there is no hope said:
Most bullies are successful. Whenever this topic enters the public discourse, I groan and ask myself what bullshit I'm going to hear about today, or better yet turn off the world and watch as the people who bullied and took everything in the world further glorify themselves.
Some bullshit today - "Bullies are hurt people who take out their pain on others." What a load. Bullies are successful, and bullying is why they are successful.
I think this is sort of accurate, with a couple twists. I observed that it was more like the bullies' parents were successful, or at the very least comfortable. The parents were busy with their jobs and their own lives and didn't really monitor their kids, and because they had some extra money they pretty much just gave their kids whatever they asked for. Then the kids became spoiled and bored, so they went to look for someone to claim power over. I think more often than not, this is how it works.
I think that there are people who really are hurting and have a difficult home life, or other circumstances. But I feel that that sort of bully is more rare, at least around here. In this place, the bullies are often spoiled, bored, privileged people who have huge egos looking to be "cool" and assert dominance.
That being said, I don't think all successful people are bullies. In fact, I would guess that more successful people are probably not bullies. I think there are a few people who manage to be both rotten and lucky, and there are some that, like the parents, success spoils. But I feel that it's much more likely that especially as people mature, rotten people push others away and win few friends. They're also destructive, which is the opposite of being constructive and I think most successful people would have to be constructive to accomplish something. Construction seems to come from positive feelings like passion, not negative ones like cruelty.