Cruelty is a characterological personality trait that is directly related to the moral and psychological aspects of the personality itself. Cruelty is an attitude expressed towards other people or animals, which implies rudeness, infliction of pain, inhumanity, insults and other forms of violence.
There is also another aspect of the definition of cruelty, which involves taking pleasure in the suffering of another in the course of actions that are unacceptable in a particular culture. Accordingly, the question of how to deal with cruelty can be resolved in terms of differences in these approaches, and also have its own characteristics in different cultural communities. After all, what for some may be considered humiliating and unacceptable, representatives of other cultures can bring pleasure and be revered or express respect.
Common to any manifestation of cruelty is the consciousness of destructive acts. This concept is separate from affective outbursts of aggression or from causing harm under the influence of drugs or due to mental illness. With cruelty, it always means that a person understands the consequences of his actions for another and realizes their destructive direction.
Cruelty, as a habit, is inherent in people with certain mental disorders. A variety of deviations and their depth can be provoked by a person's own psychological trauma, a critical moment in life circumstances, or in the process of prolonged cruel treatment of the person himself, as a result of which an adequate perception of the world was violated.
The tendency to violent behavior is inherent in every person, being the opposite. This means that those who are cruel are capable of generous acts of sympathy, and those who have endured and pitied for a long time can be extremely cruel to those who were previously protected. Until cruelty is manifested in the active world, a person cannot claim to fully know himself and control his behavior.
The stronger and deeper man hides its cruelty, the more force it can break out. So mothers who do not recognize this quality in themselves can mock children, children can get the eyes of live kittens, and surgeons can perform operations without anesthesia.
What is cruelty
Cruelty is often synonymous with aggression, but these concepts cannot replace each other. filled with feelings (fear, hunger, self-defense, possessiveness), and cruelty is empty. She personifies complete indifference to the feelings and needs of others, a lack of understanding that another can be hurt, sad or offended. Cruelty is inherent only to man and has nothing to do with the animal world, there is pure aggression, which always reflects the needs of reality, whether it is the extraction of food or the defense of one's territory. No animal is capable of inflicting suffering on others for its own pleasure.
Many believe that cruelty is aimed at maintaining the uniqueness of one's own ego and exclusivity, by exercising strength and power over others. Others believe that cruelty is a way of protection, anticipating possible blows from a stronger opponent or gradually weakening him with constant attacks. The theory of traumatic events presents cruelty as a certain shell of insensibility surrounding a too vulnerable person who, unable to cope with injustice and the resulting pain, completely turned off his sensitivity to the world. At the same time, the same vulnerable core of the personality is preserved inside, and if you get to it through all the barriers of cruelty, you may encounter a frightened child in need of support.
Cruelty always reflects dissatisfaction with oneself or the manifestations of one's life, attracting others to answer instead of changing on one's part. This is a trait that hides deep inner problems, such as excessive vulnerability, and complexes, attempts to demonstrate strength that is not there.
A cruel person is perceived as strong and almost omnipotent (due to lack of sensitivity and reduced moral principles), but this trait is not positive and strong among all the others. Since there are no internal and external limiting factors (more precisely, sensitivity to them), the manifestations become stronger each time. So, at first a person can insult others, then give cuffs, then beat him to fractures and complex hematomas, and if everything is not stopped at this stage forcibly, then cruelty takes the form of torture, sadism and murder. Thus, it is a self-accelerating tragedy, often ending in crime.
Abusive people usually have difficult communication, no relatives and relatives, but there is a huge baggage of internal pain points. Such people leave themselves with their problems, and their inner world constantly hurts, perhaps that is why the sensitivity to someone else's pain disappears.
The only period of manifestation of cruelty as a norm is a short period of childhood, when the child learns to control his own emotional sphere, and is busy with active knowledge of the world. At certain stages, there is a need to inflict pain on others, so that an understanding of the rejection of this comes from one's own experience, responses are received and the consequences are realized. Problems begin when this period ends, but cruelty remains.
Causes of cruelty
Cruelty has many faces in its manifestations, but there is not a single person who has not encountered it. Someone is more fortunate, and he only hears about it in the news, while someone lives in it all the time. There are as many reasons for violent behavior as there are cases, but they can all be divided into several categories.
The most common reason is dissatisfaction with one's life, in which the accumulation of stress and irritation requires an outlet. Usually, those who are closest and least protected become such a lightning rod (in families these are children, at work these are subordinates, in deserted places these are animals and tree branches). This state of mixed anger and impotence needs psychological adjustment, because. over time leads to psychosomatic disorders (usually of the cardiovascular system) and disrupts social interaction personality.
This is followed by misunderstanding or indifference to the feelings of the one who is harmed. Often people cannot understand how they harm with their words and actions, especially if they are not told about it. In situations where a person does not have serious emotional disturbances, the responsibility for abuse lies with both. If you are unpleasant, hurt, offended, but you continue to pretend that everything is fine, neither directly nor indirectly making it clear that such treatment hurts you, then the other person will not be able to find out about it telepathically, moreover, he can consider what kind of treatment do you like.
Cruelty, as displaced aggression, is increasingly manifested with the advent of society and its norms and rules. When a person does not have the opportunity to show discontent and aggression, defending his point of view in front of an authoritarian boss, then it is likely that he will break down in the family. If the upbringing in the family is built on controlling one's feelings and complete submission, then over time such a person will show cruelty in all other available places. This behavior may indeed look like cruelty, unreasonable, but in fact it is displaced aggression and requires finding constructive ways to implement it.
If in childhood a person was deprived of the experience of pain, did not acquire an understanding of the consequences of his actions, then cruel manifestations can quite often occur in his behavior, without malicious intent, but solely from misunderstanding. A similar condition is similar with pathological deviations in the psyche, developmental disorders and a decrease.
The most terrible cause of cruelty in its consequences is the desire to avenge the pain suffered. The perniciousness of the consequences of this category is due to the fact that a person chooses the most painful and terrible ways to get even with the offender - from emotional to physical, often stretching it for a long time period and striking at the most sensitive places. This happens when a person's own pain inside has burned out all remaining feelings and leads him to insanity.
The last causes of cruelty are the most difficult and long-term in their rehabilitation, as well as the perception of the world laid down from childhood. A person brought up in cruel conditions believes that this is not only the norm, but also a manifestation of love, and the correction of such a worldview requires enormous efforts, time and does not always end successfully.
Types of cruelty
Types of cruelty can be distinguished by the object to which it is directed - to people and animals (usually this division is used in legal aspects to impose punishment under a certain article). Another system that distinguishes the types of cruelty is based on its manifestation and severity.
So, there is hidden cruelty, when a person does not act directly. This can be expressed in biting remarks that look like praise, but at the same time degrading, or in accidentally spilling hot coffee right on the lap of another. Open cruelty, as opposed to the first, is usually a bolder manifestation and a harbinger of negative consequences. Here the previous experience, which remained painful, plays an important role, and then a person, at the slightest reminder of situations, can react with increased aggressiveness, even when something seemed to him. But in addition to such delicate moments, open cruelty includes infliction of physical suffering, emotional abuse and bullying, deliberate humiliation and other manifestations. IN legislative framework punishments are foreseen precisely for open cruelty, since it is the only provable and the most dangerous of all types.
Reasonable also refers to manifestations of cruelty, when a person perceives everything through certain filters, finds explanations for this, but stubbornly does not want to look at reality. The representation of everything in gloomy colors and a shift in emphasis in a bad direction can spoil life, both for the person himself and for those around him, in addition, it forms a certain type of perception of the world, where everyone is considered an enemy or plotting something, which means that they do not deserve mercy. Another manifestation of minor cruelty includes constant bullying, banter, calling offensive nicknames and other minor, but destructive in their strength, daily manifestations.
Various experts offer different ways to deal with cruelty: it can be imprisonment, forced or voluntary psychiatric treatment, psychotherapeutic consultations, changing activities, adjusting the upbringing process, direct conversation with the designation of unacceptable relationships. It all depends on the form and severity of the manifestation of this personality trait in life.
Human society has been constantly and intensively developing for many centuries. Some epochs are replaced by others, progress in all spheres of activity has erected man on the pedestal of the dominant species on planet Earth.
One thing is bad: everything changes on the path of progress, but no one, with all the aspirations, forces and opportunities, could neither prohibit, nor overcome, nor cancel cruelty. This trait, like many others, it manifests itself in different situations, changing a person to unpredictable consequences.
What is cruelty?
Cruelty is selfish selfishness, envy, hatred and malice towards other people, towards life and towards oneself. This is the result of a lack of success in achieving one's own goals and objectives with intentional or accidental harm to everything around.
It's no secret: what you sow, you reap - cruelty breeds cruelty. Causing harm to everything around in order to obtain benefits for themselves, people do not think about the consequences that will not take long to wait.
Forms of manifestation of cruelty
Cruelty has different forms of manifestation: causing physical pain to a living being without any pity and compassion, offensive words, all kinds of actions and even inaction, and often unhealthy fantasies. She finds a loophole in straightforwardness and stubbornness, in mockery and deceit, in anger and unfriendliness, in intolerance for the mistakes of others.
The worst thing is when cruelty brings moral or physical pleasure. This is sadism. Moreover, people, animals, plants, buildings, monuments, transport, places of leisure, etc. suffer from harmful consequences.
Causes of cruelty
People are not born cruel. In society, there have always been norms of behavior, ethics and morality, on the border of which cruelty dozed. Violent people become violent for many reasons:
- Overestimated or underestimated self-esteem. Dissatisfaction with life and yourself.
- The concepts of morality and morality have lost their power.
- Self-affirmation in a distorted form as a misunderstanding of the ways of self-preservation.
- Childhood fears, preserved in adult life in people who faced indifference, cruel punishments and a strict regime of upbringing in childhood.
- Demonstration of one's greatness and power in humiliating, mocking words, oppression and suppression, violence, murders. Sadism - highest form cruelty.
- Pride and, as a result, a sense of revenge.
- Concealment of personal complexes due to inferiority and weakness.
- The manifestation of inhumanity in inaction, the enjoyment of it, the deliberate refusal to help.
Permissible cruelty
To better understand what cruelty is, you need to consider it as a reaction to intolerable circumstances that threaten the existence of a person. And the more violent they are, the more the response goes off scale.
The psychology of cruelty is a fine line on which good and evil balance. Is it possible to be a harmless, sympathetic, compliant person for everyone if you are faced with meanness, injustice, humiliation and insults? I think no. And the cruel ones are feared, shunned, sometimes even respected.
A tough person is a strong personality. Kindness cannot be opposed to cruelty, if it depends human life. Therefore, cruelty must be developed not for violence, but in order to resist it.
Why do cruel people exist? Man by nature is a predator. If you look back at the whole history, then the wars with the most severe destruction of all living things cannot be counted. Therefore, in any developed society, laws are necessary, the violation of which is fraught with severe punishment. Cruelty is an integral part of life, which means that you need to learn to live and fight with it, to look for new models of behavior.
Examples of cruelty in everyday life
Every person at least once asked what is also cruelty, examples of which are found all the time. All media are simply full of reports of atrocities and violence. Television, radio, the press, the Internet, fiction and non-fiction, history books - everywhere you can come across examples of cruelty.
Any historical social system, kings, serfdom, wars, repressions - everything is riddled with cruelty. The cult of cruelty in religions, sacrifice, aggression, intimidation, abuse of power, the off-scale level of crime and impunity, terrorism are also cruelty.
IN family life examples of cruelty can be the suppression of will, energy vampirism, the creation of obstacles in the implementation of intellectual, creative and professional opportunities, all kinds of prohibitions in planning offspring, budget, leisure, etc.
And, of course, cruelty to animals is an abyss from which it is impossible to get out. If a person is able to offend a dumb creature, then it is already difficult to call him a person.
What is cruelty in the children's world
Very often, cruelty manifests itself in children who are out of control. The cruelty of children is primarily associated with unfavorable relationships in the family. Lack of respect between family members, frequent quarrels in the presence of children reduce the level of trust in parents, which causes anger and aggression in the child.
Attention, care, patience, frankness will help protect children from cruelty. Very important personal an example to follow. The absence of cruelty on the part of parents to children and people around them will raise respect in the family to the proper level. Seeing and appreciating a child's personality, taking into account his opinions and interests, trying to see the world through his eyes is the key to success in the eternal world. the problem of fathers and children.
How to overcome cruelty?
Knowing and understanding what cruelty is, you can take certain measures to protect yourself from it. Among them are simple methods and work on yourself:
- If you realize that cruelty is evil, then this is the first step towards solving the issue of getting rid of it.
- You need to love yourself, people and everything the world, thereby get rid of internal fears.
- You need to give to the world what you yourself want to receive: mercy, compassion, kindness.
- Increasing self-esteem, striving for success, public recognition is one of the effective ways to combat cruelty.
- Restriction of the circle of communication. Surrounded by kind and decent people, the world becomes cleaner.
Thus, cruelty is due to both external and internal factors that are laid in a person from childhood. We talked not only about our own ability to be cruel, but also about the very attitude towards such a manifestation of other people. Therefore, it is necessary to fight and prevent this property of character from childhood, instilling in the child kindness and mercy towards the people around him.
As often just yesterday, a person whose character seemed almost perfect to us shows unheard-of and unexpected cruelty to others. If you analyze his behavior before such situations, you can find some indirect signs of cruelty and aggressive behavior of a person (hereinafter referred to as the subject). Let's look at what you should pay attention to when getting to know the subject and communicating closely with him.
Everything is perfect.
You went on a first date, liked each other, and had nice small talk. Your new chosen one is well-mannered, restrained, devoid of nervousness and calculates his every action. Stop! Everything is too perfect. It is very difficult to control every little detail of your behavior, especially when you first meet a nice person. This means that a person has put on a mask and tries to appear better than he really is. The question is, what is the purpose of such behavior? Is it a great desire to please or a reluctance to show one's true self?
Egocentrism.
Everything must go according to the plan and desire of the person. He will never give up personal pleasure in order to please another person. If he needs to accompany a loved one to an event, while missing his favorite car races, he will choose the latter. We can say that this is ordinary selfishness, and what does cruelty have to do with it? Moreover, in any situation where there is a choice between the interests of a person and his partner, he will choose his interests, even if, at the same time, the second one suffers (physically or psychologically). The inability to put oneself in the place of another and understand the harm done is also cruelty, although not obvious.
Mood.
The subject has abrupt change mood if things don't go the way he wants. Its internal state is completely dependent on external factors. He does not have self-sufficiency, self-control and independence, thanks to which, a person behaves calmly and controls the situation (and not the situation controls him).
An expression of anger.
Frequent emotional outbursts, manifestation of anger, even in petty situations. Provoke a person to a conflict and see how he behaves. He can, because of a petty claim, sharply raise his voice, but quickly become the same. Or raise the tone of the waiter who brought the wrong dish. Or in public transport rudely scold a person who stepped on his foot. The most truthful emotions last for the first couple of seconds, and then the person regains control over himself and becomes good-natured and calm. Therefore, carefully monitor the first reaction of the satellite to provoking factors.
Impatience for other people's opinions.
The subject seeks, at any cost, to impose his point of view. And he is very nervous if he is dealing with a confident and conscious person who has his own opinion on everything. Giving advice, guidance is the desire to control someone else's life. And a cruel person does not recognize someone else's will and a point of view other than his own. If your friend began to nervously prove something, while interrupting and not allowing a word to be inserted, this is a bad sign. In future relationships, he will control every step of his soul mate, and impose absolutely everything - from the style of clothing, social circle and ending with the value system.
The man is a pathological liar. Because of the fear of being rejected, showing his true face, he lies, constantly looking for excuses for his antics and makes others to blame for everything. A friend does not like to talk about his misdeeds, or he finds excuses. As in the situation:
- Dear, where were you yesterday?
- It's a lie! Who told you?
Unusual situations.
You can find out about the unusual actions that the interlocutor did. Pay attention to the following: participation in extreme situations in which the interests of other people (animals) are affected, all kinds of pranks on acquaintances who, at the same time, experienced fear, resentment, disappointment. He himself may casually mention such adventures.
Forcing certain sexual acts without regard for the desires of the other partner. And even vice versa, knowing about the unwillingness of a person to do something, the desire to achieve this at any cost. The subject does not have an internal boundary, and each time he will invent more and more sophisticated sexual behavior, until an unforeseen situation occurs in which someone gets hurt.
behavior with other people.
Intentional provocation of conflict situations, defiant behavior in society. The subject chooses a victim who is weaker than him (physically, mentally), and with his equals he tries to behave with restraint, to control his actions. Remember if you had situations when in a dangerous situation (hooligans in the alley, aggression of wild dogs, etc.) your companion behaved suspiciously, showed cowardice?
For example, you walked holding hands, and a crowd of young people passed by who asked for a cigarette. And your young man at the same time, the hand twitched, betraying fear, unpreparedness for protection. If passers-by demanded money, your companion could well leave you and run away. The most interesting thing is that such a person will then find a million reasons to justify his behavior, ranging from rushing to the last tram to a sharp anticipation of a suddenly turned on iron at home.
Family behavior.
In relationships, a person seeks to take a dominant place, while humiliating the dignity of loved ones. If he is not rebuffed, he becomes convinced of the correctness of his behavior and aggravates the abuse. An indirect sign of cruelty in the family can be a biased attitude towards children, in which it is important not to understand the situation, but to find the child’s guilt and a reason for subsequent punishment.
It is very difficult to immediately reveal the hidden cruelty of the interlocutor. This can only be done when a stressful situation arises in which a person cannot control himself and behaves naturally. At great desire, you can specifically create such a situation in order to look at the reaction of a new acquaintance. In any case, if even a few points described in this article are present in a person’s behavior, it is worth looking at it more closely and objectively. And draw conclusions on further communication with him.
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