Day: October 22, 2015

I don’t know what came over me, but I was fascinated by Hilary Clinton’s appearance before the Select Committee On Benghazi yesterday, it is the sort of spectacle I usually avoid like the plague. But something about it touched me, drew me to it. I watched on and off for much of the afternoon, and then again, in the evening until the tortuous climax around 9 p.m. Only later, when I took the dogs out for a walk, did I realize what drew me to it.

It was the bullying. You can all make up your own minds about Clinton, whether or not she is trustworthy, whether or not you wish to vote for her. But there was no doubt about what I was seeing, it was the all too familiar and very poorly disguised and – to me – disgusting ritual of bullying. Once more, for perhaps the millionth time in my life, were a bunch of bullies – mostly pissed off old white men (and a couple of pissed off white women) ganging up on another woman who refused to show weakness, took all of their shots, and gave many back.

It is always revolting for me to see a bully, thrilling to see someone stand up to bullying. Without even listening to the issue in Washington, I was rooting for this solitary person, a woman to throw something at someone and walk out. In her own way, she did better. Just by staying calm and civil, she revealed her bullies in an almost  devastating way. I never thought of that when I was a kid.

It was doubly odd for me because I was planning to write about  bullying all week, and how the Internet has changed bullying in the most direct and dramatic of ways. Bullying has recently been made fashionable as a topic of social importance.  Before, it was considered a rite of passage, not a social crisis.

Schools and parents are up in arms about it, bullying is seen as a major factor in many of the shootings committed by victims of it, this summer, American Psychologist, the official Journal of the American Psychological Association devoted an entire issue to the subject of bullying and victimization.

I have some experience of bullying, as so many people have.  I was chased, beaten, robbed and humiliated repeatedly by bullies when I was kid, hurt badly several times by them. Bullying was not taken seriously when I was young, it was considered a toll on the highway of life, a chance to be manly. My father urged me to fight back, even if I got hurt. It was the only way to stop them he said. In his never-ending quest to turn me into a man, he tried to teach me boxing, giving up after the fifth or sixth bloody nose.  I noticed that he never tried to stop the people bullying me. My brother laughed at me when I came to him for help, he suggested that my father was right, I needed to stop being a sissy and learn to fight.

The notion of bullying changed in 2004 after the Columbine School killings – I wrote about the shootings for several magazines –  introduced a new social narrative about bullying. Suddenly, it was considered to be dangerous. The shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had both been bullied and parents and schools and government began taking bullying much more seriously, perhaps too seriously, many believe. They began tagging and persecuting the different, rather than reaching out to them.  Schools and playgrounds and backyards are learning centers, at least they were for me, I’m not sure they are always the controllable province of the police, the educational system or parents.

My father may have been insensitive, but he had a point. No authority could patrol every hallway, schoolyard, sleepover, playground, and path home. At one point I picked up a stick and whacked one of my tormentors in the head. The bullying stopped, at least for awhile. There was a lesson there, I’m not 100 per cent certain about what it was.

After Columbine, bullying moved to the Internet. The Internet changed bullying forever.  Before the Internet, you could hide from bullies, run away from them, avoid them, even try to structure your life around never being near them. That is a hard thing to do,  lots of bosses can be bullies, so can siblings, and so can members of Congress.

The Internet has  transformed bullying, turning into a techno-driven social and cultural institution.  Because of the Internet, it is no longer possible to hide from bullies or ignore them, bullying is easier than ever to do and harder than ever to ignore.

Raging mobs of vigilantes roam Facebook and Twitter looking to punish people they consider insensitive or wrongdoers. When I wrote about the mobs attacking the clients, employees, wife and children of Dr. Palmer, the infamous killer of Cecil The Lion, hordes of bullies, furious at my challenging bullying, descended on me for days. There is something sweet and liberating about having nothing to lose, there is really nothing for anybody to take or threaten. I pity the hacker that finally gets near my bank account, his day will be worse than mine.

Bullying, say sociologists, is the result of an ancient power dynamic – the strong attack the weak.  It can happen in many different ways – taunting, cruelty, physical violence, verbal abuse, vicious e-mails and text messages. Bullies are generally repeat offenders, they become addicted to their power to inflict suffering. Adults are just as likely to be bullied at work as children are in the schoolyard. Responding to them is like putting jet fuel into a racing car, it just feeds the disease.

The Internet has radically altered the reality of bullying. It is almost impossible to prevent and very difficult to completely ignore. We are notified of online bullying instantly through Facebook’s noxious notification system. It is especially tough, I would imagine, on children. There are no consequences usually to bullying online, and shaming – digital mob assaults on individuals – are becoming commonplace, online virtual outrage is an addiction.
Ultimately, bullying is about righteousness, the disease of the political world and also, the animal world. Bullies, say scholars of bullying, never see themselves as bullies. Bullies always see their bullying as justified, they believe they are morally superior to their victims – think of the animal rights bullies on social media. Bullies believe they are teaching someone a lesson, they are always justified in their minds for their actions.

On the Internet, there are no consequences for saying cruel or stupid or bullying things, people seem to drift into bullying obliviously, almost unconsciously, and always believing their victims had it coming.  Some people are reluctant bullies. Social media creates and nurtures unknowing bullies, it is just so easy to do. And you never even have to see your victims.

I am sad for the people who died in Benghazi, but I covered politics for a good while and I know a bullying witchhunt when I see one. There it was on TV and smartphones and tablets all day, a row of angry, sometimes vicious bullies who believe their behavior stems only from moral outrage, building all sorts of wild narratives to justify their inexcusable behavior. Bullies always believe they are teaching someone a lesson, they always claim their victims need to be singled out and punished. They always think their targets are less human and righteous than they are.

It was hard for me to watch the hearings yesterday, it brought back a lot of old  feelings, but then, again, I was drawn to it, mesmerized by it. Leaders are not supposed to be bullies, when they are, the whole system seems tainted and off kilter. One of the good feelings was this: I am not a political person, I am not writing this to support or defend Hilary Clinton, she can obviously take good care of herself.

Bullying is supported by social disconnection and technology. The social dimensions of global change included the effects of technological advances on employment, social exclusion and inequality, the loss of identity and increased violence and a rise in new forms of social aggression.

When media and the digital world become so central in our lives, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply, and to love generously. I saw it on my Iphone all day long.

Grief is an individual and sacred thing, everyone should do it in the way that works for them. The Quakers taught me to celebrate life, not only to mourn death and loss. This idea has helped to alter my life, it was internalized and became a part of my feelings about life.

It comes back to me again and again. Life is sacred and precious, I am grateful to it. For six or seven years, Lenore sat on the sofa behind my desk while I wrote, she became a part of my creative process. She would hop up onto the couch, sigh deeply and usually go to sleep as I worked. Every now and then, I would turn to her and talk to her and her tail would thump and she would go back to sleep.

Fate is very different than Lenore, she rarely sleeps but sometimes rests. The dogs in our house are not allowed on the furniture, the only exception has been Lenore on her sofa in my study.  In the past week or two, Fate has been coming quietly into my study and hopping up on the sofa.

I was startled the first few times to see her there, and told her to get off. She keeps coming back. Curiously, she never tried to get up on any of the other furniture. You can make of this what you want, I believe she either smells or senses Lenore’s role in my life and/or presence in the room. Animals know things we cannot explain or understand.

After the third or fourth time, I realized something was happening that was larger than I was seeing. I stopped chasing her off the couch. She is never as still as Lenore, she hops on and off to investigate every sound, movement, door opening, rustle of air on the house. She wants to see where Maria is, where Red is, if there is food being dropped, if anyone has come by for her to greet, if a sheep is within a mile.

But if I am working, I will increasingly turn around to see her watching me closely, sometimes sleeping. So, a writing dog, like all my dogs. And an art dog, a supporter of the arts. During the say, she is either quilting with Maria, of, if Maria is busy, writing with me.

Given the choice, I celebrate a dog like Lenore, am grateful for dogs like Fate and Red. What do I have to mourn? As the Quakers suggested, life is precious, life is sacred. It is worth celebrating, not mourning. I hold Lenore and all of the spirits of the dead in the light. Crisis and mystery are just around the corner.

You get the dog you need. Given the chance, they become what we wish them to be. That is what they do.

Florence Walrath’s big mower died this summer, I got a gas mower that has gotten me through the summer. We’ve come up with a new plan for mowing the back yard where the dogs rein. In the morning, we let Chloe and the donkeys in, they seem to love it back there and are doing a great job. Soon, we will call Tyler to come and help with the leaves. In the meantime, I like our new mowing team. Ecologically nice, as well. Now fumes, no carbon, no noise, no waste.

In the wise way of donkeys, they are lined up at the gate every morning awaiting us. They love to work.

Maria is an individualist in all things, her farm fashion chore clothes are stylish and idiosyncratic, she had a new headband on today when she went to talk to Fanny for their morning chat. I wear the same thing every day – blue shirt, jeans or chinos. Maria never wears the same things two days in a row, never buys anything retail. I think the headband is new, I like it. If you can retain a fashion style out in the pasture with donkeys and sheep and dogs and a pony, then it is internal, the artist is everywhere in here.

A few weeks ago, I brought Red to see Dr. Suzanne Fariello, our vet and friend from the Cambridge Veterinary Service. She has seen us through the sickness and death of Rose, Izzy, Frieda and Lenore, we have learned to trust her and her staff and feel close to all of them.

I brought Red to see her because I see in increased stiffness and lack of mobility in his rear legs, not while working, but afterwards. He is slow to get up and is resting for longer periods after work. Red is nine years old, an age when border collies who have worked every day of their lives – he is from Northern Ireland – start to get arthritis and other joint and limb issues. I told Dr. Fariello that I felt sometimes that Red and I were walking just alike, so I know there is some stiffness and pain there.

Fate, a small nuclear working machine, has livened things up and gotten Red to do even more moving and running around, even some playing.

Was there anything we could do?, I asked, to prolong his work life, make him more comfortable, figure out what might be happening. Dr. Fariello generously agreed to come by the farm, she wanted to see him run and move there. She believes he has arthritis, especially in the left rear hip, he holds that leg differently.

Watching him work this morning, she said there was some stiffness in the way he held his rear legs, she suggested we explore it further. She gave us a bunch of options – including some new laser therapy, if needed. Vets have had a lot of success with that treatment, she said.  We agreed that the first step was to have him X-rayed so she can have a clearer picture of what might be happening.

Red’s legs have worked hard and taken a pounding all of his life, so some arthritis and stiffness would be natural, almost inevitable, just as it is for me. Border collies take a beating. We’ll go ahead with step one and see what the X-rays show. There are many options to explore after that, Dr. Fariello is high on the laser therapy and that intrigues me.

There is no sign of any difficulty in Red’s work now, but border collies are notoriously stoic and will absorb almost any kind of pain to work. Still, he is getting stiffer, I think there is some pain.  I want to make sure I’m on top of Red’s condition and do nothing to worsen it, and if possible, take some moderate steps to make it easier for him. I want him to work for many more years. I appreciate Suzanne’s coming out to the farm, Red is in good hands.