Yes, They Most Certainly Want You to Be Helpless

I ended my last post with: "Our educational system was designed precisely to condition our children into docile dependency and mindless conformity...the hallmark characteristics of sheeple."

I forgot to add defenseless and vulnerable...just like a sheep led to slaughter.

Reading this post by Talleyrand in which he notes how school indoctrinate students with the following values:

Don’t be a bully (also known as all violence is evil, even when you defend yourself, be a rat instead and go to the teacher authority figure)

This reminded me of an incident I experienced when I was in the seventh grade.

I used to get bullied all the time -- as I've written about before, I was raised by a domineering mother who constantly told me it was wrong to fight, that I should always tell the teachers/school people if I was being bullied or attacked, etc. In one instance, a particular kid used to bully me all the time, and one day I just got sick of it.

I didn't have the courage, knowledge or experience to stand up to him at that age, but when he tried to make me give up my seat on the school bus one day because he wanted to sit next to the window, I simply refused to move.

He began to threaten me, but I was angry and fed up with the bullying, and I just ignored him.

He jumped on me and began to pound on me relentlessly, and I never fought back. I just covered up and waited for someone else to rescue me.

Since this was after school, this occurred while we were boarding the bus while still on School grounds, and the lady bus driver summoned the security guards (who were always stationed at the bus stop area after school) to come onto the bus and 'Breakup the fight' (more like a one-sided beat-down of yours truly).

I will never forget the looks of pity and contempt from the girls on the bus (particularly the girl I had a crush on at the time), and disgust from my friends, as the guards grabbed me and the bully and escorted us off the bus. See, this was a "fight" so I had to be dragged to the Vice Principals office at the same time as the bully.

Needless to say, the bus driver came into the office and told the Vice Principal what had actually happened, that I had not fought back, that this kid attacked me, and I did nothing wrong.

The VP began to berate the bully, he began crying, and the VP literally walked over and began to pat my head and rub my shoulders. I don't remember what she said, but she gave him a 3 day suspension and a month of detention and told him he was not allowed to ride the bus home that day, they were going to call his parents to come pick him up. She than told him to go to the bathroom and wash his face.

When he left, she began to praise me for "not fighting" and for being a good boy etc. I don't remember her precise words, but it was praise. She essentially patted me on the back and reinforced the notion that I was a model student for "non-violence." She called my mom and told her what happened, and put me on the phone with her so that my mom could tell me how proud she was of me for not fighting back.

To this day, the memory of this event fills me with nausea. It's one of my primary motivations I've had in pushing myself to train martial arts for so hard and for so long. That sense of helplessness, weakness and impotence in the face of violence has hurt and scarred me far more than the punches the bully reigned down on me that day.

I was teased by many boys and my friends for weeks after that for being a "wimp" and a "pussy" and a "fag" for not fighting back. It was utterly disgraceful, and I wouldn't even look at, much less talk to the girl I had a crush on for months after wards. That was probably the biggest blow to my 13 year old self-esteem; knowing the one girl I was head over heels infatuated with, was there to witness my humiliation that day. While that boy never did bully me again (I think he got into a lot of trouble with his own parents for being suspended), other bullies knew an easy target when they saw one. The bullying on me over the next few years by others intensified and escalated. It only ended when I finally fought back against a bully when I was a sophmore in high school.

Knowing I was getting bullied mercilessly, my Father took me on the side one day -- well out of ear shot of my mother for fear she would hear him and yell at him for teaching us kids to be violent -- and he told me that the next time I got bullied, I should punch the kid right in the nose as hard as I could. Even if the bully proceeded to kick my ass, it would end my bullying problems, because bullies will only pick on kids that are easy victims who take it.

My Dad's advice worked, I did get my ass kicked, but I did bust up a bully's nose pretty badly, and I no longer got bullied much from that day forward.

I just wish my Dad did not let my mother cooperate with the School system in making me a docile victim several years earlier.