The cruelty of the human being and of society

In the preceding chapter we studied the relationship between morality and consciousness. We will now examine the relationships that can exist between consciousness and cruelty.

By cruelty I mean not only the perverse tendencies that allow one to make living beings suffer (or to commission their suffering), but also the egoism or conscious negligence at the origin of the suffering of vulnerable populations.

Why has our species developed this cruelty? Why, between the natural primate we once were and the accomplished human of the future, did perversion flower? Why has evolution given birth to this ensemble of paradoxical behaviours — wickedness, barbarism, perversity? Why the pleasure of destruction? The pleasure of inflicting suffering? Why the total lack of empathy of which we can show ourselves capable? Why the perennial nature of military or state torture?

"Conscience! Conscience! Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice; sure guide of an ignorant and limited being, but intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil, which renders humanity like unto God — it is you who make the excellence of its nature and the morality of its actions; without you I feel nothing in me that raises me above the beasts, except the sad privilege of straying from error to error with the aid of an unruly understanding and a principle-less reason." Rousseau, Emile.

The lyrical exaltation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau illuminates the importance of moral consciousness for the constitution of the human species. This moral faculty has drawn humanity out of the dark world of nature and made it what it is today. It is the sole great rampart for protection against this novelty in the living world that is cruelty.

Cruelty and consciousness

Cruelty — a psychic state of the human being

If, as liberalism advocates, in business one cannot afford sentiment — and if this liberalism is transforming our world ever more into a vast field of business — there must necessarily be in this world less and less feeling. JMT

In nature one can encounter behaviours that resemble human cruelty — the cat with the mouse, the orca with the seal. One could make of these animal behaviours the origin of our monstrosities. But in reality, persecution, torture, perversion — these human inhumanities — are, in my view, the result of human evolution.

The character of cruelty

The foundations of cruelty rest on a particular state of mind. It requires a lack of empathy toward the suffering of others, a contempt toward those considered subordinate, a desire to dominate and enslave.

We are then in the presence of a perversion — a discriminating narcissism. A consciousness giving the world a narrow and segregationist vision. This posture of the individual does not seem to me innate but constructed — elaborated by a type of education that minimises the great human values (benevolence, pity, aid to the weak, fraternity) — built by the atmosphere proposed by society and so on. Every community, every human group, harbours within itself a small percentage of minds that life circumstances and education have rendered apt to enslavement, racism and torture (in my view less than 5% of the population, but capable, by their aptitude for leadership, of influencing an entire society).

A new battleground

Each stage of human evolution brings its share of battles. When the powerful were subject to no law, the fight against direct cruelty was necessary. Today, this cruelty has evolved into narcissistic perversion — a perversion capable of staying within the framework of the law and using it to flourish (this is the case with the cruelty produced by neo-liberalism).

This is doubtless the new struggle that seems to me important to wage on a planetary scale.

The new industrial slavery

A struggle, for example, against the legal slavery maintained indirectly by Western industry when it relocates to emerging countries (Bangladesh, India, Africa) to find industrial slavery similar to that known on our continent in the 19th century — whereas one would expect Western employers to fight energetically against this infamy.

The outsourcing of torture

A struggle against the outsourcing of torture — another narcissistic perversion capable of remaining within legality to satisfy its cruelty. It allows a few Western dominant figures to subtly reuse torture (through underdeveloped countries as intermediaries) in contemporary wars. Contemptuous of other communities, these leaders maintain these abominable practices instead of fighting for their disappearance.

A state of mind without borders

The aptitude for despising and abusing certain human beings is a question of individual, not social class. Cruelty and perversity are found in the highest spheres as in the suburbs — among leaders as among former victims. Fortunately, the human majority exalts benevolence and respect for others. In all groups, all religions, all social classes, there are human beings with a universal vision — an open consciousness and a wide-ranging empathy. Everywhere people fight against all forms of injustice, all forms of segregation. Human beings combat each day violence, perversity, slavery and torture. We see it — cruelty is a question of state of mind. A question of the evolution of consciousness.

All human beings who consider other human beings as humanly inferior are necessarily behind those who are capable of considering them as equals.

In other words, segregationists, racists and enslavers are the dinosaurs of this humanity. Contempt for the weak is the archaism of a world already much further along in evolution.

Written in 2000.