From the comments:
It seems quite incongruous that a woman (Constanze) of that temperment and language
would be tolerated in the Cove. Yet she is and has been.
What's the angle? She own the land or sumpin?
It is a mystery why people like that are tolerated anywhere and yet, as Old NFO observed, there is at least one in every group.
Her character is interesting enough that it merits some discussion.
Background
First, I want to talk about the community of Copperhead Cove.
Copperhead Cove resembles an 1800's fishing or whaling village, a 1930's small, rural town or a contemporary village in the mountains of Guatemala or Honduras. Lots of kids. Many women of all ages. Very few men of working age at home at any given time. A sprinkling of very old men.
Because most of the inhabitants of the settlement are young, the people like Constanze have always been there, like gravity or the mountains behind the village.
Everybody grew up accepting what appears to be the reality of "There are rules for everybody but Constanze." For the older people, they had their own "Constanze" to deal with...perhaps one of her parents or grandparents.
Constanze is in her forties and is married. Her husband sends a little bit of money every month but only spends four-or-five nights a year with her because she drives him away. They have no children.
Tribes
Tribes operate on a loose transactional basis. Members have responsibilities and members have privileges. I chose the word "loose" because the transactions are not tightly tied together in time or in proportion.
I might supply another member of my tribe with tomato seedlings in the spring and get some homemade spaghetti sauce in September. I might graft some apple seedlings in the fence-row beside their alfalfa field and get an invitation to shoot does out of that same field in November. It is not negotiated ahead of time. It is just that when there is a surplus of SOMETHING, that surplus is offered to the closest members of your tribe first.
Relatively speaking, Constanze is rich in cash. She hires out a lot of work. Roger and Alice have a lot of equipment. They loan it out to trusted people and they are never hungry. People like interacting with Roger and Alice. They do not like working for Constanze but they are constrained by the rules of the tribe.
Constanze has been trading on the "loose" part of the tribal economy, harvesting the privileges and shirking the responsibilities part.
Bullies
Bullies navigate through life "victim-testing".
They isolate intended victims and launch a harpoon and wait for a reaction. The harpoons are often ambiguous enough that some part of it might catch and cause a reaction. If the bully gets a reaction that makes them feel powerful, over time they continue to launch harpoons seeking larger reactions.
Every victim feels like they are the only one. Bullies learn to perpetuate that illusion. Victims feel like they cannot report the bully's behavior because bullies take great care to avoid witnesses and if the victim (rightfully) believes that he-said-she-said will be dismissed.
People with Borderline Personality Disorder are bullies on steroids. They wrap around their intended victim like a boa constrictor and isolate them from the world. Then, after the victim has no independent ties to "reality", the BPD sufferer sucks the victim dry, psychically using the same harpoon methods.
Constanze, specifically
Constanze is a rage-filled person and her days in the Cove are numbered.
Over the years, she succeeded in driving other members of the tribe out of Copperhead Cove. They just got tired of dealing with her attacks. Some of them will be coming back due to the economic troubles, older, wiser and more powerful. They will be bringing other people with them, non-tribe members who will not give Constanze a free-pass to behave the way she had.
Constanze screwed up. Blain was the first of the non-tribe members she had to deal with. She sensed that Blain was a threat because he was not yet conditioned to accept her dominance.
Blain came from an environment that was rich in people like Constanze. He was conditioned to hyper-react to her victim-testing strategy. That enraged her because she had never encountered it before. Her rage blinded her to the fact that there were five young-people with impeccable hearing eves-dropping on her attacks.
ERJ - All social groups have the sorts of people, those that are tolerated even though they clearly are on the edge of operating pleasantly in the society at hand. Part of this is due to the fact that the individual has something - money (in Constanze's case), knowledge, or something else that has some value to the larger community. That value, however, is largely based on "normal" circumstances, whether it be life operating in the manner it always has or individuals who (for whatever reason) do not know "the rules" (Blain, in this case). It is at this moment that the veil of illusion is removed: the individual's behavior and actions can no longer be separated from the what it is that perceives the value.
ReplyDeleteOne of the great struggles of my life has been learning to not react to the "harpoons", whether they be from bullies or simply people that need to have power over someone else.
Knit your brows in concern.
DeleteSteeple your fingers in your best Sigmund Freud fashion.
Go "Hmmmm" as if deeply troubled by what you heard.
"And why do you think THAT?"
Most people cannot resist telling people WHY they are doing what they are doing. We laugh at movie villains who do it but it is a human thing.
Getting them to start talking about themselves takes the spotlight off of you.
The best riposte is to ask them a question and derail their attack.
Ah yes, the "monologue". I shall have to try that.
DeleteI was bullied relentlessly in elementary school. Then, in a miraculous occurrence, I grew 5 inches in the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I came back to school in the autumn and proceeded to beat the crap out of my bullies. I stalked them one at a time and thrashed them. I never had to beat any of them twice, as all learned their lesson. Some of them became good friends and, 50 years later, we remain in touch. This was, of course, in a vastly more civilized time, when the authorities didn't get involved in schoolyard disputes. Today I would have been suspended and probably put on mind-altering drugs.
ReplyDeleteI have run across bullies at different paces and times. Several of them had the attitude; expressed and implied of "Do you know who I am?" The women, three I can think of, had been or were the wives of a banker, mortician and a state senator. They felt they had authority because of the husbands. In one case the husband came in and tried to jack us up over the implied insult to his wife. We refused to do business with them at all, not even cash and carry. Several of our peers in the community tried to talk us out of it, and later told us they had to follow suit. The physical bullies? They can be hard, since sometimes they are clever enough to make it look like they are the victims. One I remember was bigger, stronger and nastier than me. After getting knocked down a second time I was lucky enough to grab a branch and hit his knees and then his head when he fell. I had witnesses, so few repercussions...Dad asked if I learned anything and I said 'yes, carry a 2x4 next time.' Smart assed kid.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the 'monologue'... Works sometimes, but doesn't work with bullies. For that you need a quick and dirty physical response.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the monologue does not work for bullies who rely on the physical. The target must be able to switch gears and escalate rapidly to take bully off-guard.
DeleteMany women very carefully stay on the verbal side.
US culture in past actually valued bullies as a neccesary service: Without the bully, our protagonist might never felt the call to stand up to her, and might never have found that power within himself.
ReplyDeleteThe cultural contract prohibits initiation of violence. We come to expect... *trust* even, that strangers will not violate this rule. We become *indignant* when they do, as it is a *betrayal* of our trust.
Bullies trade on this trust, and do damage to it, believing their power comes from not being restrained by the rules.
The US culture used to value this betrayal of trust, because of the damage it did to trust, and the resultant strength it imparted to the indignant. "never give a sucker an even break" When a bully targeted a man's son, he did not intervene directly, but rather encouraged his son to step up to the call.
Today, even the very "government" trades on our trust. The shutdowns traded on, and destroyed, our trust in medicine. The lawfare against Trump and the Jan6ers trades upon, and is destroying our trust in the rule of law... the entire legal system. And we are about to see how our trust in finance and the dollar can be traded upon and destroyed.
It will take generations to rebuild a single monolithic culture in which these trusts can be rebuilt.
addendum:
DeleteIt's the "prisoner's dilemma" scenario:
When you interact with strangers, by virtue of *being* strangers, they are not "trust worthy", as trust must be built.... however, we "trust" them anyway, because trust is the basis of trade, and of civilization itself, and we must *hope* that they will step up to this rule, or there can be no civilization... but it's not really trust, as we have a plan for, and some expectation that, this "trust" will be violated, and we will then change strategies. It's an "investment" we make in strangers, for the potential greater good down the road.
Investing is inherently risky. One must *first* be able to afford the loss.
You just described part of the Agenda to destroy America. First destroy trust, the rest is just details.
DeleteLong agone, and fa’ awa’ I was a young state trooper who stopped a high end Cadillac for speeding nearly 30 MPH over the posted speed limit.
ReplyDeleteThe union bigwig driving the vehicle wore a suit that likely cost more than I made in a month.
The guy began the “Do you know…” game.
“Yessir. That is the head of MSP’s Uniform Division.”
“Yessir. He is is our Director.”
“Yessir. That is the Governor of this state.”
He assured me that he was close personal friends of each of the individuals he mentioned, and that they would expect I not issue him a citation.
I excused myself, and walked back to my unit. When I returned I handed his paperwork to him, and a citation for speeding. The citation was for his exact speed.- no break at all.
Bigwig went insane,
“I told you who I know!” he shouted.
“You now know me, sir. And out here, I’m the only one who matters.”
I never heard mention of the citation.
It all comes down to brass tacks and brass balls when bellies go hungry.
ReplyDeleteThe weak and the feeble will fall by the wayside, monologues be damned.
Western civ has jumped the shark and our leaders have failed to cross the rubicon for two generations.
The dogs of war have been let loose, and the hand of God will strike the hour.
Prepare to suffer the consequences.
And sometimes bullies pick the wrong target and end up as work food.
ReplyDeleteWork....I hate spell check.
DeletePoor victim selection skills have a very sharp learning curve and very sudden consequences.
ReplyDelete