What about cruelty? Do you think it’s more common in your arena of life, or have you seen a decrease of cruel behavior over time? Has there been no change?
What constitutes, “cruelty” in your mind? Is it necessary to be gentler to someone weakened by age or illness or circumstances, than to someone in a more stable circumstance, in order to avoid being cruel?
Do you think about cruel behavior, yours or theirs? Is cruelty in the eye of the beholder? When was the last time you acted cruelly?
Did you apologize or try to make amends? Why or why not?
What aspects in a chart do you feel denote cruelty? On average, do you feel you are more or less cruel than what is typical for a person?
Well, there’s unmistakeable cruelty. Like torturing puppies or sexual assault. But then then there’s interpretative cruelty and that requires quite a bit of empathy to navigate. One person could wholly appreciate to being told things bluntly while another would be forever offended. It’s a precarious And yes, I do think we adjust our behavior towards people depending upon their place in society, age, disability, etc. Even members of the Mafia, who commit all sorts of unmistakeable cruelty, can be wonderfully loving and kind towards their children and relatives. Tis is the story of humanity as old as time. Very few practice unconditional love but we should all aspire to!
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment. 🙂
I really appreciate it.
I once went to a very depressed place where it was known that a certain teenage boy had killed a whole litter of puppies, like slit their throats. I got to know the kid and he was a bit of a bully, but he also had a very sweet side. He seemed like a pretty average teenage “jock type” boy to me, and not like an evil person. Anyway, I spent about 3 weeks in this area and I had intimate views at the domestic circumstances. The people had no way to care for themselves. The culture was broken, the whole area was completely depressed, the people were hopeless. Of course there were dogs beyond dogs and more dogs that were not being cared for. I have to give the kid the benefit of the doubt and think that he was simply trying to put the puppies out of their misery. He only had brutal means to do so. Not saying it was the right or wrong thing to do, but just acknowledging that he had some motivation outside of committing a horrific act. Basically it made me think twice about judging someone who might kill puppies… or anyone who might do something that is typically incomprehensible.
Wow, I’m amazed! I know a person who did sort of the same thing, but with kittens. I’ll share it.:)
No, sorry, it’s still mean to kill puppies.
I know a guy who killed a bunch of kittens(newborns) by snapping their necks. This was about twenty years ago. There was no shelter/ pet-care organisations around where the guy lived, nor was any family willing to take them. The kittens were abandoned in a plantation, left starving and screaming in constant heat and rain. After checking around for other options, the guy decided it would be the most humane thing to kill the kittens, as painlessly as possible. The first one was tough, he said he used to have nightmares afterwards. After that it was easy. He adopted two kittens later, sort of to make up for the ones he killed.
Years later, when he recounted the story, a lot of people accused him of being cruel.
I wasn’t convinced.
snapping necks is not “painless.”
The least amount of pain, with the tools that he had available.
When I worked at the pet rescue we had to euthanize puppies sometimes because we didn’t have the money to save them. It was like mercy killing 🙁 It was terrible and I am really happy I wasn’t the owner who had to make those decisions. I did have to be the one to bring them to the vets and sign the papers allowing it though so that sucked. I saw a lot at that job that was cruelty towards animals, but people didn’t realize how cruel they were being. A lot of people gave up their pets thinking it was what was “best” for them… but shelter life is atrocious. If you ever think “my apt is too small, I’m never home, my pet is too lonely, etc” and think they’re better off going to a shelter and finding a new home – you could not be more wrong. Employees were cruel too but didn’t realize it. They thought they were just being lazy, but being lazy in that business means being cruel. And there were a lot of cruel things we had to do in the job that was unfortunately unavoidable. Like we had one dog who learned how to break out of his cage and got into a massive fight, killing another dog. So we had to lock him in the basement 24/7 because there was literally nowhere else to put him where he wouldn’t be dangerous. There were actually two dogs like that while I worked there. One of them died. And then all the dying puppies and kittens, we had to leave them alone over night and just hope they wouldn’t be dead in the morning. A few times they were. But there wasn’t a choice. And the dogs were always sick and we had to make the choice to ignore it and let them suffer every day because we didn’t have money for vet visits. They all had worms, they all got the flu and kennel cough, they always had pneumonia, and we did nothing about it. They took heart worm meds on a regular basis and there were some random antibiotics we could give them but.. it didn’t help much.
The only cruelty I’ve really experienced in my life was working there, and it was definitely never black or white. Just a lot of really shitty situations where the animals felt it the worst. We had this terrible mantra there to get through the day. No matter how shitty their lives are, at least they’re not dead. We rescued all our animals from high-kill shelters down south so it was literally life or death for them. It just sucks that life sucked so much. On the plus side, it got a lot better once they were adopted 🙂 But some got stuck at the shelter for YEARS before finding a home. Most were there for a couple months. Spay and neuter your pets people. And don’t shop – adopt! 🙂
As I read your comment, for myself, I think it is kinder to just kill the animal as to let it live and suffer. I have known people who were cruel to animals and it angered me to the point of my jumping down their throats. The last time that happened, I told the person that kicked a kitten like a football that it was time to take the animal to the shelter and he listened to me. And on the other end of this topic, I’ve seen animals hit and left to die on the road. Again, I would rather put them out of their misery as to let them suffer agony. The world is a cruel place and sometimes, the very people who seem the nicest can surprise you and be the cruelest. It sucks.
Yes, this is sometimes the person who says she’s so CONCERNED about you with that phony pained expression on her face when you express a different opinion or make a big life decision. What’s really concerning her nine times out of ten is that she can’t control you and wishes she had the guts to do what you’re doing. I am a Scorpio moon who experienced this with a former Cancer moon friend. The surface nurturers are sometimes the biggest closet control freaks of all.
The cruelest acts target the most helpless and innocent in my opinion.
Yes, especially abusive parents attacking their children.
cruelty to me is the act of not doing anything. just turning a blind eye to the suffering. there are other levels of cruelty of course, like acts upon another human being, animal, hurting and abusing. but knowing about it, and turning a blind eye is another level of cruelty and I call this fear of getting involved, to protect your own.
I think we’re all about this today…
Oh, that is right. Lately there has been a horrible trend to pull out a cell phone and record someone else’s pain and suffering. Not one person stepping in to help the person. Example: a few months back, in Chicago, a man stepped out of a convenience store and a guy punched him and knocked him out. The poor guy falls into the street and people stand there with their cell phones recording this man as a taxi runs over him and speeds off. The man died from his injuries and no one cared. I think that when people watch something like that and don’t try to help, they should be arrested and forced to do community service. It’s disturbing.
Here’s the deal. When I stand for another, then the attacker turns on me. I have been asked to front for others by those others, to stand up in their defense, but when I turn around they are no where to be seen. And it all falls on my head. All I can really do is not support what I find to be cruel. I am only one person.
I have these visions from other times, other places, when I stood, I did what was right, and ended up looking down into a grave. As I stood there I read the message that was tucked between my breasts, the message that I was supposed to deliver to supposedly save someone, and it read ‘kill the messenger.’ It was my grave I was looking down into. It was a stark image. Knocked me for a loop. What good am I dead? Better to remain as fair as possible, as loving as possible everyday everyway. Love is powerful. Some get it, some don’t.
I don’t know about cruelty but I do know about lack of compassion. Honestly, saying an animal lr person is better off dead indicates a lack of compassion. If you cannot do anything to help, move on, but it seems out of your way to kill something. I guess I see this in a spiritual sense, killing is wrong. Things seem simpler that way
For me the word feels like fingernails on a board; however my grandson uses it easily,he claims I am when I am not up to drive down island to town buy his fix of chocolate and I offer homemade brownies. Cruel being a missed flavor. For me ,folks who are older just create a slower interaction as do the tiny shrink my voice. When a difficult vibe is large Its like the flip side of a magnet ,I am repelled ; if such a soul feels near, I send them the strong mental message, like ” like come on Momma you hear your little girl hurt , come on hug that baby” telepathic messaging I have incredible luck with. ” I hope to never impose my opinions out loud ,but inside” Dude yuck ! put that cig out” it works 75% of the time, but then there’s the bad seed ; Angels tap you on the shoulder whispering ” ok sister, time to get going” and I feel them loud and clear. Sad we can’t save some from themselves.
I think cruelty is psychological…like torturing someone to the brink of death and allowing them to live so you can do it over and over again. Or like the Japanese emperor who skinned, and dismembered, a man in public…while feeding him pain killers to keep him from slipping out of consciousness. Pain killers can only do so much to mask pain but it kept him from going into shock and dying too soon. The point of it was to prolong the torture not just in body, but in mind. The humiliation of being skinned alive and completely dismembered in front of a whole crowd of people (some likely his relatives and people he cares about) adds an additional layer of cruelty. This came from a book I read called “The politics of cruelty.” Apparently, what makes evil, and cruelty, possible is the making of it as something banal. Making something normally considered unbelievable something common and no big deal. This is why it’s important to not explain away the killing of puppies as something “normal” and no big deal.
I am finding that it is embedded in cultures. I met a friend’s family. I liked the family members, all highly individualized. They all bullied one of the members of that family. Even the mother bullied her. I asked him, why does everyone bully her like that. He hadn’t thought of it like that. It’s just the way it was. I guess somebody has to carry the cultural wound.
Using your child to further your delusional agenda of self-aggrandizement and then punishing that child for not being sufficiently useful is the height of psychological cruelty.
Sometimes sick people become even more cruel to you in illness than they were in good health. Not so easy to control the impulse to lash out verbally when that’s the case.
Cruelty to me is the intentional application of pain . . . not just physical pain, psychological pain too. It’s not just killing a living creature unable to defend itself, but to do so while inflicting unbearable suffering and gaining some sort of pleasure from it. That is incomprehensible to me. It’s breaking someone’s mind for the fun of it. Cruelty goes beyond just hurting someone’s feelings, whether intentional or not. It is viciousness, without cause (whether that cause is warped or not).
I do think it’s more prevalent. Minds can be irreparably fractured through no fault of the person, maybe even born that way. Is cruelty a mental illness? Is something integral missing? Is the person actually soulless or simply incomplete? There is true evil out there, cruel people who choose that path with eyes wide open. And there is helpless cruelty, those beings who do not fully comprehend their actions. One of these should not be suffered to live. The other should be treated kindly, even in the face of cruelty. Whoever or whatever suffers at the hands of these people cannot tell the difference . . . it’s a conundrum. Does intent even matter when the end result is the same?
Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate your comments 🙂
I firmly believe that you should not be violent towards society. I have never ever crossed that line. The line which would project me as a violent person. I have always stayed within limits of law of the land. I will always follow the Constitution and uphold its integrity. There is no law of any country that I have violated.
I also have to think of reality though. I may be a believer in non-violence and an ardent supporter of people with rights, but I may have made dangerous enemies unknowingly.
I do trust the people though. It is Democracy.
Excellent questions worthy of contemplation.
For example : I do have non-vegeterian food. I have chicken and fish sometimes. I know how the chickens are killed. Same for the fish. I have accepted that the way chickens and fish are killed, people may want to kill me tomorrow the same way.
I cannnot imagine anyone killing me any other way.
I think what there government is doing to the people who live in Venezuela is extremely cruel. Those people are starving, inflation is out of control and they are trapped. Their leader gets his meals, that’s all he cares about and putting his political enemies in jail. Extreme case of cruelty and neglect, large scale humanitarian wise.
I have never publicly supported violence. Violence caused by the armed forces is inevitable. There will be a way for peace in the world though. I believe non-violence is the way ahead.
As a different angle: Vocational Cruelty. My second girl-friend had Venus, Saturn and Pluto in a T-square aspect. Pluto at apex. She was/is Gemini and her “cruelty” would come out in her thought processes in certain “situations.” At the time of knowing her, she was not employed. Some years later, I met up with her quite serendipitously. She told me she was a dental hygienist. I thought that a wonderful manifestation of her personal T-square. Which led me to pontificate on Doctors, Dentist, Policemen, Detectives, Firefighters, Rock and Quarry workers, Etc., Etc.. Cruelty can be transmuted to other areas of life. It doesn’t have to be all negative.
Yesterday I ran across this interview with Werner Herzog and Errol Morris about a film, ‘The Act of Killing’, which is available to watch on youtube too. (I do not think I want to watch the film itself: at my age it seems prurient to deliberately continue to stare into the abyss of being human.)
https://youtu.be/LLQxVy7R9qo
Yesterday I ran across this interview with Werner Herzog and Errol Morris about a film, ‘The Act of Killing’, which is available to watch on youtube too. (I do not think I want to watch the film itself: at my age it seems prurient to deliberately continue to stare into the abyss of being human: one has seen more than enough just by being alive.)
https://youtu.be/LLQxVy7R9qo
Okay. I watched the link you provided. I think this is quite timely in the instance of Saturn and Neptune being square, now. I don’t know how you come up with prurient as a descriptor. Judging by the link you provided. I will watch the video (movie) as the “bleeding” of reality and fiction are a curiosity to me.
chad, I meant prurient in the sense of morally indecent, not sexually. Perhaps I should have used a different word. It wasn’t meant to be a descriptor of the movie, but how I might characterize my decision to watch the actual documentary itself, which, so far, I have not chosen to do.
Cruelty is having an intention with what you do and causing the other person harm intentionally.
Taking out your own pain on someone is cruel – although we see it in a “milder” form in for example Relationships. When our scars makes us to react in ways that hurt the other. Often this is unconsciously, so is it cruel? I don’t know?
It’s cruel though, when we choose to not do anything about it and/or fix it. Even trying to fix it/improve it, or decide to be a better person, is better than not doing nothing. If you KNOW it but don’t act on it – that’s cruel.
Where I am living now, for the last 20+ years, cruelty reigns. I think maybe I am just more aware of it now. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s embedded in the culture. It’s a cluster of small towns. Most people have never lived anywhere else. They travel to vacation. But that’s not like living in another location. It’s the same same and they like it that way. It’s justified. It’s the norm. What I consider cruel is so common place that it is normal. When things start getting cruel I now just feel weirdness in the air. The situation is getting weird, someone(s) is going on a bender and it’s time to exit the situation.
The good thing is I have gained a heightened experience of the good in life. This local merchant and I had some conversations. He was pretty insightful. One day he told me, you always seem to be happy. I asked him why do you think that is. He replied, it tells me you have seen a lot of suffering. True that. It’s the depths of life experience I suppose.