Blind Faith
Last night I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop on “bullying” as it relates to children. I really don’t like the label “bullying” as it trivializes what in fact one child does to another. Like it or not here in Canada , what people call “bullying “ behaviour becomes a criminal assault, utter threat, or intimidation once the child reaches 12 years of age. To me we should be calling bullying what it really is; Non-verbal, verbal, psychological, and physical duress or aggression. To me the term “bully/victim” should be removed from our vocabulary, and should be replaced with “aggressor/target”. As one teacher stated last night, “bullying doesn’t go away it just grows up.” No truer words have been spoken on this specific topic. A rose by any other name is still a rose. Aggression by any other name (bullying) is still aggression or duress. Until we stop trivializing or making this topic “politically correct” we will make no head way on what I see to be a major issue in our school systems, but I digress from the topic of this thread; BLIND FAITH.
While participating in this public forum last night, I posed the following question to an expert on the topic of “bullying” (God I hate that word):
“ Although I agree with everything that you have shared with us tonight that the intended target of bullying (I hate it, I hate it) has choices that they should be empowered with, you have not shared with us your thoughts on physical defence should the intended target of aggression be physically attacked. What are your thoughts on this topic.”
After asking this question, an ere hush flowed across the audience, but everyone was now focused on the presenter who had the following to say:
“ I don’t believe in violence under any circumstance when dealing with a bully, there are other choices.”
Upon hearing this comment I immediately followed up their answer with another question:
“ The scenario I am about to give you is not a “what if” question, but rather a “what did” question based upon my experience in policing, where I had to investigate an assault that ended up in the target attending hospital for treatment. You stated that you do not believe in violence under any circumstances when dealing with a bully (hate this word and explained why to the audience). Your son or daughter is confronted by an aggressor who attempts to take their lunch using threats of violence. Rather than physically fighting over the lunch, your son or daughter proceeds to hand over their lunch and then begins to walk away. As they are walking away, the aggressor now grabs them by their jacket, pulls it over their head, and then begins to punch your child repeatedly in the head. Are you saying that the target should not use their right to self defence under these circumstances?”
Again, a big hush comes over the audience, and everyone focuses their attention back to the front of the room to the expert, who was now visible struggling with the question I posed. The answer this expert gave is why I called this thread “BLIND FAITH”:
“Well in that scenario I guess self defence would be appropriate BUT, only if it is a self defence based upon the martial art I study which is Aikido. Through my aikido studies I have learned how to realistically defend myself against an attacker without having to hurt them. In my professional opinion, there is no reason why we must hurt a bully to defend ourselves”
At this point in time I said thank you, and sat down biting my tongue to the point where I thought I was going to make it bleed. This expert earlier stated how they had attended a local street shelter for youth in our city, and was very disturbed by the tales of violence that she was hearing (welcome to my world). This expert freely admitted that they had never been involved in a physical confrontation, or even seen one, but felt that their aikido training would prevail in the real world. This is “BLIND FAITH” that is continually being propagated within the martial arts community, and which is believed as TRUTH by those students (or audiences) who follow such false demi-prophets and experts, who spew the lies of deceit and promote politically correct ideals upon the masses that take their teachings as truth. Reality SUCKS, especially when it comes to violence, and until we start dealing with this fact head on by challenging these “theoretical subject matter experts”, who’s education on violence comes from a book or dojo, we will continue to give the advantage to the “predators” of our society be they 10yrs old or 40.
Cerebral food for thought
Darren
Postscript:
After the above noted seminar was over, the subject matter expert stopped me in the parking lot and stated to me that their thoughts on self defence, specific to bully prevention, were her own, and did not represent the INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION who teaches bully prevention (which will remain nameless) that she was representing in the seminar. My professional and honest reply, “thank you for sharing that with me, but how can you promote a program and it’s ideals when you know it is flawed ???, that is not educational truth, but educational deceit.”
January 18, 2009 at 5:45 pm | Uncategorized | No comment