As I’ve noted in earlier articles, punitive anti-bullying policies have serious limitations since counter-tattling is an available tactic, especially in vigilante bullying, and some forms of bullying are consensual (e.g. circus monkey bullying) and tied to social inclusion and stopping it would have collateral damage. My suggestions were using peer allies to intervene in incidents and to integrate the less popular students. In cases of severe bullying, however, more medical measures would be warranted: clique breaking. That would mean oxytocin blockers, the single most effective chemical means of countering bullying since bullying has everything to do with social capital, ingroup/outgroup psychology, and it increases schadenfreude. It is the Regina George neurochemical and in cases of extreme bullying, while punitive punishments are ineffective, oxytocin blockers would seem to work.
Oxytocin blockers are not permanent since oxytocin is naturally produced by the body and would eventually be replenished but it would be a crisis intervention agent that would temporarily void the concern of the bullies for social capital and make them less sadistic, that is less enjoying of the suffering of people outside of their group. Thirdly, it would elicit a more accurate narrative of events since oxytocin increases cognitive biases for the ingroup therefore in order for them to admit the truth of what they did and not rationalize it they would need to have said biases weakened. The side effects would be that it would be more difficult for them to socially bond but that would be an earned consequence of their actions and would result in the decrease in popularity of people who shouldn’t be popular.
In cases where the oxytocin blocker may be abused, it is a short-term drug so while it may effect their social life in the immediate future, it would not have chronic effects except, perhaps, to rearrange their friend group while their social bonds have been broken and they have been freed to explore the entire population outside of their former clique. Oxytocin blockers do not prevent friendships, per se, they mostly prevent attachment. While oxytocin is marginally responsible for acute feelings of warmth, sociability, and empathy, those feelings are primarily the responsibility of serotonin and their feelings of those things would likely decrease little, if, at all, and that decrease could be compensated for by a small dosage of or modified version of MDMA.
As an Asperger’s person with little to no oxytocin, myself, I can attest that social bonding is not impossible but it is just more cognitive than emotional. It’s not that one cannot have romance, it is just that one can’t have a crush. It is not that one cannot have friends, it is that the friendships are built on consciously shared values and a conscious appreciation of the other person rather than some irrational bond spawned from the ether. And empathy, while it is more cognitive than emotional, still carries with it emotions but of pride, nobility, and a serotonin warmth and not an oxytocin warmth which is the type that draws tears over worthy victims and posterchildren.
I, personally, think the world would be a better place if people chose to get epigenetic CRISPR and stopped producing oxytocin altogether through which people would abandon nationalism, abandon tribalism, abandon bullying, stop believing fake news, have no propensity to stalk, no longer desire revenge, have fewer and weaker tendencies to take pleasure in the suffering of others, and be more cognitive rather than emotional in their empathy thus empathizing with the ugly and the outcasts almost as much as they do with the cute and the worthy. Until then, and until there is more testing to determine the quantities and qualities of dosages of oxytocin blockers for common usage and especially something like epigenetic CRISPR, it should be used as a short-term anti-bullying medication and for clique-breaking. Additionally, oxytocin blockers should be used as anti-stalking and anti-gang medications.
This is my second article on the maleffects of oxytocin. I have included two articles below, those being my first article on oxytocin and also an article about less acute means of combating bullying and clique-breaking. All combined, the information would be effective in a major anti-bullying program and to reorganize clique structures in any large population setting with short-term use of the drugs. It would be an intervention that, initially, should be used sparingly, but later be used more often as the quirks in the application get ironed out. Hopefully, in the end, we will have a more loving humanity for it.
Two Related Articles:
https://jacksonhamiltonivs.org/2020/05/31/the-oxytocin-deficit-one-of-my-most-best-autistic-traits/
The Autistic Resistance 