[On Substack]
TR meant something positive by "Bully!" Wouldn't it be nice to reclaim that sense of it? But we'll have to dispatch the other kind first.
I've participated as a faculty member on many MALA (Master of Liberal Arts) capstone project defenses at my school over the years, none so gratifying as yesterday's by the 70-something grad who collaborated with her son (illustrator) and grandson (trial audience) in producing a children's book about bullying. She'd experienced it her entire life, she said, from siblings to classmates (she was one of the first to integrate Murfreesboro's high school in the '60s) to coworkers and acquaintances.
She showed us a video clip of her reading the manuscript to her four-year-old grandson. He got the message. How sad, that so many parents fail to take the time with their children to have that conversation and awaken that capacity for empathy. How disappointing, that so many adults lately (not to mention Elon) speak of empathy as a thing to shun.*
The other elephant in the room, of course, was the Bully-in-Chief in Washington. Nobody had to mention him, his presence pervades this moment like a plague.
The good news, I think, is that kindness and fellow-feeling exists in posse in most young human hearts. Just as the South Pacific song said, you have to be carefully taught to hate... and to bully and demean others. Thus can it be un-taught, and replaced by the better lesson-the one reflecting our better angels, the one we learned of yesterday.
Way to go, Shirley, I hope your book finds many receptive readers and listeners. Let's all be done with bullies.
Allure of the Mean Friend:This American Life... Teens Guilty of Bullying Could Lose Drivers’ Licenses Under Tennessee Law
*For the record: Paul Bloom repudiates the Muskian interpretation of "Against Empathy":
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