Personal aversion or competitor – common reasons for bullying

Bullying is a major weapon in modern times to eliminate competitors or people, which do not fit into the herd of other people or against whom somebody shows a personal aversion. Generally people with individualistic attitudes are endangered to become victims of bullying. The mechanism is often simple: As many people use to follow group dynamics and are open for dogmata, the ability for an independent enquiry is often limited. A „Don’t talk to that Person!“, means for streamlined people frequently „ok, I should not talk to that person“. Why? They don’t ask why.

As bullying is surely a still not fully recognized hidden violence that appears in all kinds of communities, unfortunately even in academic circles, I decided to point out this phenomenon herewith again.  Especially in my fields of fundamental research in systematics and evolutionary biology/ zoology, elbow mentalities are quite common. We need to learn to cooperate, especially when for example financial resources are limited, it’s about our future, and in cases of natural sciences it’s about the future of these sciences.

 

Bullying can happen everywhere

 

All copyrights including photo: Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin July 2020