Sadism

If “Sadism is the unconscious impulse to acquire unrestricted power by destroying that other person,” then ours is a history full of sadistic mad men (485).  I used to think that sadists were crazed, mentally unstable lunatics. Like Dachshund, I wanted to know how their brains were so different than, say, mine.  I mean, I had inhibitions; I followed rules; I was not a killer.  I thought that they—the occasional serial killer or high school shooter—were psychologically unstable (and clearly, they are).  Now, reading the definition of sadism, I have to include all of the sane, white-collar, bureaucrats and CEOs too who have attempted to “aquire unrestricted power”—politically and economically—at the expense of fellow US citizens and surely also other beings.  Sadism, from the sound of the definition, isn’t an inherent state of being.  That is, if people work really hard, they can become sadists.  The ingredients are basic and not anything we don’t already see in people we think are sane: must be power-hungry, have destructive tendencies and a disturbed psyche.  In any case, power is key. 

I can’t get the image of this one woman in the “Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiement” (clip posted by bat) out of my head.  She is actually smiling—who know’s why—when she delivers the fatal blow to the human being on the receiving end of the shocks.  We’re talking impunity, utter disassociation, and mindlessness.  What is so troublesome to read is that for the purpose of the experiment, the authority figures “hoped to promote disorientation, depersonalization and deindividualisation.” (487)  People are actually conditioning human beings embody these conditions.  We are breeding hatred, sadism, and violence in our prison system.  Why? So that after serving time, ex-inmates can release an internalized sadistic treatment on civilians?  Wow, this is some world we live in.

This is a prison cell.  In my opinion, a euphemism for cage.
What happens in here is nothing short of psychological
and physical torture at the hands of sadistic prison
guards.
http://newsone.com/nation/associated-press/ark-prison-guards-leave-
inmate-naked-in-own-feces/

Talking about manufacturing prison guards remind me of War.  Owl says, “Its sad when you know that there are people rejoicing in death - and this happens in any war, which is why I hate war as well.”  I am not a pacifist, but I hate war.  This got me thinking about how human beings can be trained to denounce their moral compass and kill ruthlessly and mercilessly—without even so much as caring why? People don’t enlist because they are naturally sadistic.  After all, the people who enlist are statistically poor people who want to do good for their country, to protect, and to embody patriotism.  (This is in itself a horrifying phenomenon of channeling our poor into battlefields, but anyway…). Their boot-camp is what should be called, “Sadism is Progress” or “War is Peace.”  Something ridiculously contradictory and profoundly disturbing.  I saw this documentary on what soldiers go through when they are trained to go to war.  They are conditioned, indeed encouraged, to “rejoice[] in death.”  It is almost as if we are pumping them with “sadism”—with the “unconscious impulse” to “destroy[] that other person” (485)—regardless of the reason. 

PTSD is a product of becoming temporarily sadistic.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/military-boot-camp-locations.html

In the study about the Animal-Cruelty Syndrome, the argument is that there “mounting body of evidence about the link between such acts and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern.” (497) That is, in the “first stage of cruelty” we see kids abusing animals. (490) Stage four has social repercussions of huge proportions (“child abuse, rape, homicide”).  To me, this is obvious.  If you condition someone to respect only certain kinds of life (or not at all), then you blur the lines of what is acceptable violence and what isn’t.  Indeed, it has become a standard procedure to “recognize signs of animal abuse as possible indicators of other abusive behaviors.” (498)  The implication is that once you have it in you to commit violence against an animal, you are either changed and can no longer respect life in the same way OR you possessed a violent seed to begin with and abusing animals was only a manifestation of this inherent psychological disorder. This begs the question:  are people inherently good or evil? (As Owl says, “Are we good, or are we bad?”)  Or are people conditioned by society to hate, to abuse, to lie, to cheat, to violate, to conquer, to destroy. Perhaps.

I couldn’t agree more with Owl, and yes, “What we read about isn't theoretical only. We are reading about what is actually occurring in the world.”  We are seeing the reality of the dire state of the world. It is beyond bleak.