That is why I think the “The Cruelty Is the Point” Article by Adam Serwer in 2018 was so important.
The ones who burned the books were always on the wrong side of history. Yet, they still do it. And I guess it is because the vile and harassing actions is an integral part of these people. The pain and suffering they bring to the people around them is what makes them feel good. They want to harm and destroy and are actively looking for people who cheer for them when they do. They want to find the people and the places where they can act in utterly disgrace and inhumane behaviour and are not ejected, but promoted. They are desperate to live out their inner cruel behavior as this is what brings them joy. This woman would literally fuck a guy who strangled a LGBTQ Member in front of her.
Adam Serwer:
But it’s not the burned, mutilated bodies that stick with me. It’s the faces of the white men in the crowd. There’s the photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana in 1930, in which a white man can be seen grinning at the camera as he tenderly holds the hand of his wife or girlfriend. There’s the undated photo from Duluth, Minnesota, in which grinning white men stand next to the mutilated, half-naked bodies of two men lashed to a post in the street—one of the white men is straining to get into the picture, his smile cutting from ear to ear. There’s the photo of a crowd of white men huddled behind the smoldering corpse of a man burned to death; one of them is wearing a smart suit, a fedora hat, and a bright smile.
Their names have mostly been lost to time. But these grinning men were someone’s brother, son, husband, father. They were human beings, people who took immense pleasure in the utter cruelty of torturing others to death—and were so proud of doing so that they posed for photographs with their handiwork, jostling to ensure they caught the eye of the lens, so that the world would know they’d been there. Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another.
Their lack of shame gives them power. When dictators come to power one of their first acts is to make the other people around them direct accomplices in horrible acts. When Saddam Hussein purged the government he had other officials participate in the firing squad. It isn’t just cruelty, it’s a strategy, it takes the others around you over the edge and binds them to you. Them raising the stakes higher and higher with more and more shameless acts is a strategy to get their members to do whatever they want and to do more bold and brazen acts that can get them more power.
By doing this the only shame becomes nuance and self reflection. Feeling guilty, becomes being a buzzkill. It becomes socially reinforcing. You can’t be bad because if you’re bad all your loved ones are bad and they’ll judge you for ruining their fun or hate you we not being sufficiently committed to the cause
That is why I think the “The Cruelty Is the Point” Article by Adam Serwer in 2018 was so important.
The ones who burned the books were always on the wrong side of history. Yet, they still do it. And I guess it is because the vile and harassing actions is an integral part of these people. The pain and suffering they bring to the people around them is what makes them feel good. They want to harm and destroy and are actively looking for people who cheer for them when they do. They want to find the people and the places where they can act in utterly disgrace and inhumane behaviour and are not ejected, but promoted. They are desperate to live out their inner cruel behavior as this is what brings them joy. This woman would literally fuck a guy who strangled a LGBTQ Member in front of her.
Adam Serwer:
Their lack of shame gives them power. When dictators come to power one of their first acts is to make the other people around them direct accomplices in horrible acts. When Saddam Hussein purged the government he had other officials participate in the firing squad. It isn’t just cruelty, it’s a strategy, it takes the others around you over the edge and binds them to you. Them raising the stakes higher and higher with more and more shameless acts is a strategy to get their members to do whatever they want and to do more bold and brazen acts that can get them more power.
By doing this the only shame becomes nuance and self reflection. Feeling guilty, becomes being a buzzkill. It becomes socially reinforcing. You can’t be bad because if you’re bad all your loved ones are bad and they’ll judge you for ruining their fun or hate you we not being sufficiently committed to the cause
Thanks for sharing that. What a chilling image.
Wow. That’s devastating.