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| Yes | 49% | 35 votes | Total: 72 votes | |
| No | 51% | 37 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesFirst we must examine what cruelty really is. I see a large portion of the "No" side mentioning things that en effet are just how life is. Life is not "cruel". Life is marked by many options for many different sentient beings, and some who are not so cognizant. This breeds chaos. Chaos is not cruel. Chaos is nameless, faceless, thoughtless, therefore it is benign in nature. Whatever entropy caused by chaos is merely a by-product, not cruelty. Cruelty is purposeful acts done to negate or harm with malicious intent.
Now, the use of animals for sustenance and clothing is not cruelty. It's simply meeting need. You can say we have the capabilities to make synthetic fabrics, but if you really think about it, someone will suffer from the factories being built (as nature is destroyed to build them), the pollution caused by the usage of unclean and nonrenewable energy, and even the underpaid workers who are often used by companies...is this unfair? For sure. Cruel....no, unless the man sitting in his big window view office commanding the actions is sitting in his leather chair petting a fluffy white cat and cackling.
I believe humanity can live a cruelty free existence. The mind of a human being cannot refrain from bad thoughts, it is given options, and our faculties for thought have no discipline whatsoever. But we have to ask, what is the better question: can one person live in this world the way it is cruelty free? Definitely not. There are cruel people and there are people who are cruel out of negligence and lack of heart just amassed together, often overcrowded-which can make humans even more neurotic and more cruel than they would if they lived in a place that wasn't as industrialized and enslaved to agriculture and an anfractuous, intangible concept we like to call "economy".
However, if things were different, if we were to start anew, all of us, as a race of animals (for we are in the animal kingdom) could live in peace and harmony. Would it be easy? No way. It'd be difficult to start over, to adopt and practice the vital tennets of a lot of the most peaceful of the races (which are often the indigenous ones we as agriculturalists have eradicated for the most part either by influence or genocide), the various faiths of the globe and even revamp how we teach our children from infancy upward. this all would take time and the changes would take generations and generations to fully set in, and some would fight it initially, but haven't we all been fighting the most petty battles thus far? It'd be worthy and worth it in the long run. Not just for us but even our mother planet.
I have always thought that man was in such a rush to create civilization that we totally by-passed the "being civilized" part.
Learn more about this author, Astley Brown Ii.
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No
With only a few exceptions, people are not born with a natural thirst of cruelty. Yet, in today's society, violence has become a common occurrence: rapes, tortures, beatings, murders, domestic violence. They all happen in real life. Why is it that people are not born cruel, but they develop this affinity for cruelty?
Babies are born with a desire and need to discover the world they just came to, to learn how to live and survive here. Instinctively, there is an inherent sense of curiosity that drives newly born people to absorb much more information, stimuli and experiences that, later in their lives, will be used to shape their behavior as adults. What happens, then, when they grow up and develop in at atmosphere plagued with cruelty? For some of them who do not fully integrate to society, it becomes the only way to survive in their surroundings. For some others, it becomes a status of power and might.
Based in the rationale mentioned above, cruelty should be exclusively known and practiced by individuals who grew up in harsh environments, like men and women who were raised in broken homes, or who lived in a war ridden country, or who come from troublesome neighbourhoods. However, regardless of their backgound, it would appear that cruelty is more and more present in our lives, whether in a real fashion or in a fictional one. Why?
People remain curious about things throughout their lives. Anything new to them will deserve their attention, one way or another. Anything unique or exotic will do so as well. This particular instinct of curiosity in our species has been mishandled and exploited in both positive and negative ways. Indeed, it has been crucial to come up with new technological advancements, scientific discoveries, or new inventions to enhance our quality of life. Nevertheless, it has also been utilized to depict cruelty as a way to satisfy people's morbid curiosity needs. Although most of the people people know that all of them are wrong, they still like to hear stories about that. For people who are not actively involved in any of those horrific activities, this type of cruelty is pumped to their brains in the shapes of movies, video games, newspapers, magazines and TV shows, among many others.
At this point, cruelty is not only a means to satisfy people's curiosity for what is unique and exotic, but it has also become a profitable business. People are gladly paying for tickets at the movie theaters to watch movies with violent scenes. They are also buying gutter press publications with explicit depictions of cruelty. They are sitting in front of their TV, watching series and talk shows that reproduce all sorts of material to satisfy their morbid curiosity. Taking even a step further, people are buying videogames that not only depict cruelty and violence in a very explicit and sometimes realistic way, but which also provide a means for users to take part of such cruelty in a virtual world. Moreover, parents are allowing their children to consume this kind of materials as entertainment.
In a way, the consumption of violence in the shape of mass media material has been a tacit approval of our society for cruelty. Even though people realize that cruelty is wrong and hinders our social and moral values, they still consent its presence on mass media, and sometimes they even request to have some violence included for the sake of marketing and entertainment. This way, cruelty, whether real or fictional, has found its niches in our civilization as it is now, and will continue to enjoy such acceptance as long as it is a way of life for ones, an entertainment for many, and a profitable business for the others.
Learn more about this author, Eddie Lilly Tafber.
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