I think whistleblowing in this situation would have been telling the teacher, not the student who was being written about. The principle xiphias is thinking of here, I believe, is that you spare a person embarrassment under any circumstances, and the second kid caused embarrassment to the offended party by drawing attention to the mean comment. Kid2 could have told on Kid1 or rebuked Kid1 himself and then not hurt Kid3's feelings.
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Date: 2007-09-30 08:24 pm (UTC)