About the book
Hitherto, writers in the newly emerging field of bullying have focused almost exclusively on bullying in a specific context, most commonly schools and, to a lesser extent, workplaces and prisons. But bullying does not stop there. Bullying takes place wherever people systematically seek to abuse power over others, whether it is in the home, the club, the sporting arena, in politics or in international relations.
This new book explores bullying in the broadest of contexts, drawing upon the recorded experience of people in diverse circumstances and different periods of history and upon contemporary research in a wide variety of disciplines.
It is a critical look at what is being said and written about bullying. At times we hear a babel of voices, strident, contradictory, at times seemingly absurd, each with its own infallible diagnoses and dogmatic solutions. We must be patient and try to separate the chaff from the grain. Bullying is both an old and a new problem. “Old” in that the abuse of power has always been with us. “New” in that it has been brought into focus in recent years with an intensity we have not seen before.
This book presents a painstaking analysis. It examines what we know, or think
we know, about such things as the personalities of bullies and victims; genetic
determination; the influence of family; peer pressure; the role of gender and
culture and the pressure of circumstances. We come to see that there is a good
deal we do not agree about and a good deal we do not know.
But the completely open mind never acts, and we must do the best we can. As
a practical educator – I have been a teacher for more than 40 years –
and a parent and grandparent – I must speak up and say what I think can
be done. The patient reader will have no need to read between the lines.