Paranoia in the age of rising bullying

All of the readings on paranoia and it’s link to humiliation were very interesting, but I think that Muesnter and Lotto’s essay brought it all together. The language was more manageable and it’s clarity made me understand it more. The mention of the shooting in Virginia Polytechnic Institute at the very beginning captured my attention quickly and being so close to event, since it only occurred a few years ago, it helped me make the connections to the reading. Terman’s essay on Fundamentalism and the Paranoid Gestald used other examples from history, but the juxtaposition of the Nazi movement and of the French Revolutionists was off-putting. In school, we learn that the French Revolution is tied to the American Revolution and that’s supposed to be a good thing. Both of these revolutions created a better nation. Comparing it to the Nazi movement made me lose focus on what he was trying to prove, that social and political groups are somehow based on paranoia; therefore both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are based on paranoia and it would take just one further step for either or both to have a violet outbreak.
Going back to Muesnter and Lotto’s essay, the subject of bullying is a very hot topic now, specially after the recent suicides of homosexual teens that have been victims of bullying. Their violent outbreak was aimed towards themselves rather than to their aggressors or towards other innocent bystanders. They do make the point that most victims that take revenge on their aggressors or others are mostly male. They do not mention how female victims express their rage. Perhaps it would be diving into other fields, but act of self-mutilation came to mind. Many females have violent out breaks towards their selves by cutting themselves in order to deal with outside humiliation. Low self-esteem is a big problem in America. In a country were we are bombarded with advertisements of what our bodies should look like, what male and females roles should, and that alcohol makes us look better by just carrying a certain brand of alcohol in out hands during a party. Schools are trying to improve kids’ self-esteem but that can backfire, being too nice to kids and telling them, that everything they do is great and then, when they face negative criticism from others, they do not know how to handle it. Finding this balance is very important, and there is still along way to go, but it is important to notice that bullying in school and the most recent, cyber bullying needs to paid careful attention to. Just a note a on cyber bullying, there are certain “Applications” and programs that call for it. Applications like Formspring and Honesty Boxes on Facebook allow anonymous messages to be sent to other users, and user use this opportunity of anonymity to express their negative views on a person. One cannot sign up for these applications and expect all the messages to be along the lines of “I’m in love with you” or “You are beautiful”, yet people put themselves in the position to be told the opposite.
Understanding humiliation is key to producing positive and productive citizens, and understanding how bullying plays into this is even more important. The subject of blame is also very important because placing the blame on others while neglecting personal responsibility of the choices that came in the sense of reaction to negative criticism is what causes the violent outbreaks. Someone must be blamed and someone must pay, whether it is the aggressor, others that are mirrors of the aggressor, or the victim himself.