Bullies must be removed from the hierarchy of power - Bird Lovegod

I’m thinking about bullies and people recently sacked from Government. I’ve had experience of people who use their position of authority and power to make themselves feel… something. Typically such people will enjoy power over others, enjoy their ability to make others feel weaker, feel disempowered. When I think of such people, and I’ve known a few in my time, my unchecked emotional response is hatred of them. And I’m wondering if this is a right, wrong, or nuanced response, emotionally, and how to deal with such people in the workplace, or school, or family, wherever they are.
By Bird Lovegod
Published 28th Apr 2023, 11:45 BST

Ok, putting aside the initial emotional gut response. What makes someone abusive in the workplace? And do they know they are being so? Here’s another question. Do they care if they are being so? Here’s a few possibilities. They care about themselves and their managerial position more than they care about the other people. They’ll only bully people they consider below them, that’s for sure. They think being in a senior role gives them the right and ability to denigrate anyone in a ‘lower’ role. Their identity is therefore involved, a hierarchy of power and control, which they are nearer the top than the bottom of. Being on this ladder is their identity, they ‘are’ their position. For such people, the kindest thing to do is to throw them off the ladder entirely, giving gravity the opportunity to offer them the position of starting again.

This is why it’s right to sack bullies, bad managers, and people who use their position to create and enforce petty and arbitrary rules. I just read of a charity CEO that refused to sign thank you letters if the donation was less than £100k. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but if it is, that CEO needs to fall from the top of that ladder to the pavement. For their own good, because that one indicator is emphatically speaking for the prosecution that the person in question is unfit for the role and so bound up in it that their own identity is deformed. Start them again.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Bullies need to be removed from organisations and from positions of power because they are a menace to everyone they have relationships with. It’s good for them to have the foundations of their identity removed because it forces them to introspect, which they tenaciously avoid. I suspect their underlying problem is often that the foundations of their identity are based on either themselves, thereby they have no structural integrity, or based upon someone flawed, which could be anyone from idolised tech billionaires to online influencers to characters in a film. If they have no role model, it makes them arrogant, because they idolise themselves, and thereby consider themselves flawless whilst simultaneously thinking everyone else should be like them, holding themselves up as a standard for others to emulate. Their houses are built on the sand of themselves.

"The bullies need to fall. And the harder they land the better. For everyone," says Bird Lovegod."The bullies need to fall. And the harder they land the better. For everyone," says Bird Lovegod.
"The bullies need to fall. And the harder they land the better. For everyone," says Bird Lovegod.

Others have role models that equally delude them, and become a hybrid of many imagined people, none of which are authentic. Such people have very low self esteem, because they don’t have a true identity of their own, their house is built on a swamp of other people and is totally unstable. These people can also become bullies because they are afraid most of the time and never really know what’s true and what isn’t.

As the world becomes ever more cluttered with distorted versions of right and wrong, it’s pretty obvious that only the ones who build on the rock will be solid in the face of adversity and also a true support to others. And the bullies need to fall. And the harder they land the better. For everyone.

Related topics:Government