Other than the others aftermath
December 18th, 2010randform reader Victor replied to the posting of the story of my classmate “other than the others”
December 17th, 2010 at 9:22 am e
It is a bit disapointing that story stopped right when it should get interesting.
I mean – what is girl thinking? I would have slapped Jenny beeast
right into her face. She is going to continue her bullying if you don’t show her where frontiers are!
answer:
You are right it is not clear where Jenny’s aggression towards the girl is ending up. People are dealing very differently with aggression, sometimes a perceived aggression transforms into an aggression towards the opponent (like you suggested), sometimes into autoaggression, sometimes into aggression towards others. It is also that people perceive aggression very differently, some people perceive more aggression than there had been exerted, some people may underestimate the exerted aggression.
I do think however that physical violence, like slapping someone has still a very different quality then indirect violence with words/gestures (like the one of Jenny). Usually it is perceived as being more aggressive and it may lead thus to an even more cascading violence.
Unfortunately shortly after I had posted the story my son and a friend of his were badly beaten up by seven (!) other children in Hellersdorf. We were probably “lucky” that these were only ten year olds and not older kids like in a stabbing of a 17 year old in Wittenau which took also place shortly after I had posted the story. So the story unfortunately acquired a quite “realistic” dimension for me.
Group behaviour is very difficult and the tensions, especially in rather closed groups, are often in great need of moderation. In the case of our son we were thankful that the school authorities interferred and moderated and we hope that the beating up was a unique event.
It is important to point out that violence -especially in groups- occurs not only with kids, but of course also with adults. Violence associated to group behaviour is for example often also about social ranking. Thus moderation is often very needed also in various groups of adults. Social workers have thus for example socalled clinical supervision sessions, which are a kind of single or group therapy for ensuring that aggressions towards social workers are dealt with professionally, that group conflicts can be resolved etc.
(side comment: It would make an interesting theatre drama to see how for example a clinical supervision session in a harem would look like.)
Concluding I think the author may have wanted to make people think about how they would react to such an attack or what one could do to resolve the conflict.
Moreover it seems to me that the conflict with Jenny is playing a rather minor role in the story.
The girl was subject to so much other violence and bullying that Jenny’s violent extravaganza was probably appearing to the girl more like yet another “streak of some spoiled asshole” (if one wants to use the suggested kids language of the story). It is true that due to the incidents and Jenny’s behaviour it will be rather difficult for the girl in that school. I share your opinion that Jenny may continue bullying. It seems she felt somehow felt threatened in her role by the girls presence. It is not too rare that dominant people suffocate already a slight sign of opposition rather than that they try to engage into a possibly straining psychological process.
I find the central role in the story is played by Hartmut. By his sleazy behaviour and particular by his unsupportive and unloyal treatment of the attack it is very unlikely that he will gain the girls trust again.
