Because of a computer virus, I have not had access to my email since the
last few days of October. My computer continued taking messages until November
9 until it was full. So I don't know how this discussion on school yard
bullying has developed since the 9th. Nevertheless, I have a contribution that
may be unique so I am posting it now.
I wrote a similar letter to the STAR TRIBUNE after last year's school
shooting in Minnesota but it was not published.
As a victim of bullying in both elementary and high school, I can testify
that while my tormenters would not have DESERVED to die if I had reacted with
deadly violence, THEY WOULD HAVE BROUGHT IT ON THEMSELVES. During my first
semester in the tenth grade, I had been driven to the point by constant insults
and assaults by my tormentors that I felt I hated everyone and wanted to
destroy the whole world in retaliation! Of course, it was unlikely I could
have carried out such a grandiose revenge but, if I had even carried out part
of it, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine would have looked like a pair
of Mother Theresas in comparison!
Of course, if I had retaliated with deadly force, I would have been
deserving of the legal penalties for multiple murder but, despite Jannifer
Rubenzer's comment that such retaliation is never justified, the people who
were tormenting me would have brought their fate on themselves.
I never told anybody what was in my mind but my parents got me transfered to
another school for the second semester of the 10th grade.There were problems at
the new school but they were not nearly as bad as at the old school. After
about three weeks of no assaults and relative freedom from the constant insults
at the new school, I decided that I REALLY didn't want to destroy the WHOLE
world and after another three weeks, I decided that I REALLY didn't hate
EVERYBODY!
All this happened during 1956-57 and, since that time, I want to emphasize
that I have not had any desire to destroy the world. In fact, a few years
later during my junior year of college, I was even active in the movement
against the threat to the human race possed by nuclear weapons. I have not
only never committed any violent crimes against others but I have been active
in movements to improve other peoples' lives such as civil rights/antiracism,
antiwar and Gay Liberation, etc.
One of the last points I want to raise about the issue of bullying is the
connection to my being Gay. I had not yet come out while I was in high school
but the people who were tormenting me probably picked up subliminally on my
sexual orientation. You are probably not likely to receive the extreme
retaliation I THOUGHT ABOUT when you subject Gays to your bullying but,
sometimes you settle on heterosexuals to put at the bottom of your school
pecking orders and then you get the series of tragedies ranging from Columbine
to last year's school shooting in Minnesota.
I say you are unlikely to bring such extreme retaliation on yourselves from
Gays since we lack the heterosexual desire to prove how macho we are by beating
up, raping and killing as many people as possible. Evolution has resulted in
male, heterosexual animals winning the greatest success in passing on their
genes by beating other heterosexual male animals in the fight for access to
females. They pass on their greater aggressiveness to their larger number of
progeny. The STAR TRIBUNE published an article a few years ago about the hyper
aggressiveness among a variety of male animals -- Deer, Elk, Buffalo, etc --
during the mating season. One elk became so frustrated by the lack of other
male elk to fight during the heigth of his rut induced testosteromania that he
resorted to repeating head butting with a male buffalo! However, this
hyperaggressiveness applies not only to male heterosexual animals; female
heterosexual animals have shown themselves no less willing to att
ack animals smaller and weaker than themselves. In fact, it is only the
homoerotic component in animal nature that enables any social unit from animal
herds and flocks to humen societies to exist.
We are speaking in terms of statistics here. I am aware that not every
heterosexual goes around beating up, raping and murdering as many people as he
can to prove how macho he is. In fact, many heterosexuals manage to live quite
decent and moral lives! But the greater stastical likelihood of aggressiveness
among heterosexuals leads to not only widespread violence but, as our prehuman
ancestors evolved towards intelligence, war, slavery, class societies, racism,
sexism, etc followed. While some individual Gays can be hyperaggressive, the
lower incidence of violence among Gays would have made it impossible in a
society of Gays for such a spectacle as people gathering in public to watch
someone being burned alive as happened during the religious wars a few
centuries ago.
We cannot say that heterosexual perversion is unnatural in the sense of
being against nature since everything that exists is IPSO FACTO natural and
heterosexual perversion, unfortunately, exists. Presently, heterosexuality is
a necessary perversion since the human race could not continue without it. But
within the next century it should become possible to combine the genetic
material from the sperm of two men and bring the resulting embryo to term in an
artificial womb. At present, because of the differing methyl groups attached
to the DNA in germ cells from the diferent sexes, it is impossible to produce a
viable embryo from two sperm or two egg cells. The methyl groups prevent the
expression of DNA. But, in the future, it should be possible to selectively
remove these methyl groups and produce a viable embryo.
Sociobiologists James Weinrich pointed out that in earlier societies, Gays
and Lesbians were the shamans and priests and were thus in a position to
promote the welfare of their nieces and nephews who shared some of their genes.
This kin selection ensured the persistence of same sex attraction even though
most Gays and Lesbians did not reproduce themselves. Weinrich predicted that
because of this cultural unifying function of Gays and Lesbians, we would have
a higher average intelligence than heterosexuals. He combined the results of a
number of studies on the comparative intelligence of Gays and Lesbians vs.
heterosexuals and published the results verifying his prediction in the JOURNAL
OF HOMOSEXUALITY. Since Gays are on the average more intelligent than
heterosexuals, the all Gay societies will eventually supercede the heterosexual
ones.
But leaving aside these more general biosocialogical considererations,
my immediate point is that when you provoke lethal violence by putting someone
at the bottom of your pecking orders, you may not deserve the conseqences and
your victim may not have been justified in retaliating with lethal violence,
but you have brought the consequences on yourselves!
Robert Halfhill Loring Park
http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com
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