TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
When you come into contact with a man, no matter whom, do not attempt an objective appreciation of him according to his worth and dignity. Do not consider his bad will, or his narrow understanding and perverse ideas; as the former may easily lead you to hate and the latter to despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains. Then you will always feel your kinship with him; you will sympathise with him; and instead of hatred or contempt you will experience the commiseration that alone is the peace to which the Gospel calls us. The way to keep down hatred and contempt is certainly not to look for a man's alleged "dignity," but, on the contrary, to regard him as an object of pity.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "On Human Nature" [1]
When we think of the colosseum, the most vivid image of it is as a staging grounds for watching gladiators fight to the death, animals being hunted and slaughtered, and criminals executed. Of course, not every form of public entertainment held in the colosseum was violent. But these are the ones that we remember. This is because it seems downright surreal to us that upwards of 80,000 people could fill the Roman colosseum in order to watch people die as a form of entertainment. Sure, you can make some parallels to the modern day. Sports riots are proof that humanity has by no means overcome all of its violence and barbarism. And of course, we all have a prurient sense of curiosity that encourages us to rubberneck when we see car crashes or to use sites like LiveLeak (RIP). Certainly I've found myself watching gore videos simply out of a kind of grotesque curiosity. But even then, I always have a kind of sympathy or sadness when I watch them, and I'm sure that many others feel the same. I'm sure there are genuine psychopaths who watch gore videos and simply feel nothing. These are the type of people who torture animals as children. But I am sure they are the minority.
And yet, I think that this is not a binary either. Some degree of inhumanity can be culturally instilled. I doubt most of the spectators in a Roman colosseum were genuine psychopaths either, but many of them enjoyed watching people and animals being killed in cruel, barbaric ways as a form of entertainment. Not to mention owning slaves, beating children, and all the other things we see as simply unimaginable today. In spite of all that, I imagine that most spectators at the colosseum went home and were quite compassionate and loving to their friends and families. I think the fact that the modern era no longer fills up stadiums to cheer on public executions as a form of state-sponsored mass entertainment is a sign of some form of genuine moral evolution in humanity, as Whiggish and naive as such an idea might sound in the modern era.
Of course, cruelty as a form of mass entertainment did not cease with the colosseum. In the past, Christians were tossed into the colosseum and mauled to death by lions for cheering crowds. Pagans accused of "witchcraft" were publicly burned at the stake in Europe throughout the 16th century, political rebels were publicly beheaded in the places like France and England in the 17th and 18th centuries, and black men were publicly lynched in the American south as late as the 1950s. And I suppose as long as men have cruelty in their hearts, there will always be those who hurt others for entertainment. Indeed, there are still wars waged with the support of the public. But this is usually because the truly gruesome details of slaughter are conveniently ignored, not made public and celebrated. There is a reason that public support for the Vietnam War dropped after being confronted with images of young children being burned by napalm or support for the Iraq War dropped after the details of torture at Abu Ghraib became public.
I think in the modern day, we have by and large sublimated these urges into harmless outlets: We get our fix of violent spectacle from slasher movies instead. We get out our impure sexual desires with 2-D moe representations of little girls. And so on. Some morons don't see the difference and want to discourage or ban these things because they are fascistic monsters, but anyone with a brain should be able to see how the latter is an improvement, and is a necessary one as long as people still have somewhat barbaric instincts. Indeed, I think that it is one of the greatest achievements of modern humanity that we have found ways to grasp and productively constrain our barbaric instincts. It is the perfect balance. With these base instincts going wild, we would be unable to achieve anything like a harmonious society, but without them being expressed somewhere, we would be sterile, neutered people unable of displaying genuine passion and spiritedness.
And yet, cruelty still remains in the world. I think one of the main reasons why is that we never learn to reject cruelty itself, but only reject the justification for it instead. What do I mean by this? Well, we can consider the above examples. Why did people come to reject the slaughter of Christians in the colosseum? Because they became convinced that Christians were possessors of the true faith and thus were thus "innocent." Why did they come to reject the burning of "witches?" Because they became convinced of the right for religious freedom and began to see those "witches" as "innocent" for expressing a heterodox form of spirituality. Why did they come to reject the execution of political rebels? Because they became convinced that a democratic society was just, and that the expression of political dissent was "justified." Why did they come to reject the lynching of black men? Because they became convinced of the equal status of races under the law, or of their innocence of accused crimes (as was often the case).
But this is too easy. We can easily cease to be cruel when we realize someone is "innocent" or "justified." It's like supporting the principle of freedom of expression: you cannot truly say you support the right to freedom of expression if you only exercise it with regard to beliefs you agree with. Similarly, you cannot similarly say you are humane when you only treat the "good" people with humanity. Resisting the temptation to be cruel only really matters when it is someone who is incapable of being justified. And treating those who are truly incapable of justification or redemption with some degree of humanity and honor is one of the most dignified things a human being can do. It is to act with compassion over justice. Compassion is superior to justice. In the past, all of those cruel acts were commited because they were seen as "justified." "Justice" proscribes WHEN AND WHERE cruelty can be enacted and excused. Compassion seeks to ERADCIATE cruelty once and for all, even if it is "deserved."
After World War II, the allied powers apprehended the most despicable war criminals from Germany and had extensive trials for them. Certainly these were some of the least "innocent" and least "justifiable" people we could imagine. Many of them were indeed sentenced to death. What is the difference between giving them a trial for a death sentence and merely shooting them in the head as soon as you capture them? It is something very important indeed. It is the refusal to be cruel. It is the refusal to be cruel EVEN WHEN THE TARGET OF YOUR CRUELTY "DESERVES" IT! Why? Because it is the only way that we avoid sinking to their level and avoid repeating a cycle of cruelty and inhumanity. In the modern internet and in modern society, there are many ways that this barbarism and lack of humanity manifests. But one in particular that deeply bothers me is the tone of public discourse about pedophilia and child grooming. Yes, I know it's uncomfortable to talk about, but keep reading. You will probably find me more agreeable than you think.
Of course, the whole label of "pedophile" and the problems with the way we use it is a problem in and of itself. People use the term interchangeably with "child predator," when in fact a great number of pedophiles (those attracted to pre-pubescent children) never actually go out of their way to predate on children, and a good number of people who molest children do so in spite of never having showed a sustained sexual preference for them. So the two terms are not synonymous. Furthermore, the term "pedophilia" is thrown around to refer to anyone who is attracted to a minor, which is simply not accurate at all. Even if they're both illegal and should be, there's a significant difference in the brain of an adult male attracted to a 16-year-old girl versus one attracted to an 8-year-old girl. So when I say "pedophile," I am specifically referring to people who are sexually attracted to prepubescent children. I will use the term "child predator" from here on instead of "pedophile" to specifically indicate someone who has molested or gone out of their way to attempt to molest a child, as that I believe is a moral wrong. Someone who merely has sexual desires and only acts on them by jacking off to 2-D lolicon has not committed a moral wrong and should not be seen as a criminal, unless you believe in Orwellian thoughtcrime.
Everywhere these days, people are bloodthirsty to performatively hate and castigate "pedophiles." It makes sense, of course. Child abuse lingers as trauma for life and effects entire families. There are few things worse than being sexually abused as a child. But I do find the way otherwise compassionate people, fully opposed to things like the death penalty will suddenly say "THE ONLY TREATMENT FOR PEDOS IS BULLETS," "PEDOS IN THE WOODCHIPPER," "SHOOT YOUR LOCAL PEDOPHILE," etc. It is super gross to me. And it also comes across as very fake. No one is impressed by you acting like some big, badass, Liam Neeson from Taken "protector of children," okay? Saying DEATH TO PEDOS is the most fake, safe kind of "edginess" that there is and is just a way to be barbaric and cruel with an excuse. I see right through it. And it also leads to people becoming paranoid and seeing pedos around every corner, to promoting thoughtcrime like the banning of lolicon, and so on.
The worst of it all, the new colosseum, is the trend of YouTube "pedo hunters." This whole OH YEAH GET HIMMMM KICK HIS AAASSS RUIN HIS FUCKIN LIFFFEEE ERRRGGGHHHHHH I'M FUCKING COOOOOMING "pedo hunting" form of entertainment seems deeply cruel, warped, and exploitative to me, even if it is all being done in a "responsible" way (i.e. not making false accusations, working with police, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I've been known to enjoy my fair share of true crime content. But I think the more healthy engagement with that kind of content is a kind of morbid fascination. It should be a sadness that crimes occurred and that both the victims and the criminal have had their lives ruined by the criminal's actions. It deserves solemnity. Not this kind of bloodthirstiness.
And our culture online has reached a point where you get suspicious looks for even saying this. Of course this shouldn't be misconstrued as me being in support of child abuse. I am against adults having sex with minors. Yes, "statutory rape is bad"... what a brave statement. Of course, this is the whole thing that is so backward about our modern society: that I even have to make this disclaimer! It reminds me of 2011/05/02, when a group of Navy SEALs apprehended and executed Osama bin Laden and so much of the US went YEEAAAAAHHH WE GOT HIM HELL YEAH BROTHER KILL DEM TOWELHEAD MUTHAFUCKAZZZ!!!! Some, like me, objected that bin Laden, just as the Nazi leadership before him, deserved, at the very least, a trial before he was sentenced to death. And then we argued that this kind of celebration of extrajudicial murder was distasteful and uncivilized. So many people would hear that and reply with something like WTFFFF YOU SUPPORT BIN LADEN. This is, obviously, retarded.
No, I didn't support bin Laden. But I believed he deserved a trial and found the public celebration over his death to be distasteful and repulsive. And it comes back to one main reason: cruelty is IN AND OF ITSELF an evil. It corrupts your humanity when you revel in cruelty and oppression, even against the worst people. Why do I focus on "pedo hunting" in particular? Because it seems like the place where most people channel their cruelty and learn to revel in it these days. I don't ask that you "feel sorry" for any of the worst people, including child predators (remember, this specifically refers to those who ACT ON desires, not those who simply have them). I don't ask that you equate their plight with those of their victims. I don't even ask that you oppose the death penalty for them (though I personally do). I simply ask that you stop reveling in cruelty, towards them or towards any other real, living, breathing person. Do not join the crowd at the new colosseum.