Cruelty

Cruel, adj. – Of persons (also transf. and fig. of things): Disposed to inflict suffering; indifferent to or taking pleasure in another’s pain or distress; destitute of kindness or compassion; merciless, pitiless, hard-hearted. – O.E.D.

Disposed to give pain to others; willing or pleased to hurt, torment, or afflict; destitute of sympathetic kindness and pity; savage; inhuman; hard-hearted; merciless. – dict.org 1913 Webster

I wrote the post yesterday about brain damage. Now I am thinking about the deliberate infliction of harm upon others. It is cruelty.

If anyone objects to my characterization of people as being brain damaged, then the only alternative is cruelty.

Or maybe cruelty and brain damage go together.

There definitely is a cruel aspect to it. But then one must ask, are those enacting cruelty themselves brain-damaged? Does that make it cruelty if they are brain-damaged?

The measure of cruelty is not the state of the perpetrator, but rather the suffering and harm that is inflicted upon victims of the cruelty.

I watched a video not long ago of a woman in Indonesia who was a popular entertainer – singer-type person. She would be on stage with these snakes. When I watched it it was immediately shocking how crass, barbaric, and cruel she was. It was gross. Here was this foul woman standing on a stage, abusing these poor animals for a shock effect and to appear “sexy”. It was disgusting.

I really felt sorry for the poor animals and what they were going through.

Then one day a snake bit the woman. I guess the people part of her performance troupe were not unaccustomed to an occasional snake bit, and thought that they could just easily deal with it when they occurred.

It appeared in the video, after the woman was bitten, that another man actually tried to suck the venom out of her leg with his mouth. I’m not 100% sure but that’s what it appeared like.

Maybe this trick worked many times for them. But on this one occasion it didn’t. Perhaps the venon got into a major artery too quickly, or whatever. You actually see the woman just collapse as she was sitting there with the guy trying to suck out the venom.

There are a lot of people like her in the world. A lot. The world that most people are in right now, wherever they are, is an illusion. But there exists cruelty in many places in this world.

People don’t want to see it. They don’t want to face it. They don’t want to be aware of it.

Part of evolution involves transcending cruelty. But that does not mean avoiding it or being unaware of it. It means first and foremost being honest.