According to the site’s FAQs, if there are multiple posts in a row, then they will be all? deleted. The site recommends one post per day for the maximum. I love being on here, and being able to write my honest thoughts and feelings, and have a thoughtful audience to engage if they feel like it. It helps to relieve my stress and depression, which it starting to get better. Thank-you, guys.
Topic:
I always had a theory about purpose of the outcast, the person the majority doesn’t like, so they mess with him or her. Don’t think theory more like a thought is the right word. It can be argued that the outcast can change their behavior such as learning people skills, maybe their appearance as well to be more accepted into society, yet at the same time I feel as if it’s an excuse to keep this person down like this is your fault, so we have a right to make you miserable. I heard a story once about someone changing herself such as liking what her bullies like, but they just hated her even more. Still, there are some things that can’t be helped like a disability or a scar across their face.
I once read that bullying has been argued to weed out others who are or were deem unfit for society, in other words those that are considered “weak”. It’s to keep the herd fit and healthy. You can see this behavior across the animal kingdom where the sickly or “outcast” animal is left to die, fend to his or her self, or gets killed by the group. If you have studied Sigmund Freud’ work about the superego, ego, and id, you can understand what I’m about to explain next. I believe the bullying behavior is the ego balancing out the human from killing the human, which is the id, and the knowing that killing is wrong, the superego, so humans can’t have that simple instinct of leaving the sickly behind because we’re evolved to have this conscious.
I didn’t finally figured out the outcast’s purpose until I read about wolves, who do have an interesting hierarchy. Only the alphas have the breeding rights, then you have the betas, and at the bottom is the omega. The omega does have an important role. They are the glue that holds the pack together. The alphas uses the omega as a stress reliever by keeping him at the bottom, however once the omega gets tired of way he has been treated and decides to leave, it has been witnessed that the wolf will sit and do nothing for a certain amount of days to mount the lost of their omega. This sounds similar to how people treat the outcast and as much as I hate to say it, but the outcast is pretty much the punching bag. Yep, they use the outcast to make themselves feel better. The outcast is the scapegoat used to carry everyone else’s sorrow and guilt. They can shift their negativity on the someone else, so they don’t have to focus on themselves, and when the outcast leaves they will have to deal with their problems and on top of that deal with the loss of someone who was actually important.
3 comments
I’m not sure about the one post per day rule. Over the years this website got less and less crowded, back in 2012 it made sense, but now I don’t think more than one post will hurt anybody. No point in spamming 10 posts in a row of course.
I agree with the wolfpack idea, I think we observe the same in human groups. Basically they are using other people to unload their frustration onto. I don’t agree with the alpha and omega thing though. Bullies are not alpha or strong or anything, they are actually quite weak people. They are not confronted by anyone when they bully, that’s why they may appear strong. And the bullied person is not necessarily weak. Especially when a group of bullies mob a single person. However we are not wolves, we are animals and we are still guided by the very similar instincts, but humans also have a very important personality and intelligence component along with physical strength. Being bullied doesn’t mean you are weak or omega or anything. At that time of your life, someone took their frustration on you and there was noone around to stop them. I know many alpha-bullies who grew up to have a shit life and many bullied omegas achieving things alphas could never dreamt of.
You said it best, there’s a whole social heirarchy out there and people do it because they want to humiliate and dominate others. This article akso encapsulates the whole thing as well.
www (dot) cracked (dot) com / blog / 7-ways-you-can-accidentally-become-social-outcast /
Just remove the spaces and replace the (dot) with a real dot. I liken being down the social ladder as the shit pit. No one likes it there so people deliberately try to push others down on it so they can have something to step over and crawl out of the place.
I’ve rarely seen a truly strong person bully others. Alpha / Strong people or animals certainly do assert their rights but they don’t bully. Bullies, from what I see, are fundamentally insecure and instead of dealing with it, they attack people that they know, can’t or won’t react. Like a professor who bullies a student, a boss who bullies and employee or even a group of people who gangs up against one person. Why don’t they engage the person in circumstances where they can fight back?
The outcast as I’ve seen in society is the person that has something that other people don’t have. He/she exhibits an intrinsic quality that they admire but do not have OR does something that would love to do but do not have the courage to.
The genuinely talented but nerdy / quirky kid for example. Others look at him/her and feel stupid in comparison; so, they feel the need to do something to bring him/her down i.e. pick on the way they dress, talk, carry themselves etc.