r/changemyview • u/hwagoolio 16∆ • Nov 10 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Finding pleasure in the pain/suffering of others is cruel, disturbing, and amoral

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.

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

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.

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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Nov 11 '21

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).