Why are some people cruel to people who are not a threat to them, sometimes even their own children? Where does this behavior come from? What is the purpose? — Ruth, 45, London.
In 1658, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal said that humans are the glory and the scourge of the universe. Not much has changed to this day. We can love and hate. We help others and we hurt others. We can lend a helping hand and we can stick a knife in the back.
We can understand when someone lashes out out out of revenge or self-defense. But when harming harmless people, it’s time to ask, “How could you do that?”
Humans usually do something to get pleasure or to avoid pain. For most people, hurting others causes us to feel the pain of others. Humans don’t like that feeling. This suggests that the motivation to hurt harmless people comes from two reasons – either not feeling the pain of others or enjoying feeling the pain of others.
Another reason for harming harmless people is that the perpetrator still sees a threat. Those who do not endanger their bodies or money may threaten a person’s social standing. This helps explain puzzling behavior, such as when harming people who help us financially.
Liberal societies believe that making others suffer means harming. However, some philosophers reject this view. In the 21st century, can we still imagine being cruel for the sake of kindness?
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Sadists and Psychopaths
A person who takes pleasure in hurting or humiliating others is a sadist. Sadists feel the pain of others more than normal. They enjoy being in it. At least they will keep doing it until it’s over, when they feel bad.
People usually associate abusers with murderers. However, there is a less extreme, but more common, form of everyday abuse.
Sadists derive pleasure from hurting others or watching them suffer. They may enjoy gory movies, find the fights exciting and the torture fun. Such people are rare, but not rare enough. About 6% of college students admit to deriving pleasure from hurting others.
The everyday sadist may be an Internet spammer or a school bully. In online role-playing games, this person is likely to be the “griefer” who ruins the game for others. The everyday sadist is attracted to violent computer games. The more they play, the more cruel they become.
Unlike sadists, psychopaths do not harm harm harmless people simply because they want to get pleasure (they can do that). Psychopaths want something. If hurting someone else helps them get what they want, then they will think, “Let’s do it.
This is done because they are less likely to feel pity, blame themselves, or fear. They can understand what others are feeling, but they are not infected by that feeling themselves.
This is a very dangerous set of skills. For thousands of years, humans have tamed themselves. This makes it very difficult for many people to hurt others. Many people who hurt, torture or kill others will be haunted by this experience. However, psychopathy is the reason someone commits unprovoked violence.
We need to know if we are experiencing a psychopath. Guesses can be made by simply looking at a person’s face or interacting with them briefly. Unfortunately, psychopaths know what we think. They fight back by trying to dress themselves up to try to make a good first impression.
Thankfully, most people do not have psychopathic traits. Only 0.5% are considered psychopaths. However, about 8 percent of male inmates and 2 percent of female inmates are psychopaths.
But not all psychopaths are at risk. Antisocial psychopaths may seek stimulation from drugs or dangerous activities. On the other hand, pro-social psychopaths seek excitement in the bold pursuit of novel ideas. Innovation has shaped this society, and the pro-social psychopath can change the world for everyone. However, this can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Where do these traits come from?
No one really knows why some people are sadists. Some experts speculate that sadism is a way to adapt to society and help humans slaughter animals while hunting. Others believe that sadism helps humans gain power.
Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher and diplomat, once said, “It is the times, not men, that create chaos.” In line with this, neuroscience suggests that sadism may be a survival strategy, triggered by hard times. When certain foods become scarce, human levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin drop. This makes humans more willing to hurt others, because hurting becomes more pleasurable.
Psychosis may also be a manifestation of social adaptation. Some studies have shown that higher levels of psychopathy are associated with higher fertility. However, other studies have found otherwise, possibly because psychopaths have a reproductive advantage in hostile environments.
In fact, psychopaths can thrive in an unstable, competitive world. Psychopaths’ abilities make them manipulators. Impulsiveness and fearlessness help them take risks and reap short-term benefits. In the movie “Wall Street,” psychopath Gordon Gekko made millions of dollars. But while psychopathy may be an advantage in the corporate world, it provides only a weak leadership advantage for men.
The link between psychopathy and creativity could also explain its existence. Mathematician Eric Weinstein (Eric Weinstein) argues that it is more commonly believed that unlikable people drive innovation. However, if you are in an environment that supports creative thinking, the link between unapproachability and creativity is not as strong. Beauty can be novel.
Sadism and psychosis are associated with other traits, such as narcissism and Machiavellianism (Machiavellianism). Together, these traits are known as the “dark elements of personality,” or D factors.
There is a large genetic component to these traits. So some people may be born that way. Or, parents with high D factors pass these traits on to their children by abusing them. Likewise, seeing others act in ways that are high in the D factor may cause us to imitate them. We all have a responsibility to reduce cruel behavior.
Fear and Impersonality
Abuse involves enjoying another person’s humiliation and harm. But it is often said that the impersonal person is what makes us cruel. Potential victims are labeled as dogs, ticks or cockroaches, which allegedly makes it easier for others to inflict harm.
This makes sense. Studies show that if someone breaks a social norm, the brain perceives the face as less human. This makes it easier for us to punish those who violate behavioral norms.
If we see someone as a person, we won’t hurt them, which is a sweet emotion. It’s also a dangerous illusion. According to psychologist Paul Bloom, the cruelest behavior may lie in dehumanization. People hurt others precisely because they believe they are people who do not want to suffer, be humiliated or degraded.
The Nazis slaughtered millions of people in concentration camps.
Image source, Reuters
Image with text,
The Nazis slaughtered millions of people in concentration camps.
For example, the Nazis disparaged Jews, calling them vermin and lice. But the Nazis also humiliated, tortured and killed Jews precisely because they thought they were degraded people who would suffer such treatment.
“Doing good diminishes the damage.”
Sometimes people even harm those who help us. Suppose you are playing an economic game, and the other players have the opportunity to invest in a group fund. The more money you put in, the more you pay out. The fund pays bonuses to all participants, whether they invest or not.
At the end of the game, you can pay to penalize other players for the amount they choose to invest. By doing this you give up some income and let money be taken away from the player you chose. In short, you can be full of malice.
Some players choose to punish those who invest little or no money in the syndicate fund. But some will pay to punish players who invest more than themselves in the group fund. Such behavior seems unjustified. Generous players give you a bigger reward, so why should you discourage them?
This phenomenon is called “good deeds detract”. This phenomenon can be seen all over the world. In hunter-gatherer societies, successful hunters are criticized for taking large animals, even though taking means more meat for everyone. Hillary Clinton may have suffered a “good deed” derogation in her 2016 rights-based U.S. presidential campaign.
The good deed derogation exists because of our anti-dominance tendencies. In the economic game described above, a less generous participant may feel that a more generous participant will be seen by others as a more desirable collaborator. The more generous person is threatening to dominate. As the French writer Voltaire said, the “best” is the enemy of the “good.
However, there are potential benefits to the derogation of “do-gooders. Once we bring the do-gooders down, we are more likely to accept their message. One study found that getting people to express their disgust with vegetarians made them less supportive of eating meat. Shooting, crucifying, or decisively choosing the messenger may encourage their message to be accepted.
Cruelty for the sake of kindness
In the movie Whiplash, a music teacher uses cruelty to encourage a student to become a great man. We can retreat from such tactics. However, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argues that we have become too disgusted with such cruelty.
For Nietzsche, cruelty allows a teacher to burn criticism on another person for the benefit of that other person. People can also help themselves become the people they want to be by being cruel to themselves. Nietzsche felt that enduring cruelty helped develop courage, stamina, and creativity. Should we be more willing to allow others and ourselves to suffer to develop virtue?
One could argue that we should not. We now know that suffering the brutality of others can have terrible long-term effects, including damage to physical and mental health. The benefits of having compassion for ourselves rather than cruelty to ourselves are increasingly known.
And, the idea that we must endure pain in order to grow is questionable. Positive life events, such as falling in love, having children and achieving cherished goals can promote growth.
Teaching through cruelty can lead to abuse of power and selfish sadism. This is not the only way; Buddhism, for example, offers an alternative: angry compassion. Here, we confront others out of love to keep them safe from greed, hatred and fear. Life can be cruel, the truth can be cruel, but we can choose not to do so.
Simon McCarthy-Jones is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology at Trinity College Dublin.
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