By Dr Stephen James Minton

‘Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips’ (Frankl, 1959, p. 157).

Like many people, I have always had a curiosity about what it is that underlies choices in extreme circumstances; and like many psychologists, I have always had a desire to find out what is it that can or could help human beings to survive. In Marginalisation and Aggression from Bullying to Genocide: Critical Educational and Psychological Perspectives, I have attempted to bring whatever learning I have accrued from my professional experiences (in the fields of psychology and education) to bear on shedding some light on how and why human beings create unliveable situations for their fellow human beings. An informing idea that runs through the book is the position held by various phenomenologist philosophers (beginning with Sartre and de Beauvoir), and those influenced by them, that human beings inevitably define and perceive themselves (and people ‘like them’) as the One, and simultaneously set up those who are somehow not like them, as an oppositional Other. I argue that this results in an observable ‘continuum of marginalisation’ experiences. Essentially, this is based on the findings that similar sets of individual, group and societal mentalities and actions (all of which relate to the targeted persecution and destruction of ‘Otherness’) exist. These underlie and stretch across a continuum of phenomena that span prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, harassment, bullying and street violence, through to acts of colonisation, forced assimilation, legally sanctioned subjugation, war, and at its most extreme, genocide.

 

At one end of the continuum, school bullying is a form of aggressive behaviour which generally stems from marginalisation and prejudice. Given its frequency, most people will have had at least second-hand experience of it. Evidence also shows that members of so-called ‘minority’ groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, LGBT people, those with intellectual disabilities and special educational needs) continue to experience both school bullying and other forms of aggressive and discriminatory behaviour (Minton, 2014; Zych, Ortega-Ruiz & Del Rey, 2015). Hence, I see school bullying not so much as a phenomenon in itself, but as one of a number of possible manifestations of broader historical and contemporary patterns of marginalisation in society. Anti-bullying actions to date have generally had rather modest effects. My view is that an explicit focus on prejudice (hitherto, a relatively unattended to factor) should be considered in the redesign of such efforts in order to improve their efficacy.

 

At the other extreme is genocide. In this book, I have outlined an eight-stage model of physical genocide, which is applied to an exemplar which has received little attention: the genocide committed against the indigenous peoples of North America, and in particular, the Lakota-Cheyenne Campaign (1864 – 1890) of the so-called ‘Indian Wars’ of late nineteenth century United States. My position is that even with the acknowledged limited psychological knowledge that we have, we can, at least, learn to look out for the warning signs of genocidal mentality that are reflected in our discourse around ‘Others’. However, in order to understand why genocidal behaviour is actualised, we must be aware of the systemic and power factors that permit it. It is instructive, I believe, to consider how so-called ‘cultural’ forms of genocide have been perpetrated through the apparently ‘benign’ process of education. Such processes have been repeated all over the world in the models of residential schooling that were set up to ‘civilise’ indigenous peoples. The deliberate, legally sanctioned and forcible separation of indigenous children from their families and native cultures, coupled with the often abusive nature of the ‘education’ that such children received, and the conditions that they endured (although too many did not survive), means that this experience of ‘education’ has continued to cast a long shadow. If restitution, reconciliation and reclamation are to be attained – none of which are possible without arriving at truths – then we must engage with and address these issues of legacy. With their historical predecessors having been part of the problem, it remains to be seen if today’s educators can be part of potential solutions.

 

If we – as professionals, perhaps, but above all, as human beings – really do wish to do things differently in future, we must, as Frankl (above) stated that we are, be realistic. Our tendency to understand ourselves in oppositional relationships to those we deem as ‘Others’ , and our deeply embedded drives toward aggression, must be acknowledged. However, in my view, some aspects of our dominant, non-critical, approaches to psychology and education, obscure rather than assist us in doing things differently. I feel that if we are to genuinely learn from the horrors of the past and present, we must make a genuine attempt to re-capture genuine person-centredness, in the radical form in which it was originally conceived, in our thinking and our practice. My hope is that, within whatever constraints that we may have, we can become more genuinely active in actualising our possibilities for reaffirming humanity in our individual and collective choices.

 

REFERENCES

 

Minton, S.J. (2014). Prejudice and effective anti-bullying intervention: evidence from the bullying of ‘minorities’. Nordic Psychology, 66(2): 108-120. doi:10.1080/19012276.2014.928485

 

Zych, I.; Ortega-Ruiz, R. & Del Rey, R. (2015). Scientific research on bullying and cyberbullying: Where have we been and where are we going. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 24: 188-198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.05.015

 

Dr Stephen James Minton CPsychol AFBPsS is a chartered psychologist and a lecturer in the psychology of education at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. He is author of Marginalisation and Aggression from Bullying to Genocide: Critical Educational and Psychological Perspectives (Sense, 2016) and Using Psychology in the Classroom (Sage, 2012), and the co-author of Dealing with Bullying in Schools: A Training Manual for Teachers, Parents and Other Professionals (Sage, 2004) and Cyber-Bullying: The Irish Experience (Nova Science, 2011). His research and practice interests include processes of inclusion, exclusion and marginalisation in education and society (especially regarding so-called ‘minorities’, e.g. indigenous peoples, LGBT people, and members of alternative youth sub-cultures), and aggression and violence (including bullying and cyber-bullying).

Examining the Impacts of Hate Crimes Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People

Examining the Impacts of Hate Crimes Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People

By Professor Rupert Brown, Mark Walters and Jennifer Paterson, University of Sussex In 2015/2016 there were 7,194 recorded hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation hostility and a further 858 recorded incidents based on transgender identity hostility in England and Wales; rises of 29% and 41% from 2014/2015 respectively (Home Office, 2015/16). This may suggest improved…

Forgiving Hate Crimes: The Case of Dylann Roof

Forgiving Hate Crimes: The Case of Dylann Roof

Guest post by Luke Brunning and Per-Erik Milam Luke Brunning is British Academy postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford. He researches topics in ethics and moral psychology. Per-Erik Milam is postdoctoral fellow with the Gothenburg Responsibility Project at the University of Gothenburg. He writes on forgiveness and moral responsibility. On 17 June 2015,…

American Islamophobia in the Age of Trump: The Global War on Terror, Continued?

American Islamophobia in the Age of Trump: The Global War on Terror, Continued?

Guest post by Tanner Mirrlees, the Director of the Communication and Digital Media Studies program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT). His research examines the political economy of US media and communications dominance around the world, the relationship between the US security state and cultural industries at war, and the economics and…

Calling for a debate on recording violence against police officers as a hate crime

Calling for a debate on recording violence against police officers as a hate crime

By Dr Irene Zempi, Lecturer in Criminology, Department of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University. Irene is a board member of Tell MAMA, Nottinghamshire Hate Crime Steering Group, and Leicestershire Police Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel. She is the co-author of the books: Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of Online and Offline Victimisation (Policy Press, 2016 with Dr Imran Awan)…

What Causes Spikes in Hate Crime Reporting?

What Causes Spikes in Hate Crime Reporting?

By Dr David Brax, post-doc at the Centre for European Research, and the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, Gothenburg University. Dr Brax is a member of the advisory board for the INHS, and an associate editor of the book series “The Psychology of Hate Crime as Domestic Terrorism (Preager 2016). His most recent…

Why research and evaluation is vital for #BetterThanThat hate crime campaign to be successful

Why research and evaluation is vital for #BetterThanThat hate crime campaign to be successful

By Dr Loretta Trickett, Nottingham Law School In response to the rise in incidents after the EU Referendum, a new initiative on hate crime with cross-party and government support has been launched. The #BetterThanThat campaign was initiated by the Polish Cultural Institute and includes other groups such as Kick it Out, The Board of Deputies of British…

Erosion of Social Support as a Function of Alt-right Xenophobia in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Erosion of Social Support as a Function of Alt-right Xenophobia in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Guest post by Professor Edward Dunbar Edward Dunbar is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA. He also is a practicing psychologist based in metropolitan Los Angeles. He is the co-editor of the series “Hate Crimes as Domestic Terrorism” and the forthcoming “Indoctrination to Hate: Recruitment and Membership Techniques of Groups Pushing…

Recent Comments

  • Mark Walters: You will need to contact the conference organisers directly. INHS Team
  • WJT: I'm glad you included "support" on the flowchart. When you've been accused of hatespeak, i...
  • Jakub Supel: Here we have the classic problem of interpreting the meaning of "grossly offensive" and "r...
  • Jakub Supel: "Equally, the European Court of Human Rights has held that the right to freedom of express...

Latest from Twitter