Maybe People are Exclusionary by nature? Bullying?

[Someguy]

I've made this quite clear, I have a facial paralysis. If I obsess on this, it's only because people obsessed on 'it' all through out my childhood and early adulthood.

That would indicate to me there is a control freak mentality out there to conquer, control and lord over each other.........well, how do explain racism, or sexism or any other of the 'isms' that are out there? Isn't that at its core bullying?

It's over a hundred years later and the Hawaiians still feel oppressed:

Because they feel they were deemed as inferior...and they were.

We talk about initiation rights as if it gives us the right to abuse?

When I was growing up, I would hear stories from my siblings about how a neighborhood son was terrified of his father because his father would kick him in his nutz, literally, if he was late for his curfew. I was also told other punishments was locking his son in the car in the middle of day under the hot sun.........later on, I was told this son, as a teenager, took his father's car and totalled it out of shear spite.

I grew up during the 1970's. To a certain extent that alone should explain a lot of that behavior.

I find that as the 'communication' era starts to emerge it becomes less and less likely to abuse because people are becoming more aware......we're not as insular as we once were. We're becoming less complacent.

[Mark]

I'm not a sociologist, but I doubt you'd have to dig deeply into such literature to find studies of how people of all cultures and times have found ways to divide themselves into cliques and elect groups. Us and Them. That's everwhere I've ever looked. Yeah, I guess I agree with you that a certain variety of exclusionism is built into human nature.

I tend to think about it in developmental terms and (for lack of a better term) neurological terms. We all start out life in a rather selfish manner, thinking it is all about us, and over time and experience grow to recognize that ohter people are like us and have similar needs. This is a feature of the way our brains work. the golden rule is not something we're born knowing. We come to it only after a lot of development and struggle. So I think that what happens is that people start selfish and gradually incorporate other people into their self identity. At first it is just mom and dad, and then it is family and then maybe it is friends and maybe a nationality or a race or a religion. At a certain point, people stop. Few go on to eliminate all the groupings and feel at one with all others. So the us and them is a sort of artifact of how we grow. Combine that with someone who is aggressive/impulsive/dominant by nature or nurture and you have a recipe for bullying. I can improve my own position by knocking yours down. Another way of saying it is whereever you have heirarchy, you have ripe grounds for bullying.

[Someguy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXcO0Ah64rM

I don't think you have to be a minority to experience this kind of behavior.

Military comes to mind.