostracizing the outcast so they don't get shunned or picked on themselves, good people might react with hostility towards somone who comes off as different from them. I just don't know if that is really true about most people and most people are probably somewhere between good and bad though even those terms are rather simple for the entire spectrum of human behavior. Also this entire society is all about getting ahead and being entirely self sufficient and independent not really much sense of a community.
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Of course good and bad are in the mind of the observer. I don't tend to categorize people that strictly, but there are a few people I've written off completely as bad seeds. Everyone else I view as being generally decent, though everyone is capable of harming others intentionally or otherwise. I know that there are many people who've lived through difficulties and come out with a more misanthrophic attitude towards others. This topic is subjective, certainly.
Bullying is a subject that I've researched in some depth. Objectively, the stastics show that a small percentage of people bully others habitually, perhaps 5% - 20%. Roughly 25%-30% report being bullied regularly. Depending on the source and methods, these statistics vary. What is consistent, though, is that MOST people don't bully according to these studies. It's true that there is often less intervention in these matters, either from bystanders or authority figures, than there is bad behavior by a wide margin.
Bullying, too, is subjective to some degree though. I have been teased many times in my life by many people, but I've never *felt* bullied. I've also been threatened, physically, but my attitude has always been rather defiant to this sort of threat. I never felt intimidated, or victimized. Another person may have lived the same experience I did, and come out with a completely different perspective. I think that some of that accounts for the discrepancy between bystanders taking action or standing to the side. If the behavior doesn't seem to everyone to be unacceptable, then of course those people are unlikely to intervene.
I don't know which "society" you live in, so it is difficult for me to comment on your observation that most people want to get ahead and are only out for themselves. I presume that you're referring to that mythos of "dog eat dog" American culture. However, one should not confuse a cultural identity with society. Society is so much richer and more complex than some romanticized vision of cherry trees, apple pie, and a pioneer spirit. There are so many shades of culture in the United States that I would encourage you to try out a few before dismissing the whole of the nation as self absorbed, egotistical jerks.
From many of your statements, I wonder whether you've been able to experience much of life outside your family cocoon. The world is full of possibilities. One's potential cannot be realized, necessarily, in such narrow a field of vision, experience or opportunity. Perhaps the people around you aren't the "right" people, who could contribute to a more fulfilling life for you.