What is the Worst Monster?
A diatribe about Bullies and Vampires
What is the worst monster?
This question haunted me today after I spoke to a student who told me, calmly, philosophically, about some bullying she'd experienced. I walked away shaken.
I had only ever known this student to be pleasant and engaging. A nice person to be around. How could she find herself as the target of bullying? Almost immediately upon having this thought, I soon recalled how bullying works. It has little or nothing to do with the victim; it's almost about the idiosyncratic perversity of the bully.
I also found myself angry in a way I did not feel comfortable with.
If I have a single virtuous drive, it is that I am wired to propagate hospitality. Rudeness and exclusion are despicable to me. Like any virtue, this pathological hospitality often drives my own forays into monstrosity. In other words, my virtue becomes a vice when it’s deformed by emotions like anger.
These emotions, this act of stepping up to the line between saint and sinner, monster and guardian, started me thinking about monsters. I froze on one question:
Which monster is the worst?
By this, I don't mean specific characters or versions of characters. I'm more interested in archetypes here, something approaching the level of philosophy. Do zombies pose a bigger moral problem than werewolves? Is the mad scientist more perverse than the serial killer? That sort of thing. I suppose I was trying to get at what kind of monster best represents the bully. What creature is the bully's patron saint in Hell?
After (too) much consideration, I believe I think that the vampire is a good metaphor for the bully and that it is the worst kind of monster.
There are different sorts of vampires: biological, energetic, psychic, emotional, more I'm sure.
But all vampires have one essential thing in common: for them to thrive, other people must suffer. A vampire's existence depends on feeding on another person, draining them of something that the vampire itself lacks.
In the stories, it's usually blood. The bloodsucking keeps the vampire going, even as it weakens and eventually destroys its victims. It seems to me that this is essentially what a bully does, though (usually) not with blood. The bully, like the vampire has a deep weakness that causes it to prey on the innocent.
The vampire cannot produce its own blood, so it must steal the blood of the innocent. The bully lacks something as well: self-esteem. It is in the bully's nature to feel inadequate, like a weakling or a fool. The bully is not brave enough to live in this state of humility, so he or she must steal self-esteem from someone else. Like a vampire, or any other predator, the bully has an eye for the vulnerable, as their deep weakness makes them no match for anyone else.
Vampires disgust us not because they are powerful, but because they are pathetic. The same holds true for bullies.
Before I leave this, there is one more connection between vampirism and bullying, and it is the one that tests the limits of my hospitality.
I would love to hate the vampire/bully and leave it at that. They are disgusting and worthy only of our disgust.
However, in the classic vampire tale, there is a twist; the vampire himself is usually a former innocent victim of vampirism. Like the werewolf, the vampire often has a tragic quality about him; he is cursed to his monstrous fate. Is not the same true of the bully? How many bullies are themselves the pathetic products of bullying?
So here I am, cursing the accursed. And knowing that we live in a world that tries to make bullies of us all, blinding us to the fact that, in all this mess, it is often we ourselves who are the monsters.
When it comes to psychological vampirism, I have had experience with that. I had a roommate in 2000 who broke up with his girlfriend due (I think) to his clinginess. Because he was codependent, he ended up glomming onto me in an unhealthy. Anywhere I went, he followed. He needed someone to be with him at all times—“or I don’t what will happen.” It was exhausting. I was trying to be sympathetic. But there are certain personalities that are completely unreceptive to a sympathetic ear and free and open advice.
No matter how many time I told him that “she” would probably not come back, and that he should not try to force himself into a meeting with her at her workplace or with friends, what I said was dismissed and I was told that I just didn’t understand. It was as if I was living with Mrs. Gummidge: “I’m a lone, lorn creature. And everything goes contrary to me.” If I left the house without notifying him, he claimed I was intentionally avoiding him. He’d burst into tears and say I was the only friend he had. And on and on and on it went. I started to get depressed. I even felt guilty.
But I’m a constitutional bachelor and, when pushed too far, I tend to become hardhearted like Pharaoh. I finally told him that he would have to move out. Of course, I became the enemy. I had always been cold; I only cared about myself, etc., etc. I didn’t feel happy doing it. But it had to be done. Ten years later, I heard he had met someone else and that they were happily married.
But this was a learning experience to me and it made me empathize with people who find themselves in relationships with codependent people but don’t have the option to just leave. I’ve seen children treat a parent like this, and vice versa. And I can’t imagine what it would be like being married to someone for whom you’re essentially their “complement”, not their partner. It ties in with your remarks concerning bullying, because codependents bully and badger the person under their sway.
I've the same problem with my preferred "high horse virtues" for lack of a better term. I don't even demand that people treat each other decently anymore—I find that to be too high a bar a lot of the time. If you try and fail at it—like, try to be accommodating and in so doing become even more offensive—I'll still allow a lot of latitude. I mean, okay, you're trying. But those who couldn't be bothered with an attempt at acting decently? Yeah that grinds my gears so much I'm in danger of becoming a problem, too, at that point. I've heard that it's good for us to learn how to grieve humanity. I think I'm still working on that.