Bob Hoffman was a Bully
Dear Toby,
I read in the news today a report about the widespread support in Russia for Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. By and large the ordinary Russian is thinking some variation of “if they fear us, they will respect us.” This ordinary Russian may or may not have had a hard time under communism or the various regimes that have held power since Gorbachov’s glasnost. There are now a whole generation of Russians for whom the great war, the siege of Moscow by Hitler towards the end of the second great war, is depicted in an almost mythological way in the authorized history telling. People with real memories have to be my age or older, and probably don’t talk about it. So we are left with this fear and anger driven rendition of history. I have some first hand experience of talking about mythology. Who were the winners and the losers? The people who survived and keep the emotional story alive.
The same dynamic applies to stories about being bullied. It’s hard to even admit that I was bullied as a child. It was humiliating, but the depth of the insult for an 8 or 9 year old is beyond comprehension. At that age we have no emotional tools available to process it, and for the most part, the adults, parents and teachers, are just as helpless. Although I have no empirical evidence, I also think that our instinctive self preservation tends to throw up barriers to admitting the depth of the hurt. I am certain that this defense mechanism also distorts and clouds our memories of these incidents when we as adults try to trace these stories to unlock and free ourselves from their pain, and hopefully their grip. I remember a very violent shouting match with another boy on the baseball diamond at Nichols School. He said he tagged me out, and I was equally sure he hadn’t touched me. But he had to win. I think it was in the fourth grade. When I tried to fight back, I was blocked. In the aftermath, I was punished by the school principal who accused me of being the aggressor. I have no way of knowing who threw the first punch. I don’t remember being any bigger than the rest of the kids in my class. I was definitely not the butchest 4th grader though that distinction may have been something that was a later accretion, perhaps during adolescence.
My response was to withdraw from all sports that put me in potential danger, and this impression, tendency, not quite sure of the word, it’s an operative idea that I cannot defend myself carried into adult life. It is the usual way with kids who are victims. And it seems that quite a few gay kids are the focus of bullying, not just because the favorite bully’s taunts are queer, sissy, homo, but there is already, at least in my generation, a real lack of self esteem. And there is the possibility that I was the bully. It certainly seems out of character. In any case, it is about the fight, winners and losers, and the emotional fuel for the aggressive negative behavior as well as the debilitating emotional toll of being the victim.
If anger fuels the desire to be dominant, fear is the basic motivation for submission. Usually anger wins the day. The dictionary defines a bully as a person who “seeks to harm, intimidate, or coerce [another person] perceived as vulnerable. Robert's Rules of Order go out the window. There is little room for rational argument. The reasonableness of a position takes second place to the sheer emotional power of the proponent, the aggressor, the bully. There is also the role of the onlookers, the unwitting participants. I want to examine the bullying phenomenon as it carries into adult life. Continuing with Putin’s aggression in Ukraine as an example, it is far more pervasive than we want to acknowledge and its tentacles are far more destructive than hurt feelings of 4th grade boys in the sandlot.
My reasons are simple: If I let bullies get away with it, I am complicit. This I cannot and will not allow. The best way to stand up to a bully is to stand up to him or her, not be silent, tell the story honestly and forthrightly, and be the best that you can be.
When I decided to come out, I really didn’t decide. I allowed myself to be pushed into a situation where I had to confront the truth.
Anyone who knew or worked with Hoffman knows that he was a bully. I will leave out the harm in the definition, but he certainly sought to coerce and intimidate the people who were his patients in psychic therapy. They were vulnerable because they sought him out in difficult circumstances. He yelled, shouted, humiliated, used “in your face” intimidation, even at times even physical aggression. He used to say “break down to build up.” his behavior was totally out of bounds, and beyond any professional standards.
___________________
“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
I read in the news today a report about the widespread support in Russia for Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. By and large the ordinary Russian is thinking some variation of “if they fear us, they will respect us.” This ordinary Russian may or may not have had a hard time under communism or the various regimes that have held power since Gorbachov’s glasnost. There are now a whole generation of Russians for whom the great war, the siege of Moscow by Hitler towards the end of the second great war, is depicted in an almost mythological way in the authorized history telling. People with real memories have to be my age or older, and probably don’t talk about it. So we are left with this fear and anger driven rendition of history. I have some first hand experience of talking about mythology. Who were the winners and the losers? The people who survived and keep the emotional story alive.
The same dynamic applies to stories about being bullied. It’s hard to even admit that I was bullied as a child. It was humiliating, but the depth of the insult for an 8 or 9 year old is beyond comprehension. At that age we have no emotional tools available to process it, and for the most part, the adults, parents and teachers, are just as helpless. Although I have no empirical evidence, I also think that our instinctive self preservation tends to throw up barriers to admitting the depth of the hurt. I am certain that this defense mechanism also distorts and clouds our memories of these incidents when we as adults try to trace these stories to unlock and free ourselves from their pain, and hopefully their grip. I remember a very violent shouting match with another boy on the baseball diamond at Nichols School. He said he tagged me out, and I was equally sure he hadn’t touched me. But he had to win. I think it was in the fourth grade. When I tried to fight back, I was blocked. In the aftermath, I was punished by the school principal who accused me of being the aggressor. I have no way of knowing who threw the first punch. I don’t remember being any bigger than the rest of the kids in my class. I was definitely not the butchest 4th grader though that distinction may have been something that was a later accretion, perhaps during adolescence.
My response was to withdraw from all sports that put me in potential danger, and this impression, tendency, not quite sure of the word, it’s an operative idea that I cannot defend myself carried into adult life. It is the usual way with kids who are victims. And it seems that quite a few gay kids are the focus of bullying, not just because the favorite bully’s taunts are queer, sissy, homo, but there is already, at least in my generation, a real lack of self esteem. And there is the possibility that I was the bully. It certainly seems out of character. In any case, it is about the fight, winners and losers, and the emotional fuel for the aggressive negative behavior as well as the debilitating emotional toll of being the victim.
If anger fuels the desire to be dominant, fear is the basic motivation for submission. Usually anger wins the day. The dictionary defines a bully as a person who “seeks to harm, intimidate, or coerce [another person] perceived as vulnerable. Robert's Rules of Order go out the window. There is little room for rational argument. The reasonableness of a position takes second place to the sheer emotional power of the proponent, the aggressor, the bully. There is also the role of the onlookers, the unwitting participants. I want to examine the bullying phenomenon as it carries into adult life. Continuing with Putin’s aggression in Ukraine as an example, it is far more pervasive than we want to acknowledge and its tentacles are far more destructive than hurt feelings of 4th grade boys in the sandlot.
My reasons are simple: If I let bullies get away with it, I am complicit. This I cannot and will not allow. The best way to stand up to a bully is to stand up to him or her, not be silent, tell the story honestly and forthrightly, and be the best that you can be.
When I decided to come out, I really didn’t decide. I allowed myself to be pushed into a situation where I had to confront the truth.
Anyone who knew or worked with Hoffman knows that he was a bully. I will leave out the harm in the definition, but he certainly sought to coerce and intimidate the people who were his patients in psychic therapy. They were vulnerable because they sought him out in difficult circumstances. He yelled, shouted, humiliated, used “in your face” intimidation, even at times even physical aggression. He used to say “break down to build up.” his behavior was totally out of bounds, and beyond any professional standards.
___________________
“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
Thomas Aquinas
Comments
Post a Comment