http://www.salon.com/2012/03/04/inside_the_bully_economy/singleton/
As the details of this week’s Chardon, Ohio, school shooting emerged, they seemed eerily familiar. On Monday, three students were killed when a gunman emptied 10 bullets into a group of teens sitting at a cafeteria table. Once again, the alleged shooter, T.J. Lane, a 17-year-old fellow student, was described as a “loner” with a “troubled” family history. And, once again, other students described him as the victim of “bullying.” And so Chardon joins the long list of violent school incidents with a connection to America’s rampant bullying problem.
According to Jessie Klein, the author of the new book “The Bully Society,” it’s a problem that’s only getting worse. In her excellent examination of the school bullying epidemic, Klein, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Adelphi University, takes a broad approach to the subject. She first lays out the scope of the problem, before explaining how kids’ changing attitudes towards masculinity, the birth of child-targeted consumerism and the erosion of our compassionate society have all helped to create a culture in which children are increasingly feeling overwhelmed and helpless, and, in some cases, prone to violence. Most provocatively, she ties the rise of bullying behavior to America’s economic move to the right.