Vung Sang
English 1302
Professor Hammett
Essay 2 Rhetorical Analysis
23 April 2023
Word Count: 996
Camus and Bullying
Bullying in school has been an ongoing issue that students have faced throughout high school. A Scandinavian researcher named Daniel Olweus came up with the term bullying in his early study in the 1960s (Petrie, Harris 1). Bullying can be seen to be an ongoing epidemic till the 21st century. Albert Camus, who was a French philosopher, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, addresses the absurdist perspectives on bullying (Camus 1). Bullying can have a major effect on children, such as causing them to fear going to school (Petrie, Harris 2). Albert Camus would think the entire human species is insignificant creating unnecessary problems. For instance, bullying others to complicate things in the world. Despite the brutality in this world, Albert Camus continues shedding light on spreading love in this cruel and irrational world.
Albert Camus would not have liked the idea of bullying someone. Bullying can be described as verbal or physical. According to a paper written by Sandra Harris and Garth Petrie in 2019 called “Bullying: The Bullies, the Victims, the Bystanders”, there is Direct bullying and Indirect bullying (3). Direct bullying is when people do the bullying themselves. Such as “taunting, teasing, hitting, etc.” (3). Bullying has a significant effect on children. He believed that “people hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves” (Buch 6). Another type of bullying is Indirect bullying. Indirect bullying is when people do not do the bullying themselves but through someone else or by influencing others. For example, “influencing others to physically hurt someone, influencing others to criticize unfairly, influencing others to call others names, etc.” (Petrie, Harris 3). Those include making fun of other people on purpose as bullying as well. That is why Petrie and Harris mentioned in their paper that “young people who bully others are not always aware of how much their behavior bothers the victims” (2). The recklessness of children's bullying can lead to many consequences in the future.
A novel called “The Plague” by Albert Camus presents a bubonic plague outbreak in the city of Oran (“The Plague” 2). During the outbreak, Camus succeeded in finding the effect on its inhabitants and how humans react to crises. Albert Camus uses a character named Dr. Rieux to embody the importance of perseverance and the power of purposeful life. Dr. Rieux has experienced separating from his dying wife to help the people in the city of Oran. (“The Plague” 5). It takes a really passionate person that has a heart for people to show this type of action in a crisis. However, children do not always know the meaning of life yet like Dr. Rieux, which can lead to easily giving up on their own life when things get overwhelming for them. That’s why bullying is a contagious epidemic for students.
Albert Camus advises that “to be happy, we must not be too concerned with others” (Buch 9). He believes pure happiness comes from within. Petrie and Harris found in their studies that “in the United States, 78 percent of children said they had been bullied within the previous month; 10 percent indicated that the bullying was severe” (4). The people who bully other people are usually those who gain pleasure from the pain of their victims. Albert Camus would have disagreed with the bullies theory of gaining pleasure from putting others down.
Bullying occurs everywhere in the world. Bullying is something that will stick with humans as they age. In a Canadian study, “adults remembered their most frequent types of childhood abuse as coming not from parents, as child abuse, but from school peers, in abuse (bullying) at school (Petrie, Harris 3). That indicates that children do not forget the trauma that they experience when they were younger but rather it sticks with them till when they become adults. Bullies are the same as reckless people who do not care about other people’s feelings.
There have been studies that have been conducted that discovered boys and girls have been bullied in different ways. Based on research done by Petrie and Harris, “girls are more likely to engage in indirect bullying (excluding someone from being a part of activities)” (4). This research indicates that girls are more likely to be involved in indirect bullying but that does not mean they are not involved in direct bullying. On the other hand, Petrie and Harris have also mentioned in their paper that ‘boys are more apt to use physical bullying, such as hitting or kicking” (4). Most of the time, bullies are not happy with themselves so they often take it out on other people to ruin their happiness which Camus despite.
Albert Camus believed that humans are insignificant because they create unnecessary problems such as bullying others to complicated things in the world. Such as bullying another human being to feel better about themselves. However, despite living in this cruel world, Albert Camus is big on love. He is convinced that “a loveless world is a dead world” (Buch 1). Albert Camus suggested that humans should find happiness within themselves and love others. Without love, there would not be peace on earth but constant despair. Albert Camus has gone on to mention that love is not something a person should desire to get anything in return but rather to give away and sacrifice everything (Buch 13). The problem arises when people expect something in return when giving away love, creating dissatisfaction in this cruel world. Camus states “I know of only one duty, and that is to love” (Buch 5). By embracing Albert Camus' advice to practice giving away love and not expecting it in return, it will help humans spread love. As a result of spreading love, it will help prevent bullying and make the world more peaceful for children.
