What happens if we are led to believe - the way to win (or survive) is to purchase the right things in High School - like the right fashions, the right binder for your papers, the right hair style and to have the perfect body. It sounds silly and no-one really believes this, and yet, the young people, whose bodies are changing, feelings overwhelming their minds, they become supersensitive to whether they are popular or not.
Some who are not popular keep quiet and slither down the corridors, they do not look anyone in the eye, their posture is tentative, shoulders up they look down. Those who are popular often don't know it but they don't suffer shyness, they assume they are okay, the air is friendly. They are smart enough to get through the curriculum with good marks but they are not super performers. Super performers are bullied by the masses who resent their easiness with themselves, then they suffer bullying and turn into themselves, now uneasy with the future. They don't fit any more. Everything must be questioned, re-examined and "controlled".
Most of us are not "alpha" egos, most of us need community, need to succeed at some things, but political climates make "talking" dangerous. Expressing one's beliefs and feelings is the most dangerous thing to do for individuals and most of us lived through the high school where the apparent winners were the bullies to our young minds.
Young men are trained to use power over thoughts and feeling. Don't share your thoughts with anyone. Keep it inside. They don't go away they turn into other attitudes. As they age they admire and worship strong leaders or strong men. They may hate those who have lower status as defined by the group. How society works - as in the "authority" of popularity at school or the office. As in the headlines of well funded media. As in the authority of class structure.
A society who hasn't addressed this issue through school curriculum or media, is one where the bullies win even though they are shivering in their shoes understanding there is no way to be popular without bullies, without fear and mealymouthed values. It's not that bullies are brave. They may target others by creating rumours, only talking behind the backs of those "who must be silenced".
Julian Assange, Martin Luther King Jr., feminists, minorities, the homeless, the poor, the drug addicted lonely souls who can't find a place to belong, the criminal gangs who are so alienated they create their own deathly communities where the gun or the knife rules without words.
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