The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Sun Dec 26, 2010 6:43 pm

Much of what is written about on this site is a vaiation of sadism and masochism, in it's full spectrum, from light play to the outright demonic. I raise this because I am curious what is the relationship to TUGS and love, or affection, if you wish. In short, where is the love? I enclose an excerpt from a longer article on the Marquis de Sade, which summarizes some of his fiction and contrasts this to Christian love as written by Dostoevsky. I raise this not to start a quarrel but to begin a genuine dialogue on this subject, because it seems, in varying degrees, to be behind much of the mindsets of the folks on here.
-Jack Roper

Dostoevsky vs. the Marquis de Sade
by John Attarian

"THE MARQUIS DE SADE (1740-1814), libertine, pervert, and pornographer, was also a pivotal figure in Western thought. His novels Justine (1791), Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), The New Justine and Juliette (1797) presented, for the first time, a philosophy of nihilism, and illustrated all its evil consequences and implications.

Sade’s philosophy flowed from his radical egotism, which led him to propound militant antitheism.1 God’s nonexistence reduces the universe to a purely materialist Nature, a self-running mechanism; “the perpetual motion of matter explains everything.” 2 People are determinist machines, which annuls moral responsibility. You cannot help it, then, if you are sexually perverse or depraved.3 There is no afterlife, so your conduct does not matter.4 Merely the child of local custom, morality is relative to culture and geography, and therefore fictive.5 Nature is our only ethical guide; humans are no more significant to Nature than insects. And since Nature uses matter from dead life forms to create new ones, crime, destruction, and death are necessary and pleasing to her. Therefore murder is good, and the mass murderer is the highest human type.6 Born isolated, the individual is solely important, with obligations to nobody and only selfish motivations. Each individual is pitted against all others. His only maxim is to “Enjoy myself, at no matter whose expense.”7 Man tends naturally to dominate others and inflict pain, which he enjoys.8 Ordinary people are utilitarian objects, the playthings of the wealthy, powerful and godlike libertines, who are utterly unloving.9 Beauty and innocence inspire only diabolical cruelty. Since materialism makes pleasure proportional to stimulus, the greater your cruelty, the greater your pleasure.10 Maximum selfishness and cruelty are therefore the proper course.

If there is no God, no hell, no right and wrong, no moral responsibility, no meaning or significance beyond your pleasure, then existence is meaningless. Nothing you do matters, others do not matter, and what you do with them—and to them—does not matter. Nihilism liberates. For the Sadean egotist, then, everything is permitted. Sade incessantly rationalized he most depraved and libertine sexuality,
and every crime including cannibalism and murder.

Insatiable appetite and boredom goad Sade’s libertines to ever-worsening crimes, culminating in mass murder. They become so steeped in evil that repentance and righteousness become impossible.11 Frustrated and enraged at reality’s inability to satisfy their unlimited desires, they repudiate their own determinism and crave universal destruction.12

As this dynamic of wickedness and Sade’s value-inverting views of cruelty and murder indicate, nihilism is ultimately Satanic. Rabid denunciations of God and Christianity, obscene sacrileges, and Satanic practices including the Black Mass pervade Sade’s novels. The central fact of the Sadean universe is not matter in motion but rebellious egoism’s demonic impiety, seeking transcendence through evil.

Sade greatly influenced Romantic and Decadent authors, such as Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Algernon Swinburne, and Rachilde.13 He told them what they wanted to hear, his example
and rationalizing philosophy liberating them to indulge and to express their obsessions with cruelty and perverse sex. Sade thus contributed to the growing pathology and nihilism in Western thought and culture."

1. The Marquis de Sade, Juliette, trans. Austryn Wainhouse (New York, 1968), 29-42; The Marquis de Sade, Justine, in Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings, trans. Richard Seaver
and Austryn Wainhouse (New York, 1966), 496-497; The Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom, in Ibid., 209-211.
2. Juliette, 43.
3. Juliette, 14-16, 43-50, 267-268, 541-542, 677; Justine, 603.
4. Juliette, 402.
5. Philosophy in the Bedroom, 217-218, 327; Juliette, 89.
6. Justine, 518-519; Philosophy in the Bedroom, 237-238, 329-332; Juliette, 49, 67, 415, 765-769.
7. Justine, 492, 604, 607, 608; Juliette, 52, 99, 145, 176-177, 780.
8. Juliette, 316-317.
9. Justine, 487, 608-610, 668-669; Juliette, 173-178, 208, 243.
10. Juliette, 340-341.
11. The Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, in The 120 Days of Sodom and other Writings, comp. and trans. Austryn Wainhouse and Richard Seaver (New York, 1987), 329, 495-496, 545; Juliette,
524, 525, 548, 579, 967-978, 1012-1188.
12. The 120 Days of Sodom, 364, 470, 545; Juliette, 579, 700, 781-782, 1039. 13. See Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony, trans. Angus Davidson, 2nd ed. (New York and Oxford, 1970), and A. E. Carter,
The Idea of Decadence in French Literature (Toronto, 1958).

JOHN ATTARIAN is the author of Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis (Transaction, 2002).

Modern Age magazine
Volume 46, Number 4
Fall 2004

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Sun Dec 26, 2010 11:20 pm

You make it sound as if sadomasochism and love are mutually exclusive concepts. Perhaps for some people they are; for me they are not.
I have few if any sadistic impulses; the idea of deliberately hurting another person (even one I have reason to dislike intensely) repulses me. However I am at the very least a moderate masochist (though I am more into undergoing submission than pain per se). As a teenager, I allowed many boys that I knew (including some years younger and much smaller than myself) to dominate me in various ways in ourTUGs and bondage games. Many of them had mild to moderate sadistic streaks that they usually kept well hidden in their general associations but which they knew they could freely express in their relationships with me. But they knew that doing so fulfilled a need I had, and I helped them fulfill needs (or at least desires) they had which they could not express elsewhere. But this was NOT bullying in any way; it was purely consensual on both sides. They did things to me they would never even think of doing to anyone else; but I know that they cared about me. They cared how I felt. Someone like De Sade would not have cared. My friends were not selfish bastards like De Sade, however. My friends cared abut me and were careful to NEVER exceed my limits; and yes, even *I* had *some* limits. My experiences with my friends in my adolescence proves to me that love and sadomasochism can go together. It's when the dom does not adequately care about the sub that you have an unhealthy relationship going; the presence of pain or humiliation by themselves does not tell the whole story at all. If partners respect each other, there is nothing wrong with what they do together. IMHO sado-masochism is wrong only when the relationship is non-consensual or unequal (an adult and a child, for example).
BTW when you point out that some of the stuff written here is demonic, are you refering to one of my own stories (which has a demon in it) or was this just coincidental hyperbole?
Last edited by Jason Toddman on Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 » Tue Dec 28, 2010 3:57 am

I once set myself the task of reading The 120 Days of Sodom. I found it almost impossible to get through, but not so much because of the content, which is so over-the-top as to be almost comical. Sade’s “philosophy”, such as it is, is neither profound nor monstrous, but merely self-serving – e.g. “There is no afterlife, so your conduct does not matter.” Many will argue that the absence of an afterlife impels one to greater virtue, not less.
The real problem with The 120 Days is that it’s so badly written (in the original and in translation) as to be virtually incoherent, and its incomplete state does nothing to recommend it either.
For romance and decadence, give me Histoire d’O any day.
~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby snobound » Mon Jan 03, 2011 7:27 pm

sarobah wrote:I once set myself the task of reading The 120 Days of Sodom. I found it almost impossible to get through, but not so much because of the content, which is so over-the-top as to be almost comical. Sade’s “philosophy”, such as it is, is neither profound nor monstrous, but merely self-serving – e.g. “There is no afterlife, so your conduct does not matter.” Many will argue that the absence of an afterlife impels one to greater virtue, not less.The real problem with The 120 Days is that it’s so badly written (in the original and in translation) as to be virtually incoherent, and its incomplete state does nothing to recommend it either.
For romance and decadence, give me Histoire d’O any day.
~ Sarah


Both you and Jason make very interesting points. I'm intrigued by the statement that I bolded in the quote above. It's an interesting notion, but I have a hard time accepting it. Just for the sake of conversation- why might one be compelled to live a more virtuous life...sans afterlife?
Try out the TUGs chat! http://chat.mibbit.com/#tugsnet

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Mon Jan 03, 2011 10:13 pm

snobound wrote:I'm intrigued by the statement that I bolded in the quote above. It's an interesting notion, but I have a hard time accepting it. Just for the sake of conversation- why might one be compelled to live a more virtuous life...sans afterlife?


I can think of two ways to approach that one.

1. A person who does good despite no expectation of a reward in the afterlife is IMHO more virtuous than one who does good only for hope of reward in Heaven (or, conversely, a fear of going to Hell otherwise). A moral atheist is probably much more honest than any 'God-fearing' Christian ever was. He is good because he wants to be, not because of some nebulous duty to a God Who never even bothers to speak aloud to him to tell him what He actually wants.

2. Not expecting an afterlife, a person may figure that the only way he/she will he remembered after they die is to do something so memorable that their name will be remembered for centuries. Many famous philanthropists doubted the existence of an Afterlife, felt it was more important to help those in need in the here and now, and did what they could to make this world a better place. Ben Franklin is a notable example of this. Franklin felt that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, but did not believe in it himself and rarely attended church. IOW he was, as I am myself, what is known as a Deist - believing in God but not in much of what is taught in church. Despite this, he did more good for others than most famous Christians ever did, such as founding schools and hospitals, to say notning of his many useful inventions (such as bifocals, which I myself use).
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 snobound » Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:38 pm

Didn't Franklin also say that "Beer is evidence that god loves us, and wants us to be happy"? :lol: You've gotta love Franklin. The more that I learn about him, the more respect I have for him- the opposite is the usual norm.

I think that Franklin's case would be transferrable to a very small and marginal segment of the world population. I absolutely detest organized religion, though I DO believe in some form of a power/intelligence greater than our own. This belief, however, doesn't extend to an afterlife. I've always felt that life is short, and one must grab the gusto while he/she can. I guess that you can say that I am a bit of a hedonist as a result. Even in light of this fact, I do try to live a reasonably virtuous life- especially when compared to the rest of my family. I wonder though... do I live a virtuous life only because it leaves me with a clean conscience and sense of fulfillment? Does it even matter if one's virtue is based upon selflessness OR selfishness? I'm must be feeling philosophical lately.
Try out the TUGs chat! http://chat.mibbit.com/#tugsnet

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:13 pm

Thanks for all the comments on my original post. The original impulse to the post was regrding S & M's objectifying of the Oher in a relationship. Seeing another person as merely an object, without feelings similar or identical to your own, allows the S (sadist or top) to do what he or she damn well pleases. Then, it becomes a slippery slope where the pursuit of pleasure needs constant additional stimulation and the cruely becoes more manifest. Jason, I was not directing this to any particular person but as a general observation.

The question of an afterlife is interesting but not necessarily germaine, as morality exists in the atheist as well as theist--as well as immorality. In fact, you might almost say that religion (of the organized variety) provides an excellent cover to do what one pleases, as long as you appear moral on the surface.

Ultimately, it comes down to: does the End justify the Means? Or: are the end and means really only one thing, which we divide in thought and thus permit cruelty as a means to our end. This would be the death of love to me, and also the end of any possibility of transcendence. I realize the masochist is generally in charge of the scene, even if the sadist doesn't truly realize it, because the M sets the parameters of where the scene will go, and the S merely follows (or, at least the M hopes so!). A human being's capacity for cruely remains the open question.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:19 pm

Jack Roper wrote: Jason, I was not directing this to any particular person but as a general observation. .


No worries; I didn't seriously think otherwise.
I have known a few people like those you describe in the first paragraph; seeing other people as mere objects and having no regard for them. I strictly avoid such people, as I consider them dangerous. Luckily for me none of my TUGs friends were ever even remotely like *that*! Our BDSM fun was always a mutual, consenual thing despite how it might have appeared to anyone who might have seen us.
As for the masochist being in charge of the scene, I agree that's true to an extent in my case at least. At least, I was never truly denied the power to say 'no'. I just rarely if ever used it; my limits were always known and respected. My relationships were always equal despite outward appearances, and rarely if ever felt truly abused or put upon except perhaps sometimes by my older brother when he first started me in TUGs as a small child. Even then there was only one TUG I ever really hated. I was 8 when I was tied to a tree all night, got covered in bug bites, and nearly caught my death of cold. He was always much more careful and considerate of my welfare after that though (partly because he caught hell for it), and so were all my other TUGs partners afterward.

As for a human being's capacity for cruelty; that is probably without measure. Al Quida, John Wayne Gacy, John Joubert, Jeffrey Dahmer, and many others prove this. There's no real way of telling how much capacity for cruelty an individual person has. That's one of the risks one takes with any relationship though, whether it knowingly involves TUGs or not. I doubt there's any hard and fast answers to this particular question. Individual people vary as widely in this trait as they do in every other psychlogical trait one can think of. I think even the kindest people can be a little bit cruel at times; they simply are better than others in keeping that tendency well controlled in what they say and do. Those that don't or can't are thankfully rare; they just happen to be the ones you always hear about in the media.
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 BoundTight1 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 3:36 pm

@Jack Roper

What about the few of us whom are into this sorta thing....
In my relationship the cause of Pain as you claim it actually goes both way's and Limits always respected. The "TOP" Never breaks Limits... No Blood is a big one... If one person draws blood from the other game is over...

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Wed Jan 05, 2011 5:04 pm

What I love about this site (i.e. TUGs) is how we range from the silly and the trite to the profoundly philosophical.
Whenever I ponder the human capacity for cruelty, I always think of Hannah Arendt’s phrase, “the banality of evil”, and also the Stanford prison experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Wed Jan 05, 2011 5:45 pm

sarobah wrote:What I love about this site (i.e. TUGs) is how we range from the silly and the trite to the profoundly philosophical.
Whenever I ponder the human capacity for cruelty, I always think of Hannah Arendt’s phrase, “the banality of evil”, and also the Stanford prison experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

~ Sarah

On that subject then, don't forget Abu Ghraib! That was definitely a low pointin our country's history of relationships wth the Muslim world. :annoy:
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 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:26 pm

The Abu Ghraib controversy confirms the Stanford experiment. The guards there were almost certainly not monsters, not in the vein of the Gestapo or the NKVD or even Saddam Hussein’s henchmen. In a dictatorship, where violence and brutality are endemic, systematic and state-sponsored, membership of the “security” forces offers an ideal career path for the sadistic and the homicidal. In a democracy like the US, psychopaths and sociopaths are weeded out of the system by the transparency and accountability that are built into it.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib demonstrate how even the most civilized of us can be conditioned or desensitized or dehumanized or propagandized or brainwashed into acts we would normally find abhorrent.
I am pretty certain that I would “pass” the Stanford test (i.e. maintain my humanity and empathy) … but isn’t everyone?
~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:40 pm

sarobah wrote:I am pretty certain that I would “pass” the Stanford test (i.e. maintain my humanity and empathy) … but isn’t everyone? ~ Sarah


Ummm, no... not me. In MY case, with my masochistic tendencies at least, it seems doubtful I would if I were one of the 'prisoners'. I think many peple on this site might have similar difficulties in that department too. :P In my case though it depends on who the guards were though.
I think though I'd pass were I a 'guard'; the mere thought of deliberately hurting someone else is revolting to me, and the idea of letting someone do it to an unwilling subject tends to me me want to hurl! If I saw someone in such a situation, I *would* do my best to stop it unless my own spirit had been broken first! I can't even read stories about such things (including on this site) without becoming upset and angry even when I know it's just fiction! A consensual B&D? Great! Beig a masochist myself 'm all for that! But a non-consensual one? $%&*#@!!! Makes me want to go berserk!!!
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 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:50 pm

As I alluded to above, some of the most rational and enlightened debates I see online are to be found here on the TUGs site. I think that we tuggers are more free-thinking than the average punter and so less likely to be seduced by the “dark side”.
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jason Toddman » Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:01 pm

sarobah wrote:As I alluded to above, some of the most rational and enlightened debates I see online are to be found here on the TUGs site. I think that we tuggers are more free-thinking than the average punter and so less likely to be seduced by the “dark side”.


I agree, and I think that's possibly because we're more likely to have seen that dark side in ourselves or in others and know better what to look for and avoid in ourselves.
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 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:06 pm

BoundTight1 wrote:What about the few of us whom are into this sorta thing....

Analyze this :o)
My boyfriend is not sadistic and I’m not masochistic. He hates inflicting pain and humiliation. I hate receiving it. And yet he resorts to it and I accept it. He’s passive, whereas I’m assertive to the point of being aggressive; and yet in our relationship he’s the dominant and I’m the submissive. Why? Because it turns me on and what turns me on turns him on.
There are some things that transcend the plain and simple .
~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:28 pm

Pleasure and pain seem to be merely flip sides of the same coin. And thought and desire are also closely related too (I think about bondage a lot every day--maybe cause I'm not getting enough!). Sarah, your description of your relationship is amazing--and I bet there is seldom deliberate infliction of accumulated pain--am I right? And Jason--I agree with you re: seeing someone being tortured--it goes against every instinct I have yet I still feel I have that capacity to be cruel--whether it be in a crude retort, a put down, or some psychological variant, but, physically, it is next to impossible. I was tickling a guy recently and I knew he was ticklish--so I watched his breathing and determined he had enough. I think he appreciated that. There are folks on here who don't seem to know limits to such behavior, and they are definitely out there in society at large. Perhaps it has a lot to do with our reptilian brain!

Re: The capacity for cruelty

Postby sarobah » Wed Jan 05, 2011 10:41 pm

Jack Roper wrote:I bet there is seldom deliberate infliction of accumulated pain

Two spankings (both deserved, I must confess) and some very strenuous bondage. We go more for the humiliation, i.e. mental/psychological torment rather than physical torture.
Tickling is a very strange phenomenon because it evokes laughter even when excruciating. It has even been used as real torture and judicial punishment. Being ridiculously ticklish, I would rather have the pain, thank you very much.
Perhaps it has a lot to do with our reptilian brain!

I have dated a couple of reptiles in my time. Their behaviour did indeed leave a lot to be desired.

~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.