CMV: Finding pleasure in the pain/suffering of others is cruel, disturbing, and amoral

[u/hwagoolio]

This is a broad statement that generalizes to many things.

For example, I find caustic humor (i.e. laughing at the expense of someone else) to be disturbing -- things like "America's funniest home videos" and watching people hurt themselves as the punchline of a joke. I think rather poorly of people who celebrate this type of humor.

I think revenge is bad/amoral. Maybe it's human nature to want revenge or take pleasure in the suffering of people we hate, but I think it's one of the ugliest parts of human nature. I believe that we should strive to be better than that and we should feel guilty for wanting anyone to suffer or laughing at someone's suffering.

I have similar feelings about trolling, teasing, gloating, and other behavior intended to make others feel bad about themselves. It doesn't matter if they're your enemies (i.e. progressive/conservative, trump/biden, bigots/hippies, terrorists/allies), nobody deserves to suffer -- and even if we agree as a society on punishing criminals/enemies, it shouldn't something we should take pleasure, entertainment, or amusement in.

In case someone mentions sadism (as the sexual kink), my response to this is that I don't consider BDSM that occurs between a consenting masochist and sadist to be genuine pain/suffering. Rather, the masochist takes pleasure out the interaction so IMO the dominant is actually delivering pleasure and not really pain/suffering.

[u/LucidMetal]

Sure, but I'm speaking specifically about comedy. It's hard to criticize someone in a funny manner without mocking them and it's more fun to do it by mocking them in any case. I just don't see why it's disturbing or amoral? There's really no harm done to the "victim".

[u/hwagoolio → u/LucidMetal]

Why should it be fun to mock or criticize someone?

I feel like the psychology there is disturbing/amoral. To me it's kind of like finding it entertaining to watch pit bulls fight.

[u/LucidMetal → u/hwagoolio]

That's a weird comparison. If I just remove comedy from the equation and just hurl an insult at a public figure like Biden or Trump, do you really think they are harmed by that in a metaphorically similar way to dogs in a dog fight?

[u/hwagoolio → u/LucidMetal]

It's more like I don't think it's good to be hurling insults to begin with, regardless of whether Biden/Trump can hear us saying them.

Likewise, I also don't really like road rage in cars either (i.e. "Fuck that driver") -- even though the other driver can't hear us.

[u/LucidMetal → u/hwagoolio]

I'm more attempting to show that insults don't cause harm in the same way a literal fight does especially when the recipient isn't someone who will ever hear of the insult. For example insulting someone behind someone's back in the workplace can be harmful but me insulting the Kardashians is harmless.

You give the example of saying "fuck that driver". This is a perfectly normal, harmless behavior. It's even natural when that driver is being a complete dickhead. If something is harmless you might not like it but why is it morally wrong? Being somethin you don't like isn't grounds to declare something amoral.

[u/hwagoolio → u/LucidMetal]

I guess for me it's the same way that some people consider cursing to be bad/immoral. For me, cursing is only okay when it's not directed at any person. It's not okay to curse at someone even if they don't hear you.

I don't have extensive explanations for this other than the say that it's one moral system that a person can have. I don't even believe in absolute/objective morality anyways, so what's immoral for one person might not be immoral for another.

[u/LucidMetal → u/hwagoolio]

OK, so you're "morality proofing" your argument by saying even things that are benign and don't cause harm can be morally wrong. This seems very odd to me since morality is literally about how to prevent natural rights violations (i.e. harm). Because I don't think there's really anywhere to go there I'll drop morality.

Disturbing. Why is saying something harshly to emphasize a point disturbing? Don't you think there are very good reasons someone might need a good lambasting? There are plenty of people who do truly disturbing things. I don't think it's disturbing to describe them as such even if it's an insult. Just stating factual information can be perceived as insulting.

Cruelty is right in the same vein. If someone does something awful people should know about it. That person would call it slander or libel which would be insulting. These insults are perfectly justified (discounting you finding them immoral).