1.1 Bullying’s characterization

The school is a space for discourses that translate social, cultural and historical ideologies. And in this study, we work with ideologies that permeate the use of violence as a form of repression of thoughts and behaviors aimed at the empowerment of individuals (^{Paoliello & Fernandes, 2020}).

There are several types of violence’s manifestation at school, within the classroom, the teacher and the student have their subjectivities, a particular and individual synthesis that is constituted and developed according to the experiences of social life and culture (^{Bock et al., 2018}). ). In everyday school life, doing activities that are not so pleasant, with an institutional climate not so democratic, some ideas can diverge, producing difficult relationships, which it does not characterize a problem, but it is a fertile ground for generating conflicts. One of the ways of violence at school is bullying and this needs to be conceptualized because not every manifestation of violence produced at school can be called bullying, it has its own characteristics that classify it and "not all violence is considered bullying, but all bullying it is a form of violence” (^{Silva, 2019}, p.17).

Bullying was initially investigated by Olweus, Norway, in 1993, after the suicide of three teenagers who systematically suffered this type of violence. In the sense that the term bullying is no longer a trivialized form of violence, it is necessary to understand how it is characterized and manifested. In Brazil, Law No. 13,185, of November 6, 2015, formalizes the topic of bullying as:

act of physical or psychological, intentional and repetitive violence that occurs without obvious motivation, practiced by an individual or group, against one or more people, with the aim of intimidating or attacking them, causing pain and anguish to the victim, in a relationship of power imbalance between the parties involved”, or understood as “systematic intimidation. (^{Brazil, 2015}, p. 2)

The same law characterizes six types of bullying: Physical, aggression, injury, pushing; Verbal, putting nicknames and insulting; Psychological/Moral, intimidation, threat, persecution, segregation, humiliation, slander, discrimination and exclusion; Material, destruction or theft of personal belongings; Virtual, using the internet to defame, insult, discriminate and offend; Sexual, abusing and harassing (Brazil, 2015).

The main characteristic of bullying is that it can be identified in situations of violence that happen systematically and mainly because it is an act of violence in which there is an imbalance of power, this “set of aggressive behaviors is characterized by its repetitive nature, without evident motivation. and power imbalance. Usually, the victim has less physical strength, they may be smaller in stature, the victim is in minority, and has little psychological flexibility in the face of bullying” (^{Santos, 2019}, p. 16).

Bullying behaviors leave marks on their victims and under the discourse of being “just a game” many young people are subjected to contempt, humiliation and suffering. These marks cause problems in the emotional development throughout the victim's life, who needs a welcoming treatment to reframe these pains and having a better quality of life. Any and all bullying is not a “joke”, we are all subjects worthy of attention and respect (^{Silva, 2019}). Bullying, under the bias of being “just a game”, hides the naturalization of violence at school, perpetuating evil as something banal and part of the daily life of human beings, requiring us to be resilient to deal with these situations.

1.2 The Banality of Evil

In the Eichmann’s work in Jerusalem (1983), by Hanna Arendt, the concept of banality of evil is found, however there is no philosophical theory of this concept, but a “formulation of the problem of evil” (^{Souki, 1998}, p. 12) and how it influences the subjectivity of individuals in totalitarian regimes, as well as in the current social and political scenario. For Arendt, evil has an epistemological basis in Kant, who considers that evil is not something inherent to Human, it does not compose human nature, if that were the case we would be essentially evil. Arendt does not describe the ontological view of the term and focuses on understanding the contingencies in which the subject practices evil. (Souki, 1998).

In order to understand the contingencies in which evil arises, it is important to understand Arendt's conception of freedom. She describes that freedom “is in the autonomy of the will” (^{Souki, 1998}, p. 44), that is, the individual has the potential to start new possibilities and new proposals in the face of daily obstacles, “freedom refers to human capacity to begin, since Human itself is the beginning.” (Souki, 1998, p. 44). When we refer to freedom, we also bear in mind the “conflict of moral good and evil” (Souki, 1998, p. 44-45). Arendt reports that the manifestation of both (good and evil) exists in everyday life, however, in order to fight evil, it is necessary to systematically reflect on oneself in a given social, cultural and economic scenario, considering one's own singularities and those of others, she names this as the appearance of judgment, “the ability to judge particularities without subsuming them under general rules” (Souki, 1998, p.10). The freedom to think, as well as the deployment of a judgment to resist evil, is lacking in contemporary society, due to the hegemonic and ideological search for power, a veiled totalitarianism with the objective of “annulling individuality and spontaneity, in a way that it is eliminated”. the human capacity to start something new with its own resources” (Souki, 1998, p. 12), a movement of “thingification” of someone.

In this regard, we currently experience, as in Hanna Arendt's times, the banalization of evil. “The use of the banal cannot be confused with being used to living with violence, but rather because of the intrinsic unease in historical contingencies. Banality would be a way of perceiving reality in a superficial way” (^{Santos et al., 2021} p.6), with the aim of omitting the true disorder: a Human being without personality, “thingified”. The banality of evil is installed by finding a scenario of not thinking and does not refer to the desire for evil. In Eichmann's trial, Hanna Arendt didn't find a perverse and angry person, but a guy who obeyed orders and was unable to think about what he was doing, focusing only on fulfilling what was determined. The bloke who becomes unable to think critically about himself and his political and social context, does not understand the evil that he reproduces daily, he is hurt by the evil that attacks him and, as a way of responding to it, he attacks with more violence, creating a movement to respond to violence with violence (^{Souki, 1998}).

Evil was studied by Arendt because, in order to understand it, we need to think about the concept of freedom as an element of transformation in our society. Having said that, it is important to point out that the action aimed at protagonism must also be emancipatory. The etymological concept of emancipation points to an ambiguous view of the term, since “emancipation is to become free, to liberate or to free oneself, to become or become independent, to give freedom or to free oneself from the yoke, from slavery, from the tutelage of another or from the homeland power” (^{Ciavatta, 2014}, p. 13), representing a legal concept of the term, such as the law that institutes the end of slavery in the country, legally blacks were freed, however, there was no guarantee of rights for be protagonists of their stories. Emancipatory processes are above all the understanding of the historical and social factors that influence the subjective manifestations of the individual, as well as the relationships in society, therefore, emancipation, whether collective or individual, refers to the achievement of freedom and autonomy through development. of a critical awareness of power relations that promotes the development of social subjects (Ciavatta, 2014).

Fostering youth protagonism for reflection on bullying situations within a rights guarantee system is an action that promotes the autonomy of thought and political awareness.

2.1 Sample

This research was carried out in November 2019 with High School students from a Federal Institute of Education in Mato Grosso, through a questionnaire provided by google forms. They answered the questionnaire: analysis of the responses of 42 teenageres aged 15 to 18 years old, 23 female students and 19 male students, all of whom were residents of the student residence.

2.2 Instruments and procedure for data collection

For data collection, a questionnaire with structured and unstructured answer questions was created, it was applied through the use of google forms in November 2019, it means, it was answered online, however, only after due diligence. acceptance of the Free and Informed Consent Term by the student's guardian.

The questionnaire consisted of 18 questions, seven of them were with a structured answer and 11 of them were with an unstructured answer. Up to question 8, social, economic and cultural data of the participants are questioned, after which questions are asked about what the student understands by bullying, as well as what situations of bullying they experience on a daily basis, asking if they have been a victim or have been who provoked the bullying, in this way, the students also answered about: Do you have a suggestion to stop bullying?

The use of the questionnaire in qualitative research provides an understanding of the participants' perceptions about their reality, “the objective of the qualitative questionnaire is to hear and understand what the interviewees think and give them a public voice” (^{Mota, 2017}, p. 20).

2.3 Data analysis procedure

The collected data were analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which was conceptualized by Norman ^{Fairclough (2010}) and is based on the representation of language as an essential instrument of everyday life that articulates with social elements (^{Resende & Ramalho, 2017}).

CDA is a method used in social research and it is also a theoretical current. It is concerned with the analysis of everyday discourses and it provides the researcher with the opportunity to reflect on social problems and, mainly, to question the existence of people who live in a situation of inopia, while others live in a context of affluence. Thus, the critical researcher carries the mission of being concerned with research work that can contribute to improving the quality of life of people who are in a situation of social inequality. (^{Mota, 2017}, p. 27)

Initially, in the ADC, speeches about social injustice are sought in the discourse, to then identify the problems, awakening reflections on ways of emancipation through the contestation of social reality from the perspective of critical thinking (^{Mota, 2017}). For scholars of discourse, the functional view of language use reflects the social interactions and structures that maintain or contest hegemonies. Thus, ADC is transdisciplinary, breaking with epistemological barriers, uniting theories around the analysis of social discourses (^{Resende & Ramalho, 2017}).

That said, the operationalization of the ADC proposed by ^{Fairclough (2010}) happens through stages, the first step for critical analysis IS the process of identifying a topic to be researched where social problems related to national politics and global facts are articulated and/or appear.

The second stage is to identify how social actions are organized and how these structures show power discrepancies. To do this, you need to proceed with a few steps:

The first step is to analyze the dialectical relationships between semiosis and other elements: discourse’s orders and other elements of social practice, as well as texts and other elements of events. The second step is to select texts, focus and categorize them for their analysis in light of the constitution of the appropriate research object. The third involves developing the analysis of texts in an interdiscursive and semiotic/linguistic way. (^{Mota, 2017}, p. 24)

The third stage, after reflecting on how inequalities of power are naturalized in social discourses and practices, is the stage of inferring the real interest in not solving the problem. The fourth stage is the recognition of speeches that point to a critical view and overcoming the obstacles listed in stage 2.

Everyday social problems are fundamental researcher’s concerns, he reflects on the ills of everyday life, contextualizing situations of social, economic and cultural inequality of our reality, therefore, the focus on improving the quality of life of people in situations of vulnerability it is a mission of the researcher, who, in a multidisciplinary way, values the different perspectives on the same problem. (^{Santos et al., 2021}, p. 5)

The analysis organization of the data collected’s results in the research proposed to reflect on the changes that have taken place in society, influenced by globalization, aiming to reflect on the ways of producing an emancipated discourse that breaks social and historically crystallized paradigms. (^{Resende & Ramalho, 2017}).

3.1 Violence as something natural

This subtitle deals with discourses that refer to the naturalization of bullying in the school space. The following speech “I think this is a creation of each one, there is no recipe to end the offenses and humiliations”, represents a passive posture in relation to the bullying phenomenon, pointing out that there is no way to combat bullying in society. school, because it is an individual attitude, which is appropriated since childhood. Another respondent replied, “People were taught right from the beginning about right and wrong.”

The two views about the fact of “combating bullying” present a discourse based on the naturalization of violence as something intrinsic to man and his social relationships. The human being has lived with scenes of violence for a long time, but this coexistence should not be something friendly to the eyes, the posture of indignation will always exist. (^{Santos et al., 2021}, p. 05)

When there is no dialogue, violence arises (^{Abramovay, 2006}). Opinions are divergent in some cases, however, one is no more right than the other, because each one is loaded with perceptions of reality differently. For Hanna Arendt, dialogue is a political action, a manifestation of alterity and an assertive behavior in the face of the challenge, thus, each individual has his right of freedom to develop new potentialities (^{Souki, 1998}).

A projection of current ideologies was identified in the participants' speeches. In a neoliberal scenario, there is a search for the realization of private dreams to the detriment of the collective, this stems from the dissemination of a naturalized discourse about violence, promoting acceptance and submission, obtaining control and reproducing social injustices. In this study, the concept of neoliberalism is understood as the one that describes that “progress and development are only possible through competitiveness (...) being, their quality of life, their economic rise” (Guareschi, 2011). Neoliberalism encourages competitiveness between individuals and thus promotes exclusion, segregation and submission of the other. The process of naturalizing violence comes from neoliberal relations that make power asymmetries remain and when this reflection is brought to the context of bullying, these violences are mostly presented as incivilities: dull jokes, the exclusion of a classmate a vulnerable social class from group work, jokes, offenses (^{Silva, 2019}).

It does not refer to physical violence, but violence that presents itself in a veiled and repetitive way of intolerance to the different, “and in neoliberal ideology it is something that cannot be fought, what is different will continue to be repudiated, homogeneity is sought of a people that will always be heterogeneous, creating fertile ground for the continuity of acts of violence” (^{Santos et al., 2021}, p. 06).

Speeches resonate with the inculcated evil, They naturalize violence and perpetuate hate speech. The fight between evil and evil is the tip of the iceberg of a social structure that creates the need for control to maintain order and power, thus producing an un(reality) of violence as a fatality of life, in which nothing can be done, other than to reproduce the hate. (^{Santos et al., 2021}, p. 06)

The answers “Whoever makes fun of you, hit them until the blood comes out of their nose, so they will be made fun of”, “Extermination”, “Death penalty”, represent a discourse of reproduction of violence within the school space and, with an Arendtian look, phrases like these cause sensitization in relation to the experiences of bullying and/or violation of rights suffered by students who, immersed in the conception of evil as something banal, reproduce the same violence that surrounds them.

3.2 The void of thinking and the construction of heteronomous individuals

Heteronomy arises when the individual attends and also needs without any critical sense of validation of discourses coming from outside to make decisions in his life and projects on the other the responsibility for making decisions, as well as bearing the consequences of these, in the words of ^{Souki ( 1998}, p. 05) of “determining oneself”.

In the participants’ responses, speeches were found that deal with heteronomy, “It depends on society” and “I have no idea”. One answer indicates that combating bullying is a function of society (and who makes up society? all of us) and the other portrays not knowing how to act to combat bullying. Even not indicating any idea to work with bullying in your school, the speech represents ideologies of power based on the non-development of a critical sense about the researched topic, it indicates that the development of a heteronomous individual is the result of a social conjuncture that needs the control to maintain power and this produces a subject with a void of thought.

By protecting individuals against the dangers of investigation, it teaches them to quickly adhere to whatever the rules of conduct begin to prescribe at a given time for a given society - this absence induces conformism. These are the contingencies that oblige man not to think and, at the same time, to submit. (^{Souki, 1998}, p. 123)

The emptiness of thought produces the “thingification” of the individual, transforming it into an atomized and amorphous mass with the absence of awareness of its reality and real problems behind everyday events.

The school as an institutionalized place permeated by ideologies of power, in small manifestations perpetuates these ideologies, as for example, in the answer of the participant: “Our schools are very concerned with clothing instead of connecting in the social relationships between students”.

This answer demonstrates an example of small daily action of oppression of students, the school is concerned with the surveillance of clothes and not with interrelationships. Adolescence is a phase of discovering one's own identity, a pin on the uniform shirt demonstrates a personality, and this need to be different from the ordinary is part of the identity process. Therefore, in the discourse, we find the need to homogenize the student as a form of control, as well as the diversion of more structural problems (enhancement of dialogue for social coexistence) to unnecessary elements at the moment (^{Santos et al., 2021}, p. 07).

When the individuals have a heteronomous way of thinking, they detache themselves from any responsibility in the fight against bullying, being something external to the individuaL, however, the bullying phenomenon presents itself in a multifaceted way and IT needs a collective look for its resolution, where everyone is responsible for fighting bullying.

“My suggestion would have to have more conversations with students to ease the situation”. “Penalties, charges, care and more attention from everyone, perhaps putting monitors in the room to supervise”. In this discourse is found the void of thought, according to Arendtian sayings. Conflicts arise all the time at school, assigning the responsibility for controlling any disagreement to monitors does not stimulate the adolescent's own ability to resolve conflicts and creates a heteronomous individual. Exempting oneself from responsibility is a particular movement of the individual that does not arise from nothing, but from everyday speeches that do not stimulate autonomy, therefore, the speeches presented here do not represent only the speeches of the participants, but of a society with its control objects as a whole.

3.3 Emancipatory discourses’ construction

The individual’s emancipation as a factor for promoting and combating bullying is found in the responses of the participants who proposed collective and reflexive actions to deal with the phenomenon of bullying, one of the emancipatory responses was: "Conducting lectures that promote closer approximation of the student public with these themes, as well as the externality of these issues in debates open to questioning. Also the creation of a support group that went through this type of problem, with philosophical, sociological and psychological support”. The contribution describes an emancipatory discourse, with contextualized proposals, which it points out that for bullying to be fought we need an interdisciplinary action with the entire school community, providing spaces for discourse for all.

Another answer refers to the understanding of the real problem about bullying: intolerance to the different. “The awareness of society as a whole, especially children, so that they learn to deal with the differences of others”. Alterity is the critical awareness that the other has a different life story than anyone else, and understanding that the other has limitations promotes channels of communication between subjects, so that paths can be found in search of a more democratic society for all.

In a struggle of resistance, many social actors have dedicated themselves to studying the social problems behind the speeches, and responses like these reflect the efforts of a collective that seeks to contribute to a more egalitarian society.