Intentional Cruelty

Recently, I read that there are 70,000 people being held in ICE detention centers around the country, and that there have been over 1,000 human rights complaints lodged against ICE in the last year. At least 30 people have died in ICE custody in that amount of time.

What is it about the makeup of human beings that allows us to be horrible to each other? Big imaginations with no bounds on them? Our vision bigger than our hearts? Can it be that we just… can imagine enjoying being that cruel?

It strikes me that the people who enjoy torturing others are the people with the least amount of imagination. They have parameters for acceptability, but somehow those parameters include… torturing, killing, creating human misery. Why? You won’t be surprised, I hope, to hear that I haven’t got any answers: only questions.

Lately, the name Phineas Gage has come to mind quite a bit for me. You might remember him from your Psych 101 course. He’s the railroad worker who got into a terrible accident in which a railroad spike was driven through a region in his brain. The story goes that he recovered, but was a changed person: cruel, violent, always angry! whereas before the accident he was kind and even generous.

Think about John Fetterman, who had been a well-thought-of Berniecrat, but who had a massive stroke during his Senate campaign. Now he’s the most conservative member of the Democratic caucus. Is it possible that conservatism comes about as a result of brain trauma? I’m sure that’s a vast oversimplification, but it’s something that I think about. Fetterman is far from my only example.

I’m sure you can come up with examples of people who were kind at some younger phase of life, but who later fundamentally changed. Maybe you can pinpoint when something changed for them? Not always, I’m sure, but I imagine that, like me, you know of certain marks in one personal history or another.

And I’m not suggesting that the only reason that people become reactionary and harshly conservative is neurological. But maybe it plays a role.

Also, why do so many of the people who are creating all of this cruelty claim to be Christians? How can the followers of the guy who proclaimed The Beatitudes be so far from those principles? And being far from those principles, how can they expect us to follow them into their depravity? why do they demand it with the ferocity that they do?

I’m flummoxed: desperate to find some answers and a path forward.

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