Bullying: indignation is growing

Recent cases of cyberbullying have raised fierce indignation. Young people live and relive their humiliations on the Internet and decide to end their life. Kiwanis International magazine published April 2012 an article "Bullying: Why Can't We Stop It?" Kiwanis members run and support anti-bullying initiatives in schools. Prevention is necessary, because bullying is perhaps the biggest drain on manpower and talent, not only at school but also in life in general. Moreover, as work becomes more knowledge - oriented, the impact of bullying is more than ever economic in nature.

Why do we have bullying at all? Bullying is the easiest way to exert power. You terrify the weak, and automatically gain control over silent individuals, who become afraid of being bullied, and therefore start listening to the leader. It is more tempting when power boundaries are weakly defined. Hitler was a master-bully. He could never have reached absolute power without terrifying a weaker minority. Therefore, the silent witnesses are the key to the solution. Will they laugh and let this happen or will they speak up for the victims? It surely takes courage. And it requires belief that change is possible. One can start with refraining from all types of gossip. Even 'true' gossip should never be tolerated, because it is contrary to human dignity.

Today, the indignation is mainly oriented towards the bullying of children. (We should not forget adults, who know the more subtle types of bullying.) Kiwanis Leuven will be supporting the work that is being done within the Praxis-P work group of the University of Leuven. Aim is to study the effectiveness of prevention projects in local schools. Tomorrow the fund will be solemnly inaugurated.

Ode to Joy 2.0

Perhaps you are also disappointed. The possibilities of Internet 2.0 (basis of social web sites) were huge, but how poorly they have been used up to now! I'm not talking now about the attractiveness of web sites, the dynamic tricks and the level of interactivity. They have all improved. It is not sufficient to have a technology, you also need to have content. Removing the commercial content, the average social web content seems poor. I think many people have a similar experience. Some people never even started on Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger and I can't blame them.

I made two observations in relation to Internet 2.0. First, what other 'peers' write, rarely seems interesting to me. Second, what I write, rarely seems interesting to my peers. Even highly educated people don't seem to be able to offer something more interesting than nice weather, time to do some gardening, and 'stupid politicians'. We are not even talking about rougher things. Internet 2.0 only seems useful to amplify mainstream thinking. What a waste!

Digging deeper, I came to the conclusion I was totally wrong. First, what my peers write, must be interesting to me because I notice I can't stop reading it. I read it, not because I like it, but because I need to know what moves them, what keeps them busy. I know this now like never before, at least for those who have the courage to stay connected with me. But I rarely reply, so they must think I'm not interested. Likewise, my peers perhaps read my writing, but rarely take the hurdle to respond, and I doubt if I would even comment myself to similar writings.

What we just observed, is actually nothing special. Internet 2.0 is just a communication medium, the object of our communication hasn't changed. We just broadcast our own daily concerns, and often fail to listen to other people's concerns. At the same time, we hope that other people will respond to our concerns, and we fear they might consider them trivial. Let us hope that the Internet 2.0 nevertheless shows some positive effect on bringing people together. What other purpose should it serve?