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Cruelty
From Spanking Art
Cruelty is indifference to the suffering or other people or animals, or pleasure felt when causing or witnessing such suffering. Opposites of cruelty are kindness, sympathy, empathy and compassion.
An act that deliberately causes suffering (physical or emotional, or both), as well as a person doing such an act, is called cruel. The term cruelty has negative connotations and is therefore rarely used when the suffering is regarded positive, for example when a person who was found guilty of a crime or other offense is punished. The term cruelty is also rarely used in cases where a certain indifference to suffering is necessary for a person to do their job without getting emotional damage themselves.
The term cruelty is often used with regard to the treatment of animals, children and prisoners. When cruelty to animals is discussed, it often refers to unnecessary suffering.
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[edit] Cruelty and violence
Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve violence, but violence is not necessary for an act to be cruel. For example, if another person is drowning and begging for help, and another person is able to help, but merely watches with disinterest or amusement, that person is being cruel - not violent.
[edit] Cruelty and culture
According to Friedrich Nietzsche, almost all higher culture comes from the spiritualization of cruelty.
In history, one can find many examples of cultures who were culturally (and/or technologically) highly advanced, but also very cruel - for example, the Romans. This disproves the theory that cruelty is a typical sign of 'barbarism'. However drawing the opposite conclusion is incorrect as well: one can equally often find great cruelty in less advanced cultures.
Cruelty against one's own people (as well as those of other countries) is often found in dictatorships. Cruelty is also very common at times of war or armed conflict.
[edit] Cruelty and sadism
Cruelty as a sexual paraphilia is called sadism. However note that when people play together in consensual BDSM, the suffering inflicted on the bottom - whether it's bondage, humiliation, whipping or "torture", is actually for the bottom's pleasure. Therefore consensual BDSM does not require true cruelty on the top's part.
There is a joke about "true sadists": when their slave asks to be punished, they reply "No."
[edit] Thesaurus
- heartless
- ruthless
- unmerciful
- relentless
- pitiliess
- unkind
- hard
- cold
[edit] See also
| This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Cruelty. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Spanking Art, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
