The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Fri Feb 14, 2014 4:26 pm

Just finished reading a book: In the Garden of the Beasts, by Erik Larson, about America's new Ambassador to Hitler's Germany in 1933. He quotes one of Hitler's men, Gestapo chief Rudolph Diels, telling a British Embassy official, in 1934, about his, Diels, own moral unease:

"The infliction of physical punishment is not every man's job, and naturally we were only too glad to recruit men who were prepared to show no squeamishness at their task. Unfortunately, we knew nothing about the Freudian side of the business, and it was only after a number of instances of unnecessary flogging and meaningless cruelty that I tumbled to the fact that my organization had been attracting all the sadists in Germany and Austria without my knowledge for some time past. It had also been attracting unconscious sadists, i.e. men who did not know themselves that they had sadist leanings until they took part in a flogging. And finally it had been actually creating sadists. For it seems that corporal chastisement ultimately arouses sadistic leanings in apparent normal men and women. Freud might explain it."

This appears to be the case, even with some of the respondents on this board, perhaps unconscious of their leanings themselves. I believe some prison guards, military commanders and Police officers, among others, also have these proclivities, what I have termed "the capacity for cruelty." There may well be a fine line between what passes for normal loving relationships and dominant-submissive, sadistic-masochistic ones, easily traversed in the heat of the moment. Perhaps what we call "civilization" is nothing but a veneer of respectability we pass off in public, only to let drop at the first sign of anything goes.

As we celebrate Valentine's day, and whatever that may mean, it might be good to ponder where we ourselves draw this line.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mikeybound » Fri Feb 14, 2014 10:01 pm

I understand what you mean. One of my greatest fears about BDSM is a dominant that goes too far, either without realizing it in the heat of the moment or because he just doesn't care.
On the other hand, why the hell don't abusers just find masochists who would love that stuff?

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby drawscore » Sat Feb 15, 2014 4:32 pm

I've never been big on torture, or the deliberate infliction of physical pain. There are those that are, and, provided it's between consenting adults, I am of the opinion "live and let live."

But once again, I reiterate a point I have made on several previous occasions: These games are supposed to be fun for everyone involved. When it ceases to be fun, it becomes abuse, and that's never good.

Drawscore

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Sat Feb 15, 2014 5:45 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mistofoleese » Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:17 pm

sarobah wrote:
mikeybound wrote: On the other hand, why the hell don't abusers just find masochists who would love that stuff?

Unfortunately, for an abuser an unwilling or reluctant victim is part of the appeal.

On the positive side of this discussion, the conclusions of the Stanford prison experiment, which has prejudiced many people’s perceptions of human nature, have been shown to be unreliable, so maybe we humans are not as bad as we’ve been led to believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

All humans, I suspect, have the capacity to do evil. We still are, basically, a predatory animal. But my personal belief is that most people are innately neither good nor bad. It’s the circumstances which arise that shape our character, and how we respond is what defines who we are. But those circumstances include family background and cultural influences, which are hard to resist.

We always look to Nazi Germany as the epitome of all that is evil in the world (and rightly so). However the crime of most of the people was one of omission not of commission… not standing up to the evil before it engulfed them. Some Germans were monsters, but most were not, and that is something we should recognize in all societies. (Would I have the courage of, for example, Sophie Scholl? I hope so, I fear not.)

That is why I am never troubled by the BDSM lifestyle… unless it gets out of hand (the same applies to the car culture, or adventure sports, or whatever). It’s embracing something that is definitely part of our nature. So we should draw the line where we do in any activity… at doing no harm.
In other words, as a degenerate godless atheist, I have just the one moral imperative, which should be universal: “Don’t do to others what you would not have done to yourself.” I think that covers everything we do.


Sarah is usually the one backing me up , but I must say I this times its reversed I agree with her on this
as for Nazi Germany ALL Germans were Nazi's there are a few that are still looked on with great respect Erwin Rommel and Heinz Gudarian if you ever have the chance to read Infantry attacks OR Panzer leader if you love tactics or History you will enjoy these two books
But not to stray too much from this threads theme
I leave you with this thought Karma can be VERY wicked

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mistofoleese » Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:21 pm

mistofoleese wrote:
sarobah wrote:
mikeybound wrote: On the other hand, why the hell don't abusers just find masochists who would love that stuff?

Unfortunately, for an abuser an unwilling or reluctant victim is part of the appeal.

On the positive side of this discussion, the conclusions of the Stanford prison experiment, which has prejudiced many people’s perceptions of human nature, have been shown to be unreliable, so maybe we humans are not as bad as we’ve been led to believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

All humans, I suspect, have the capacity to do evil. We still are, basically, a predatory animal. But my personal belief is that most people are innately neither good nor bad. It’s the circumstances which arise that shape our character, and how we respond is what defines who we are. But those circumstances include family background and cultural influences, which are hard to resist.

We always look to Nazi Germany as the epitome of all that is evil in the world (and rightly so). However the crime of most of the people was one of omission not of commission… not standing up to the evil before it engulfed them. Some Germans were monsters, but most were not, and that is something we should recognize in all societies. (Would I have the courage of, for example, Sophie Scholl? I hope so, I fear not.)

That is why I am never troubled by the BDSM lifestyle… unless it gets out of hand (the same applies to the car culture, or adventure sports, or whatever). It’s embracing something that is definitely part of our nature. So we should draw the line where we do in any activity… at doing no harm.
In other words, as a degenerate godless atheist, I have just the one moral imperative, which should be universal: “Don’t do to others what you would not have done to yourself.” I think that covers everything we do.


Sarah is usually the one backing me up , but I must say I this times its reversed I agree with her on this
as for Nazi Germany ALL Germans were Nazi's there are a few that are still looked on with great respect Erwin Rommel and Heinz Gudarian if you ever have the chance to read Infantry attacks OR Panzer leader if you love tactics or History you will enjoy these two books
But not to stray too much from this threads theme
I leave you with this thought Karma can be VERY wicked


OOPS made one mistake meant to say NOT all Germans were Nazis *Note to self Keep CAT out of room when typing !*

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:19 am

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby xtc » Sun Feb 16, 2014 7:00 am

Absolutely. Anybody want a cat?
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but little speedos rule!

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby FelixSH » Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:23 am

The way one eyelid is lower than the other she looks more deranged than innocent. :big:

To make sure that this is relevant to the thread: I´ll second everything sarobah said.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mistofoleese » Sun Feb 16, 2014 12:19 pm

sarobah wrote:
mistofoleese wrote:OOPS made one mistake meant to say NOT all Germans were Nazis *Note to self Keep CAT out of room when typing !*

Well, I think we can all agree that cats are evil.

Again I must totally agree with Sarah

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:02 pm

How on Earth did this topic devolve to "cats"? I was going to say that it is amazing the short attention span of humans, but that might be cruel.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mikeybound » Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:23 pm

Jack Roper wrote:How on Earth did this topic devolve to "cats"? I was going to say that it is amazing the short attention span of humans, but that might be cruel.

Welcome to the Internet. Cats rule this place, too.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:10 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby mistofoleese » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:55 am

sarobah wrote:I take the blame for the thread drift.
I was going to add a comment about short attention spans, but I have forgotten what it was.

cat got your tounge?

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Kyle » Mon Feb 17, 2014 10:44 am

There are certainly people who use BDSM (not so much the light bondage ) as an outlet for sadistic tendencies. You hope it's not too common.
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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:51 pm

Abu Ghraib anyone? This kind of stuff isn't limited to the bad guys, sad to say. Our own military has done it too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib ... oner_abuse
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:58 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:07 pm

And if there's any doubt cats are sadistic, Just watch Tom and Jerry - or Sylvester and Tweety - or Herman and Catnip - or Mr. Jinks with Pixie and Dixie! Cats are mean... though the birds and mice are no slouches either. :mrgreen:
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:08 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Mon Feb 17, 2014 10:11 pm

sarobah wrote:
Jason Toddman wrote:Abu Ghraib anyone? This kind of stuff isn't limited to the bad guys, sad to say. Our own military has done it too.

Jason, I think we should be careful here. As bad as that was, it is not in the same league of evil as the Holocaust or even of Saddam Hussein's treatment of his own people. If we say that one is as bad as the other (and I know you are NOT doing this), that would be a dreadful devaluation of what evil really is.

You are correct. I was not doing this. As near as i could tell, Jack Roper was citing Nazi brutality in general (which was widespread if not universally applied to everyone), not specific horrific events like the Holocaust, and common individuals abusing unusual power over other people rather than those in authority dictating policy.
MY point was that, given absolute power over people, the individual soldier who might formerly have been a pretty decent man would be far more prone to indulge a cruel streak he didn't even know he had regardless of what government or authorities he served. Unless you want to believe that ALL Germans living in Nazi Germany were evil sadists who should have been executed, the point is that under some circumstances all but the most decent of people can be capable of doing things we never think we'd ever be capable of doing to another human. The soldiers of Nazi Germany were not unique in that regard. They served a criminally brutal regime yes; one that gave them unusual latitude in what they did. But they were hardly an exception to the rule; rather just the most blatant example of it.
You see this all the time with US Soldiers in Iran (Abu Ghraib) and Viet Nam (My Lai), Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (call it what you will, I call what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians naked oppression), cops all over the US in their treatment of people; especially people of color (Rodney king for one), and the list goes on and on.
I'm not saying the US military is evil (hell, I was IN the US military for four years!); I AM saying people are capable of sadism no matter how nice they think they are under normal circumstances or where they are from.
That is not a devaluation of evil; quite the reverse, it seems to me.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:00 pm

This is such a depressing topic. I read the two links above, Mistofoleese on the Stanford experiment and Jason on Abu Ghraib, and can see where there are similarities to Nazi Germany. The quote I started with was from 1934, prior to the Berlin Olympics, the pact with Stalin, the appeasement in Czechoslovakia, and Hitler's saying he was all for peace. Gestapo chief Diels was noticing how his men were drawing sadists from all over Europe, and this was before many of the concentration camps were created. The treatment of the German Jewish people had already become abominable, but the world turned a blind eye.

It appears we are doing as much the same today regarding Chinese atrocities in Tibet, Russian abuses of gays and their media, North Korean slave labor camps, and on and on. I guess the only thing we truly learn from history is that we do not learn. Yet, we all must observe carefully any and all sadistic impulses we have and see that they do not get out of hand. If someone asks you to whip them and this makes you uncomfortable--even though it is consensual-- then don't do it. Keep your ethics in place, as Sarobah is pointing out.

Thanks to everyone for keeping this tread reasonably on topic.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:06 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:25 pm

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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Tue Feb 18, 2014 10:48 pm

sarobah wrote:To equate what a people does for their self-preservation, to prevent their children being rounded up and murdered as they were between 1939 and 1945, with what the Israelis are doing to stay alive is no better than saying that… well, maybe the Nazis had a point. Are you claiming that, given the prospect of your own children being killed, you would stand back and allow it to happen, that you would not do exactly what the Israelis are doing?

The reasoning doesn't wash. The Israelis don't even need to be there. They were safe enough in places like the U S. Yes, I know... most of the Israelis are descended from jews from places like Russia and Europe; not a helluva lot emigrated from the US, and no wonder. But they could have emigrated here, just as the (expletive deleted) Somalians are doing now for similar reasons.
The Israelis have no real excuse for their brutality. Going around taking over other peoples' land because their ancestors lived there centuries ago is pure bulls**t. By that reasoning you white Australians should pack up and leave the country to leave it to the original inhabitants the aborigines, and we white Americans should do the same to leave it to the native Americans/Indians; those we haven't killed off or assimilated yet.
No, if a people have to invade another peoples' country to make a living for themselves, then you're saying necessity excuses anything and that the Nazis weren't such bad folks after all. For that matter, the Islamic extremists can justify their own actions the same way. here does it end? The scale of the atrocities may be different, but they're still atrocities... and for the most part the israelis brought about the hatred the Arab world feels for them down on their own heads with their arrogance. So did we, in aiding and abetting the while thing in the first place. The whole reason the entire Middle East is such a s**thole of hatred and why the Arabs despise them and US is because the israelis invaded their territory and WE frikking helped them to do it. The Palestinians are in precisely the same position as you claim for the Israelis; can't you see that?
No, if I ever have to so badly compromise my morals - killing people and stealing their property just to survive, then I'd just as soon die and be done with it. Better to die as the person I am then to become what many of those people -Jews and Arabs alike - have become through their mutual brutality.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:01 pm

I met a Holocaust survivor a few years ago, and she said she was told to move to Palestine from Europe and begin the Jewish settlements, because there was no one living there. Of course, this was a lie created by Zionists, and there is a new book that apparently backs up this history.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/boo ... e16899370/
This book review gives a concise history of the beginnings of this seemingly eternal conflict, and by now both sides have enough blood on their hands to make any resolution virtually impossible.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:15 pm

Jack Roper wrote:Of course, this was a lie created by Zionists, and there is a new book that apparently backs up this history.

I will not participate in this thread any longer. I regret posting here.
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:45 pm

sarobah wrote:
Jack Roper wrote:Of course, this was a lie created by Zionists, and there is a new book that apparently backs up this history.

I will not participate in this thread any longer. I regret posting here.

That is of course your prerogative. I'm sorry if something any of us said offends or upsets you (especially as we usually agree on matters with the notable exception of that topic about Galileo - which also touched on religion - about 20 months back).
But you have your deeply held beliefs (and you are entitled to them) and I - and I assume Jack Roper - have different but equally deeply-held beliefs of our own (and we are entitled to them too).
Not to rub salt on any wounds, but I contend that the greatest causes of cruelty of all in this world are all based on religion and related political ideology.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:44 pm

Sorry Sarobah, if I offended you in any way. Obviously history can be deeply disturbing, if it is accurately depicted, especially to deeply held views and opinions. I take no sides in any of this but I do agree with Jason that the history of violence and cruelty is predominately fueled by ideology, organized religion, and related fanatical beliefs, which have lead to the extermination of Jews by the German people in the last Century, and by Jews and Palestinians ever since World War II, and continues to this very day everywhere in this sorry world.

What all of this amounts to is looking into the heart of darkness, or the accumulated human (and animal) suffering since time began. THAT is very painful, which probably explains why most folks would rather watch entertainment or sports programs, soap operas, etc. than confront reality, which will always involve a degree of introspection and self-evaluation--very painful. So we escape into, among other things, an attitude of "stop the world, I want to get off," and that could well be what is behind a liking for TUGS, BDSM, etc.

I also suspect that basing one of the world's religions on images of a man nailed to a Cross cannot have done anything but repulse people and create more suffering, although I could see that being debatable, especially if those followers have, for centuries, blamed His death on "the Jews."
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Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Kyle » Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:30 pm

So now the point of this thread finally comes out. I have to admit, this was a much better veiled attack thread than most I've seen.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:03 pm

Hey Jack, I am a little vague about the reason for your posting a link taking us to a news story about the fracking story in Pennsylvania and people being offered coupons for free pizza in supposed compensation. Granted it spotlights fatcat lack of concern for ordinary folks, but what does that really have to do with the subject at hand?
And Kyle, I don't really see your point either. I'm the one who brought religion into this discussion; not Jack. And he didn't know what i was going to write ahead of time any more than anyone else did.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...