This culture has a disease. It take many forms but the root is ultimately tolerance for the suffering of others. So many of us have mental victims.
Hypothetical people that represent real groups whose suffering we tolerate or even enjoy, and tell ourselves we’re right to do so.
But we never are. Suffering is never helpful. Human rights have no exceptions.
Hurting evil does not make you good. You must do good to be good. Preventing evil is doing good, but rarely do our fantasies of deterrence occur. Vengeance does not actually dissuade future exploitation, ironically because like we do with our mental cruelties, the criminal always assumes someone else will be doing the suffering.
It’s always a surprise when we find ourselves the victim. And when it’s over and we expect outrage and sympathy on our behalf and for our plight, we get nothing because we to our horror find out that someone else dismisses our suffering. And we think we are better. But you can’t be better so long as you want the suffering of someone else.
You are merely different. And being different from evil leaves room for being a different kind of evil. As I said, being evil to evil does not make you good.
“Being against evil doesn’t make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide… I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you’re fighting.” ~Ernest Hemingway
The meanest word in the English language is “deserve.” We dismiss on the grounds that they deserve our violence and their pain.
