News item: This story from CBS Dallas-Fort Worth seems to have surprised a lot of people. But I suspect there were a lot of us for whom it was no surprise at all. The story has to do with a study done at the University of Texas, Arlington which indicates that anti-bullying programs in schools don’t seem to do any good, and indeed may do harm.

The student videos used in many campaigns show examples of bullying and how to intervene. But Jeong says they may actually teach students different bullying techniques — and even educate about new ways to bully through social media and texting.

This is what happens in a post-Wisdom world, where experts have replaced sages, grandmothers, and the Scriptures. Experts believe that children are basically good, and desire to learn how to avoid bullying. Those of us who are familiar with actual children know that the true situation is different. You can’t divide kids up into “bullies” and “victims.” The categories are fluid. Every kid has it in him to bully, by the same kind of instinct which causes chickens to single out a member of the flock who’s been wounded, and peck it to death.

I’ve spoken of being bullied here before. I was bullied a lot, both at home and at school. There were few safe places in my world.

But I was also a bully, now and then, when fate chose to make me the alpha dog in some tiny situation. I never even thought about it. It came naturally. Today I’m hotly ashamed of those incidents, but at the time it just seemed like the obvious thing to do.

We won’t make progress until we recognize human nature for what it is. And we won’t do that until we start reading the Bible seriously again.