Shaking up the cognitive egg: thoughts on bullying, conflict and the brain
As I’ve written about before, solving the problems of bullying depends on the society’s tolerance for abusive interaction. My good friend and colleague, Dawn Menken, psychotherapist and conflict resolution educator, wrote this thoughtful piece for the Oregonian last week. She raises many thought-provoking questions, and asks us to look at how we define bullying. Until we look closely at our tolerance for certain behaviors, we won’t make headway into the problem of bullying.
Cultural tolerance is one part of the problem of bullying. But another is learning how to have healthy and productive conflict. There really is such a thing as a “good fight.” In fact, diversity of opinion, incompatibility of worldviews, and clashes of representational systems increase intelligence. Barbara Strauch, author of The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain said in a recent interview in the New York Times:
One of the most intriguing findings [about maintaining healthy brain functioning] is that if you talk to people who disagree with you, that helps your brain wake up and refine your arguments and shake up the cognitive egg, which is what you want to do.
I’m glad for this invitation to explore the problem of bullying. While I agree that society’s tolerance for bullying is a key aspect of the problem that needs to be addressed, i think the fundamental thing that needs to be addressed is each individual’s capacity for awareness and choice.
I know i could be accused of putting responsibility on the “victim” to solve the problem, and i own that is something i am calling for. If the recipient of bullying can call upon his/her own deepest knowing and awareness then s/he can turn the moment into one of empowerment rather than taking in/on the bullying.
Of course it would be great for the bully also to call upon his/her own deeper awareness as well and to not bully in the first place.
And ideally the more any of us can become more aware of our own bully and victim tendencies the better off we’ll all be. And as part of this, i support anything any of us can do to be there for both the victims and bullies we encounter in our lives.
But i can’t yet shake the feeling/belief that we each are responsible for our own reactions and responses and so to learn how to cope with being bullied sounds like a good place to start the process of diminishing the bad effects of bullying.
Hi Tamara
I agree that ideally, we need to learn how to deal with being bullied and also our bullying tendencies. This is what I appreciated so much in Dawn’s article, her call for us to look at the ‘everydayness’ of those tendencies.
I also know, from working with bullying in different cultures and countries, that there really is a range of diversity in how we define and view bullying. And more conversation about what is, and what isn’t bullying would be helpful.
Hi Julie, thank you for pointing my attention towards Dawn’s article. Both our daughters were bullied at school, so was i at my country of origin as well as in the country where i immigrated – yet i also remember that i wasn’t always easy for my peers, sometimes quite arrogant, so i partially take responsibility for my part in the bullying proces. On the other hand, both our girl have wirtten interesting thesis about civil courage or racism – so i guess they carry quite an awarenes for that sensitive topic. warm regards, Ivan
Hi Ivan, your comment is the second one speaking from the perspective of being bullied, and also making something useful from the experience. An important part of the topic, it seems, is to explore, not just how can we protect ourselves, but also how can we grow from the experience and what is our role in it. Thank you for adding your experience to the conversation. Julie