Karen Cronick
INTRODUCTIOIN
The term “cruelty” refers to a negative cultural
concept. It doesn’t just denote causing pain; it means purposefully hurting
others. Doctors and dentist may hurt their patients in their efforts to cure
them, but they do not do so intentionally, and usually they take measures to
diminish discomfort. Those who do it on purpose, and use it to further their
own ambitions, are considered cruel, and are these days they are usually socially
censured for this.
Disapproval of causing pain is deeply rooted in
people’s biological capacity for empathy, because the term, in and of itself,
englobes a condemnation of harmful behavior. One cannot be nicely cruel. Indeed,
most animals have some empathetic capacities, but in humans and some simian
groups this capacity has been ethically elaborated. In human societies it
appears in poetry, legends, and folklore from before the beginning of
historical times.
The word “cruelty”, is a derivative of the Latin
“crudelitatem”, meaning "rude, unfeeling, cruel, hard-hearted,"
(Etymonline, n.d.). It has French derivatives such as the Old French “crualté”
(12 c).
The concept appears in ancient poetry and chronicles. Lentini
(n.d.) examens the idea of verbal abuse in Homer, but the condemnation of
actual physical abuse in this poet must be interpreted, because as it is
described in the Iliad it is not overt. Cronick (2022) observes that “From the
fourth book the Iliad is almost an anti-war poem. There is no way to read it
without beginning to feel overwhelmed by so much death, because Homer creates
terrible descriptions of adversaries bathed in blood. But, in general, in his
poems the criticism is only implied, not explicit. And in the Odyssey Homer
appears to applaud Ulysses’ cruelty and unlimited ambition.
On the other hand, some three centuries later Greek
poets began to openly appeal to their audience’s empathetic capacities. For
example, in "The Trojan Women" Euripides (V century B.C./ 2015)
lamented the sad fate of the Trojan survivors who were to become the slaves of
the conquering Greeks after their defeat.
Other historical and traditional literature develop
this evolution toward condemning cruelty. The Old Testament has mixed messages
about the notion. Cruelty, both by individuals and nations is condemned in the
Old Testament, but usually it refers to criticisms of Israel´s enemies’ mercilessness.
In the Old Testament book of Amos [1], the Lord condemns Edom for his acts
against Israel: "Because he pursued his brother with the sword, stifling
all compassion, because his anger raged continually and his fury flamed
unchecked." (Amos 1:11). Wars and enemies’ deaths are sometimes described
as achievements, as in Israel’s conquest of Jericho (the Book of Joshua,
chapters 2 and 6). In Proverbs, on the other hand, (11:17) we find: "A
kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself."
Here kindness is not only depicted as a virtue, but is seen as beneficial for
the actor himself, and cruelty is seen as self-destructive.
It was, however, not until the advent of Christianity
that “love” became a primary cultural motive, at least in principle. This
motive was clearly opposed to cruelty in all its manifestations, and Augustine,
in his City of God, applauded how the Christian temples took in, and shielded
the heathen Romans who were escaping from Alaric’s Gothic invasion. Cronick (2026b)
observes that, Christianity:
[…] formed a
community of belief that did not always share a physical territory. As Saint
Augustine said, “For the blessedness of a community and of an individual flow
from the same source; for a community is nothing else than a harmonious
collection of individuals” (City of God, B. 1, Ch. 15, p 50).
In this essay I will explore the concept of cruelty as
a cultural phenomenon.[2]
Gordon Allport (1954) had this to say about the concept:
Normal men
everywhere reject, in principle and by preference, the path of war and
destruction. They like to live in peace and friendship with their neighbors;
they prefer to love and be loved rather than to hate and be hated. Cruelty is
not a favored human trait. …. While wars rage, yet our desire is for peace, and
while animosity prevails, the weight of mankind’s approval is on the side of
affiliation. So long as there is this sense of moral dilemma there is hope that
it may somehow be resolved and that hate-free values may be brought to prevail…..
Since the end of the Second World War
universities m many lands have given new prominence to this approach under
various academic names, social science, human development, social psychology,
human relations, social relations (Allport, 1954, Preface, p. XIV).
This essay assumes a critical position and puts forth
several propositions: a) Cruelty as a strategy for
domination and control, that can be seen in certain groups and political
stances. b) Cruelty can be a motivation in and for itself, that can be a
satisfactory outcome for some people. c) It can be an eventual outcome of
certain economic and political policies, without having been intended as such,
d) It is a component of other social phenomena such as racism and
xenophobia. e) It has statistical
implications for social class. f) It is a cultural strategy
for community coherence, but empathy is an advancement beyond cruelty. g) It is systematically taught to the next generation.
CRUELTY AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON
a) Cruelty as a strategy for domination and control, that
can be seen in certain groups and political stances.
Sajjad (2022) mentions how discrimination and the
legitimation of cruel practices against certain ethnic and racial groups can be
used by political leaders as deliberate strategies for obtaining and maintaining
power.
One of the strategies for this manipulation can be
found in Leon Festinger’s findings regarding the phenomenon of cognitive
dissonance (Festinger, 1957); this is an academic term that refers to am experience
in certain groups that feel they must defend weak views or dogmas, such as
those who believe in a flat Earth. They
isolate themselves from this dissonance because it is uncomfortable, and they
collectively combat it. It is a naturally occurring feeling, but it has been
purposefully used to create or change beliefs.[3]
One of the modern strategies for inducing or weakening beliefs is called
“dissonance bombing” in which deliberately contradictory communications are
delivered in meetings or Internet messaging. The goal is to paralyze the
goal-population’s ability for intentionally elaborate and form cognitions.
In general, cognitive dissonance is a cognitive state
that is aroused when people are exposed to information that is inconsistent
with their existing beliefs. If their old beliefs are not directly changed due
to this new information, the new communication can be reinterpreted or even
rejected. These people may attempt to persuade others to accept their current ideas
and begin proselytizing, especially in cases of religious or political
differences. This can happen at all levels, between two people, between groups,
in relation to mass media, and even at a national stratum (Harmon-Jones &
Mill, 2019).
Sajjad had this to say about international dissonance.
…when individual
member states act in a way that is openly contrary to the “humanitarian”
identity professed by the EU, central EU discourse resolves that cognitive
dissonance by utilizing specific discourse topics, discursive strategies, and
linguistic means, to construct a hegemonic discourse that legitimizes the
actions by individual states as well as EU's central policies. The purpose of
the resulting discourse, then, is to “absolve and resolve”—absolving the union
as a whole of guilt and resolving the cognitive dissonance between the
professed identity of the EU as supremely humanitarian and the observable
inhumane acts of itself and its member states. This explains how the EU can
employ strategic cruelty to mitigate the arrival of migrants while
simultaneously maintaining moral standing to chastise individual members for “violating”
the hegemonic collective identity of the union (Sajjad, 2022).
Cognitive dissonance is, for the most part, an
individual phenomenon. Leon Festinger published his book, A Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance in 1957. It established the foundation for many other studies about
attitudes and beliefs, and described how they become internalized by people who
cease to question them. Harmon-Jones and
Mill (2019) describe the basic postulates of Festinger’s finding in this way.
If two cognitions are relevant to one another, they
are either consonant or dissonant. Two cognitions are consonant if one follows
from the other, and they are dissonant if the obverse (opposite) of one
cognition follows from the other. The existence of dissonance, being psychologically
uncomfortable, motivates the person to reduce the dissonance and leads to
avoidance of information likely to increase the dissonance. The greater the
magnitude of the dissonance, the greater is the pressure to reduce dissonance
(p.3).
Dissonance is, in the end, an emotional reaction to
cognitive conflict. It is unpleasant, and the individual will try to alleviate
his or her discomfort by reducing the dissonance. The distress may be due to a
negative evaluation of one’s own emotional states or reactions. it can be
considered as the unpleasant motivational state that results from the
inconsistency between people’s cognitions about their behaviors, affects and ideas
(Fontanari, Bonniot-Cabanac, Cabanac
& Perlovsky, 2012).
One of the areas in which cognitive dissonance is
active is in relation to remorse, or a bad conscience. Breslavs (2013) says
that: “Given the essence of self-control, we can expect that the coherence between
our social behavior and our aspirations leads to a feeling of pride, while incoherence leads
to feelings of shame and guilt.” He differentiates guilt and shame. Guilt is
private and shame is public. He says that
“Some researchers
consider that guilt is based on empathy with real or imagined victims of our
activity (or on passivity) and presupposes concerns about issues connected with
the direct or indirect responsibility […. Others suggest that] guilt promotes reparative behavior and an increase
in motivation to communicate, whereas shame leads to withdrawal and a decrease
in this motivation.”
He says that the dissonance caused by shame can
lead to a reappraisal of the situation, in which the transgressor does not
necessarily change or rectify their behavior, but may transfer their responsibility
to others. This may be accompanied by resentment or anger with subsequent
aggression. This, of course, will only deepen the dissonance, and will not assuage
either the guilt or the shame, and may lead to aggravations of the same
inappropriate, and even immoral conduct.
Also, having participated in contra-normative
behavior, such as cruelty, may lead people to defend both the reasons for their
actions, and the cruelty itself.
b) Cruelty as a motivation in and for itself, that can be
a satisfactory outcome for some people.
When cruelty becomes a main goal it can be considered to
be some form of sadism. Sadism is considered a personality trait in which an
individual directly feels pleasure from other people's physical or
psychological suffering. It spans experiences that go from the passive sensation
of enjoying others’ pain (indirect/vicarious sadism) to actively engaging in
sadistic behaviors (direct sadism). Sadistic traits are continuously
distributed in both community and forensic psychology. This tendency extends from
the simple enjoyment of embarrassing others to the much more serious enjoyment
of committing torture and murder (Foulkes, 2019; Lobbestael, Slaoui, &
Gollwitzer, 2023).
Lobbestael, Slaoui & Gollwitzer (2023) also refer
to an “everyday sadism”, which implies a more acceptable form of this condition that
can be found in the popularity of violent movies, video games, and brutal
sports.
These authors observe that “sadism was not included as
a personality disorder diagnosis in later DSM[4]
versions because it was considered insufficiently distinct from antisocial and
narcissistic personality disorders to warrant a stand-alone disorder” (p . 569).
Sadism can include behaviors, thoughts, and fantasies. It can include certain
kinds of psychopathy, such as “deficits in emotional functioning and antisocial
behavior, such as superficial charm, irresponsibility, apparent fearlessness,
conning behaviour/manipulation, and lack of empathy” (p. 570). All this is
related to “the Dark Triad [which] is composed of three socially maladaptive
personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. All three
concepts are underpinned by shared callousness, self-promotion, and social
deviance (Ibid). These authors add:
[…] narcissism
implies a pattern of attention-seeking and fantasizing about unlimited success
or power and possessing a grandiose sense of importance and entitlement.
Machiavellianism refers to deception, manipulation, and a common use of deceit,
flattery, or cynicism to promote one’s own interests (p. 571).
There are factors that can reduce its impact. One
mitigating element mentioned by the authors was a perceived similarity between
the victim and the aggressor. In experimental situations, increasing similarity
between the participants (sharing their first name or birthday) was associated
with decreased aggressive tendencies. Also, in experimental studies,
instructions to consider pros and cons of punitive behavior tended to diminish
it.
In some settings, such as war or Gestapo-type law
enforcement, it is important for those in command to emphasize the differences
between “us” and “them”, and to demand that their soldiers or combatants follow
orders enthusiastically and without doubts. We can postulate a
politically-induced sadism that makes a spectacle of brutality to exasperate
out-group aggressions and to enhance in-group loyalties. In this way Swat- or
posse-like troops do not hide their violence, rather they publicize it. In a
recent example, the government of the United States has announced that the
execution by firing squad of the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting will be
broadcast live on television. This sort of display sanctions sadistic
enjoyment. This issue goes beyond the possible punishment of criminal acts, and
makes a display of executions and brutal death.
These finding are disquieting, but they can be applied
intuitively to understanding and mitigating sadistic behavior in communities
and social settings. It is apparent that when people see themselves as
“different” from others there is a greater tendency toward cruelty. For this
reason, “enemies” are portrayed as belonging to different nationalities, races,
religions, or political beliefs. Portraying others as people with possible
virtues, and as worthy of empathy, can help reduce sadistic responses.
It is also worth calling attention to the possible
role of making cultural norms salient, and opening discussions about the need
for them.
c) Cruelty can be an eventual outcome of certain economic
and political policies, without having been intended as such
There will always be policies that can cause
unintended harm. These are not the result of cruelty. When, however, these
mistakes are justified by claims that the victims did not deserve better
treatment, or that this mistreatment benefits a local group, it becomes an
ethical problem.
There have been many of these mistakes. Perhaps one of
the worst was the Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919 at the end World War I.
As a result, parts of Germany were taken over by other countries, and Germany was
forced to pay costly compensations to the victorious nations. This caused
resentment and economic hardship in Germany, and created a social basis for the
emergence of the Nazi Party. This bitterness finally led to World War II. It
can likewise be said that Germany’s reactions to these punishments by adopting
fascism was also an historical mistake. In both cases, both the enforcement of
the treaty and the German reaction, were useful in furthering the ambitions of
the political leaders of that time -on both sides-, and required the acceptance
of their constituencies of both injustice and pain that were inflicted on other
people.
Another one of these mistakes was the United States’
involvement in the Vietnam War. It led to millions of deaths, of both
Vietnamese and United States’ citizens. It involved war crimes such as the the
Mỹ Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, a mass murder of unarmed civilians in the
Sơn Tịnh district of South Vietnam. And it exacerbated political confrontations
in the United States and Europe.
d) Cruelty is a component of other social phenomena
such as racism and xenophobia.
Ethnic refers to characteristics of groups that may
be, in different proportions, physical, national, cultural, linguistic,
relgious, or ideological in character. Unlike “race,” the term does not imply
biological unity, a condition which in reality seldom marks the groups that are
the targets of prejudice. It is true that “ethnic” does not easily cover
occupational, class, caste, and political groupings, nor the two sexes —
clusters that are also the victims of prejudice.
One of the blanket-areas for ethnic xenophobia is
migration. It is one of the ten factors D'Ancona (2018) identifies with
xenophobia.[5]
Migrants can become targets that subjectively incorporate all the reasons for
rejection: they can be accused -with or without evidence- of criminal
tendencies, sources of disease, dangerous political tendencies, and general
inferiority among other purported dangers they might represent for a resident
population. One of the factors that increases these supposed threats is the
potential size of the refugee population.
Although anti-immigrant
attitudes represent a widespread social problem in many European societies,
research has only partially understood the role the demographic size of the
immigrant population plays for the prevalence of such attitudes. […] subjective
perceptions of a larger immigrant group size [can be] associated with
perceptions of threatened group interests, which in turn related to
anti-immigrant attitudes. On the other hand, however, larger immigrant group
size facilitates intergroup contact, […] (Schlueter, 2010).
This dichotomy in the implications of the size of a
potential immigration wave is interesting. The threat is only meaningful if the
resident population is unacquainted with people from the migrating groups. When
there are representatives of the new group already in the region, then
friendships may have formed and the permanent population knows there is no
reason to fear them.
The world migrant crisis is not new. In colonial times
massive immigration from Europe to the American and African colonies was actively
promoted. After the XIX century the newly emergent American countries were no
longer accepting massive waves of immigrants. There were several reasons for
this, one of which was that these new countries had gradually become populated
with Europeans who had begun to settle, and find economic niches and roles.
They viewed further immigrants as competition. Also, there was, in all these
former colonies, an inherent racism stemming from their past dependency on
slave labor, and also on a refusal to see their own appropriation of these
lands from the original inhabitants as ethically questionable.
In Europe the roots of racism and xenophobia are
older. They come from the gradual formation of national identities that took
millenniums to achieve, and also from these countries´ experience with conquest,
that left them with the sensation of being the “masters” or as racially or
culturally superior. In the first half of the twentieth century, this sentiment
became an important strategy for political movements such as Fascism.
Just as European immigrants escaped from the demanding
economic conditions in their own countries by flooding to the Americas, in the
twenty-first century third-world populations are attempting to migrate, both to
the Americas and Europe. These populations are often not “white”, and cannot be
easily absorbed in the places where they wish to reestablish themselves.
This has created an ideological problem, above all for
Europe, which after forming the European Union, has developed a “sense of self
as being supremely humane” (Sajjad, 2022). Sajjad
describes how “populist leaders using racist discourse about migration … call
for the defense of Europe's borders, while anti-immigrant sentiments continue
to shape Europe's immigration debate and policy”. She asks: “How does the EU
legitimize violence in its border regime and reconcile this regime with its
core identity as a defender of human rights and a “normative superpower?”
e) It has statistical implications for social class
Social class is a very old social construct. In the prehistoric
times of the small nomadic groups, there were no social classes, although there
was a certain hierarchy which was not the same in all tribes. They organized
around ideas of teamwork and cooperation rather than wealth. With the
agricultural revolution a surplus of food emerged and lead to a growing
differentiation in wealth, and the first social classes were created. In the
Egyptian and Mesopotamian empires, society was clearly and rigidly stratified.
At the top was the pharaoh, who was considered divine, and below him there was
a class of priests, nobles, and administrators, with the peasants and artisans
below them in wealth and power. At the very bottom were the slaves. In Greece
and Rome ideas of citizenship appeared, but the citizens were still organized
by rank. Slavery continued to be the base of most manual labor. Social mobility
was somewhat more flexible than in Egypt. The feudal system of the Christian
Era was organized into the classes of the nobility, the clergy, and the
peasantry. The nobility owned land and wielded political and military power.
Social mobility from one class to another probably
became a cultural phenomenon in Roman times. It meant that individuals could
change their social standing, mostly because they had accumulated more wealth,
but also through military activities. Some slaves were freed, like the Greek
philosopher Epictetus. In medieval times rank could be change because of
military power, and often, because of activities within in church structures.
Almost always this kind of social advancement was restricted to the male
population.
The very idea of social mobility can be a cruel idea.
It is quite a difficult
stance to take –to argue that social mobility is just as cruel and destructive as it is
enhancing and transformative– but in a steeply hierarchical society like the UK,
that is what I want to argue. This is in no way to deny that there are positive
aspects of social mobility for the individual: it is its collective
consequences that are particularly troubling. It primarily operates as a way of
recycling inequality (Reay, 2017).
Reay’s observation about the United Kingdom is true
for many other places. This is because the idea of social mobility implies that
the individual can change their own pertinence to a social and economic class,
but leaves the system intact. The cruelty can be found in the fantasy that
these labels are self-earned, and that those with ability, intelligence and determination
can belong to whatever class they aspire to. The insinuation is that people
deserve the class that they belong to, and that those of the “lower classes” merit
belonging to them. This has repercussions in terms of self-image, confidence,
and other aspirations.
Chen, Zhang, Feng, Xian, & Zhao, (2024) found in a
meta-analysis that living in disadvantaged environments may increase aggression.
However, the relationship between social class and aggression and can change
with specific contexts, and aggression is not an essential feature of a
particular social group.
In general, Chen et all observe that wealth inequity
is related to the presence or absence of “social harmony”:
[…] social harmony and economic development […]
is often characterized by a significant divide between the rich and poor in
many societies. [… ] From a psychological perspective, different social class
contexts influence various aspects of human life, including health outcomes,
well-being, and self-esteem […] Considerable research has also linked social
class to aggression over the past decades. To illustrate, lower social class is
a risk factor for higher levels of aggression […] These complex
interconnections imply that the differences in aggression between social
classes may exist but are not essential or fixed features of particular social
groups; rather, they can change depending on specific contexts. Additionally,
the inconsistent findings suggest powerful moderators.
They contrast the idea of Objective Social Class (OSC
- income, education, and occupation) with that of
Subjective Social Class (SSC) in which people construe their circumstances vis-à-vis
others. The major difference between these two constructs is that the latter
contains social comparison processes. They note that “living under different
social class contexts affects various psychological and behavioral outcomes,
including aggression.”
They observe that
the threatening environments
of lower-class individuals may be associated with other factors that contribute
to aggression. For example, the social cognitive theory of social class
proposes that lower-class individuals are likely to have less material and
psychological resources available to them and, as a result, possess a lower
sense of control over their life outcomes [….] In addition, the relative
deprivation theory holds that lower-class individuals may experience
perceptions of disadvantage from the social comparisons they make between their
own social class and that of other persons who are better off […] Moreover,
according to the resource scarcity theory, prolonged resource scarcities may
impair the cognitive capacity and control of lower-class individuals [….] It has
been discovered that social class can positively predict executive functioning,
indicating that lower-class individuals perform worse on executive functioning
tasks.
These findings may be related to how aggression is
conceived and how it is measured. The members of the higher classes have more
resources to avoid punishment, and their aggressions may be qualitatively
different. For example, the existence the inferior schools and health care in
lower class neighborhoods can be conceived of as the result of aggressive
political control and economic management on the part of the more affluent.
Also, wage scales can be discriminating. In general, white, well-to-do males
have better incomes than other groups, and this is the result of their political
control over the systems they have created.
Wu, Balliet, Yuan, Li, (et al, 2025) approach the
problem of social class from the point of view of “prosociality”: “that is, behaviors or behavioral intentions
that enhance the welfare of another individual, group, or society at large” (p.
286). This more optimistic attitude leads us to look for ways out. The authors
do not mention possible policies such as universal health care and education, or
the idea of a guaranteed minimum income that is paid to those who do not have
enough to live on, but these may be ameliorating policies.
One perspective argues that communities with fewer
resources, may develop adaptive coping strategies through increasing their
prosociality and social capital, which promotes the development of social networks
of mutual aid. In this this context, the community actively mobilizes its
social capital, and articulates contacts, resources and pro-social dialogues
between neighbors, family, community groups, church groups, political
organizations, as well as alliances with a network of external actors made up
of the private sector, Non-Governmental Organizations, universities and United Nations
agencies. Solidarity develops between neighbors and different social and
political organizations and helps lessen adversity. (Rojas & Cronick, in
revision).
f) It is a cultural strategy for community coherence,
but empathy is an advancement beyond cruelty
Jay Robert Pritzker (2026) described empathy and
kindness as cultural advancements that surpass cruelty as a cultural strategy.
Cruelty has been a “primal urge” that has permitted humanity to form groups and
consolidate power. But more advanced evolutionary states involve mutual
understandings; they are “new pathways” that no longer are considered “weak” or
view the vulnerable and those who are in some way “different” to be the means
to power (Pritzker, 2026).
There is an inherent value in human beings. For many
millennia, those beings who did not belong to the patrician classes were
regarded only as useful pieces to act as soldiers or as economic units from
which value could be extracted. The Renaissance challenged this perspective.
Suddenly, the human body began to be celebrated for its inherent beauty. From Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel to the
architecture of some of Europe's cathedrals and palaces architecture,
paintings, sculpture, and literature opened up to light and the celebration of
humanity. The Renaissance rejoiced in humanistic values, rational thought, and
harmony. It was a new worldview in which all that was human became divine, and
rationality was almost elevated to a form of faith.
This was followed by the Enlightenment, during the
17th and the 18the centuries in Europe and its colonies. In this period the
Renaissance values expanded to include the celebration of individual liberty,
religious tolerance, and natural rights.
In the twentieth century, after World War II, another
major advancement appeared, with the creation of the organization of the United
Nations whose core values are peace, freedom, social progress, equal rights and
human dignity. These values are explicit in the Charter of the United Nations
and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights elaborated by the founders of
this entity:
We the peoples of
the united nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge
of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and
small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the
obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be
maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in
larger freedom (United Nations Charter, 1945).
The specific aims of this organization are (Ibid):
1. To maintain international peace and security
[…],
2. To develop friendly relations among nations
based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of
peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace […];
3. To achieve international cooperation in
solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or
humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human
rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race,
sex, language, or religion [… and]
4. To be a center for harmonizing the actions
of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
It is clear that these values were not adopted by
everyone everywhere. The debates in the United Nations General Assembly often
seem paralyzing, and the organization has been criticized for its inaction in
certain cases of very serious human rights violations. Also, even though all
the participating countries are limited to one vote when decisions are made,
the larger countries have more influence because of their greater economic
pressure. This gives them more power. However, in spite of these criticisms, it
is clear that the existence of the United Nations, and its capacity to place
human rights in the center state of modern cultural debate, offers an enormous
cultural achievement.
g) ) Cruelty is systematically taught to the
next generation.
Cruelty is a cultural trait, and as such can be taught
as an acceptable behavior in some situations such as war, slavery, and
punishment. I have discussed how it has been accepted in Old Testament and
Homeric accounts as an suitable way of dealing with enemies. It has been used
in multiple examples of exemplary punishment, from witch burning in Europe and
the American continents, to the execution of scientists such as Giordano Bruno
or monarchs such as Luis XVI.
The legal motives for executions change, and their
value as public spectacles has diminished, but capital punishment still is
practiced. In the twentieth century many of the Nazi prisoners that were judged
in the Nuremberg trials were executed for war crimes[6]. The
recent failed execution of a condemned criminal in the state of Tennessee in
the United States has motivated many criticisms of executions in general, even
though in this case the method used is considered less cruel than hanging,
electrocution, or firing scuads.
There has been an important public movement to
reconsider the whole idea of punishment for criminals, especially with respect
to the use of capital punishment. Robert Reich (2026), in a recent on-line newsletter
said this about the rationale for executing criminals: “Making the criminal
suffer achieved the dual purpose of cleansing his soul and deterring other
potential criminals”. There has been a general reflection about reconsidering
the whole idea of criminal punishment and substituting it with reeducation and
rehabilitation. These reflections have emerged from public debate and an
increasing cultural discomfort with the use of cruelty as a mechanism of social
control. Gradually punitive strategies are being reconsidered and empathetic
approaches are beginning to replace them.
In countries like Denmark and Japan empathy forms a
part of the regular academic teaching schedule (Liam 2025; Learning for
empathy*, 2025; Levett-Jones Cant & Lapkin, 2019). Cronick (2025) explored
how empathy can be taught. She described the how it was included in nursing
curriculums (Levett-Jones, Cant, and Lapkin, 2019) and how it was most
effective using immersive strategies.
Riess (2017) also notes that research has shown that this vital human
ability is mutable and can be taught. Cronick observes how videos are beginning
to appear on the Internet about learning this skill.
“There is a
television series called "Convicts and Pitbulls" (Drachkovitch &
Lucas, 2009) in which inmates in prison learn to care for and love violent
dogs, and in the process they themselves learn to feel empathetic emotions. In
Abramson (2021) there are self-help recommendations for those who want to
develop this capacity in themselves.
Mahatma Gandhi said:
“If we are to
reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against
war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their
natural innocence, we won't have to struggle; we won't have to pass fruitless
idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until
at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for
which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering (Gandhi &
Homer, 2005).
FINAL THOUGHTS
The very existence of a noun that condemns acts that
intentionally cause pain is a cultural advancement. This progress has not,
however, eliminated cruelty or changed its political and social usefulness in
some settings. People can both learn to be cruel and to approve of its use in
achieving certain ends.
Factors that limit both its usefulness and the ease
with which it is learned as a social tool for group cohesiveness and personal
satisfaction include community participation and the experience of cultural and
ethnic diversity. People learn that they are more similar than divergent, and
that differences, in the end, can be nourishing and advantageous. Openly
talking about diversity, and learning to debate different points of view can
also reduce intergroup hostility.
Racism, xenophobia, and war are usually the result of
long-term and largely unspoken social trauma such as historical slavery,
colonialism, sexual discrimination, social class differences and territorial
disputes.
Social skills and empathy can be learned. They can
form part of educational curricula and purposeful community interaction. There
is no doubt that last two millenniums have shown a slow progress toward
reconsidering cruelty as an acceptable strategy and finding alternatives.
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[1] “The Book of Amos is the
third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Christian Old Testament and Jewish
Tanakh and the second in the Greek Septuagint. The Book of Amos has nine
chapters. According to the Bible, Amos was an older contemporary of Hosea and
Isaiah,[3] and was active c. 750 BC during the reign of Jeroboam II (788–747
BC) of Samaria (Northern Israel)” (Matt, n.d.)
[2] I think that when one is analyzing
cultural premises, especially moral beliefs, that transparency is important.
Calling the phenomenon of inflicting pain “cruelty” is already a position
taken. Before continuing with this analysis, I would like to declare my own
position. I am, for the most part, a pacifist and a vegetarian. I do not
consider most military actions to be either productive or moral. I do not believe
in punishment for those who commit crimes, especially capital punishment;
rather I consider that offenders should be reeducated and reinserted into
society. I do not own any kind or armament, and if I did, I would not know how
to use it.
[3] This manipulation has
happened for many millennia. Festinger’s findings describe it and name it.
[4] The DSM is the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric
Association. The latest edition that was published in 2022, includes updated
diagnostic criteria, and the addition of Prolonged Grief Disorder.
[5] These ten factors are:
qualification, insecurity, conservatism, contact, immigrants, economic threat,
cultural threat, discrimination, coexistence and rejection.
[6] Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm
Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick,
Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl and Arthur Seyss-Inquart
