I am just trying to get to the bottom of this phenomenon, so that I don’t have to repeat it and so I can find a solution for it. I have just encountered a bought of this, and I have seen this before and have never quite understood how it is that the 99% gives their power to the 1%, or how a group of smart, interesting and intelligent people dissolves because 1 person is a bully. Bear with me while I try to flesh it out…
Let’s make an analogy of a group of people who decide they are going to form a group of Non-Smokers and but one person in the group who claims to be a Non-Smoker, always fires up – every meeting. That one person’s smoke is going to ruin the air for everyone else in the group.
If the group, or a member of the group does not stand up and say, “There is No Smoking here – we are a group of Non-Smokers – either you need to stop smoking or go outside to smoke or go away altogether and form a group of smokers”, then the group becomes a smoking group, by virtue of the smoking of that one person.
First NEW people begin to leave the group when they first arrive because they smell the smoke and they don’t like smoke and they thought they were coming to a Non-Smoking group. Next, members of the group shake their heads every time the smoker lights up, but no one has the moxie to say – “There is NO SMOKING here.” Then people start to talk about the smoker behind his back and say that he is an asshole, or whatever, and some people try to approach him about it and say – “hey it smells kinda smoky over here” but STILL no one directly confronts him.
…eventually the people who are the emotionally healthiest don’t come back to the group and give up on Non-Smoking Groups altogether and the few who are unhealthy who are left, continue on with the smoker smoking and they just pretend he is not smoking and they talk behind his back, feel sorry for him and unify together against him but never to the point of doing anything about this. They get sicker and sicker, but they stay on, pretending he is not smoking.
Question 1. Why do I not have the moxie to say, “There is NO SMOKING here.” ???
Answer 1. One person in the group has to do it, and I am waiting for someone else to stand up so I don’t have to.
Answer 2. It is very scary. I am afraid of looking bad and being wrong. Minority Opinion is not for the faint of heart. It gives me dry-mouth and knocking knees. I never say everything I planned on saying. I choke and can’t remember and mumble and sputter. I break out in a sweat and if I try to explain myself, usually the bully gets the better of me, and manipulates me one more time into thinking it’s my fault.
Question 2. Why am I afraid of looking bad and being wrong in “my group” – with the people I “love” and who “love me”?
This is how the banks have taken over our country and stolen our money and lost it on Wall Street and how we now live in a Police State with no jobs -
Answer: Because, individually, I do not feel the support and Unity of my group behind me, so that when I have to stand up, I don’t know that my group loves me and trusts me and supports me. I feel alone.
Question 3: Why? Why do I not feel the love and support of my group behind me? Why do I feel alone in a group of people that I dedicate so much time to?
Answer: Because as an individual member of my group (families, co-workers, friends, and groups, etc) I am so competitive and I run everyone (and most of all myself) down every chance I get. I may support everyone in the group setting, but the minute I get into smaller groups of 2’s and 3′s, I do not LOVE everyone, and I do not talk lovingly to others, I do not build everyone up. Instead, I spend my time cutting others down, judging others, gossiping, and telling others what to do – even in my mind. I use feeling superior to my neighbor to give me the power to get up in the morning -
…and so when I have to stand up to a bully to support my fellow group members and keep the group together, I cannot do it because I have not been supporting my group members all along. Until this moment, my mean-spiritedness has been hidden and has seemed relatively harmless. It’s negative power only shows up when I have to defend my group, but that is when the truth comes out – that I have been using the group instead of being a part of it.
Mean-spiritedness - is derived out of fear – I am terrified of the same things I was terrified of on the elementary school playground, and I am still acting that way – trying to get people to like me, trying to fit in…
So, instead of tapping into the love that would have been created out of kindness and commonality and sharing and helpfulness with the extra work at keeping a positive attitude and being helpful to one another always, I just hate the bully and hate everyone together and get a certain power from the communal hate even though it is killing me.
If this is how I operate – how am I to work cooperatively in a Democratic setting?
How am I to be one member with one vote if I don’t even treat myself as a member or give myself a vote?
This is the culture of cooperation that we have to teach and learn. We have to teach and learn “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. – and I can even venture to say that we need to teach and learn “Love thyself”- because I would be willing to bet that I am treating others as I really, selfishly treat myself… anyone else?
I starve myself of the love and companionship I really need out of laziness and fear of meeting new people, substituting it instead with warm bodies or television or food or sex. I don’t provide myself with mental stimulation or balanced exercise or fresh air, and I beat myself up and have black and white thinking which prevents me from accomplishing anything real in a consistent way.
With no self-love and no love of my neighbor, the only unity I actually have is the unity of myself against others: Nihilism.
Through careful, thoughtful practice, I have to overcome these obstacles so that I can learn to live with you, love you and myself in a healthy, forward-thinking way, and stand up for Principle to the bully’s who have other agendas for us – so that we can survive and thrive. Meditation, watching what I say, stopping negativity in it’s tracks, practicing the Golden Rule and kindness are the beginning. Emmet Fox has a fantastic exercise called The 7-Day Mental Diet (free), which I have used in the past, and highly recommend.
I am not sure if I have all the facts, and would certainly like to be corrected if anyone knows differently, but I believe, that because of a lack of microphone system, the NY General Assembly stumbled upon a really interesting way to Unify their groups behind a message so that upon having to confront, say the Department of Education in this video Occupy the Department of Education, NY, 10/24/11 , the group was able to take a stand that was heard by the DOE and which really made a statement of Unity from the OWS movement: the human microphone…
Perhaps this is one way to deal with bullies and to create unity and strength in numbers. Perhaps, upon reforming the group, and committing to take back the group and take back fair treatment, let’s say – a spokesperson for the group says something to the bully and then the other members of the group repeat what the spokesperson said to the bully.
This might have to happen only a few times to make the bully back down in the case of one person.
