Kind People Are Suffering From Cruelty Sickness

[babylonsister]

Kind People Are Suffering From Cruelty Sickness
April 7, 2021 / John Pavlovitz

snip//

I sense a corporate emotional weariness in kind people these days, the accumulated scar tissue created when you’ve absorbed more bad news, predatory behavior, and attacks on decency than your reserves can manage. Sustained cruelty will do that to the human soul.

There’s only so much contempt for humanity our minds are able process, until one day something snaps and we lose the ability to respond with the same urgency and resilience we once had. A low-grade hopelessness sets in, slowly replacing our activism with apathy and one day rendering us immobile: cruelty sickness.

Prolonged exposure to this kind of seemingly tireless barbarism begins to rob us of energy, to dishearten us to the point that we stop caring and opt out. This is of course, by design. That is what those manufacturing this incessant enmity are counting on.

The fatigue of decent humans is the plan: inundate us with a million tiny crises, assail us with countless daily culture war battles, and batter us with endless legislative assaults—until we are gradually but decidedly crushed beneath the weight of it all. Eventually, we succumb to the numerous wounds of their boundless hatred, the suffering of those they victimize, and a steady stream of the unanswerable questions about how and why human beings can be this perpetually cruel.

Maybe it’s a bit of necessary resting after the the last four ferocious years, perhaps an understandable emotional letdown afforded by the arrival of an adult human president and the feeling that we are not in a continual state of imminent threat from our government, or maybe it’s the welcome distraction of passing through the worst of a brutal year in isolation—but it feels as though our collective passions are waning and we cannot afford this.

So what do we do? What do kind people who are sickened by cruelty do to get well? We tether ourselves to one another.

more...

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/04/07/the-cruelty-sickness-of-kind-people/

[hlthe2b]

1. Yup... that speaks for me. Absolutely

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Right on the nail head.

Mean people are slowly defining our culture, because many of us were not raised to confront them.

[Maru Kitteh]

19. And we are now told not to risk a fight, and so they control the dialogue, they

frame the issues, control the perspective from which we are forced to defend simple decency.

[DSandra]

29. " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Good people have a responsibility and an obligation to stand up and defend goodness.

[OldBaldy1701E]

60. Yeah

But, after enough of those good people get destroyed, one tends to not want to be 'responsible'. I am just not in the market to be a martyr. I applaud those who want to be, though. You are a better person that I am...

[DSandra]

69. Good people need support

It’s much harder to be good and stand up when you don’t get support.

[DSandra]

30. We need to have a "fighter for goodness" training camp

Where good people can be trained to become fighters and cultivate a fighting spirit big enough to take on the evil in our society.

[ShazzieB]

53. I would SO go to a program like that!!!

Seriously, that is a brilliant idea.

[DENVERPOPS]

37. Top Dead Center!

Extremely well said,

[Thtwudbeme]

3. Responding to this so I can

read it when I get home.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Speaks for me too, except...

I don't want more community, even though I've focused on building community for 30 years. Now, I need isolation to try to regain a sense of faith in humanity. I may have to fake it til I make it.

[babylonsister]

6. Yes, faith in humanity is being sorely tried. nt

[Peregrine Took]

5. So true. I'm weary. n/t

[Demovictory9]

7. Yes. Thank u for posting this Babylonsister

[redstatebluegirl]

8. This is so true. I feel my soul hurting almost every day.

[kacekwl]

9. Today is one of those days

that I'm really in a bad mood. I feel out of sorts and angry at everyone and everything. After four years of trump misery and decades of republican obstruction of everything I've about had it. Even now when we have an opportunity to get things done the fight against them and sadly even those in our own party continues. I'm so fucking tired of the struggle for in my mind no good reason. Someday this will stop and we can live in a world that people will work for whats good for everyone and selfishness, greed and hate is the exception rather than the rule. I'm not holding my breath.

[GusBob]

10. In German, Weltschmertz

world weariness, or pain of the world

there is treatment but no cure

[chia]

11. In psychology there's a term for it: Learned helplessness. It's a state of mind that may occur

after someone has been continually subjected to a stressful situation they feel is out of their ability to control or change, so they stop trying to take control or make change. And even when an opportunity for change or control arrives, they may not take it.

[wnylib]

22. This is sadly illustrated in the movie,

Escape from Sobibor. It's the true story of a rebellion in a Nazi death camp. When Russian Jewish soldiers, captured on the front, were added to the camp's inmates, they also added their military expertise to plans by other inmates for the entire camp to escape. They carried out a coordinated killing, within just a couple hours, of the main guards and then rushed the fences and gates en masse. Of 600 inmates, over 300 escaped alive.

The film shows a scene in which one of the revolt leaders tries to convince a group of people that they are free to leave. The people look dazed and stay in place, refusing to move. They have internalized a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.

[chia]

28. +1 That's exactly it. n/t

[ancianita]

40. Thanks. It's probably the same internalized inability to move that Harriet Tubman encountered.

[wnylib]

46. Some people in horrific circumstances

are able to give in enough for survival, but maintain seething independence inside them, which comes out when they have an opportunity. Others are not able to sustain their inner selves enough to act when it's possible.

People can latch onto the most amazing things to sustain themselves. I read about a Jewish prisoner in a death camp whose job it was to pull bodies out of the gas chambers to cremate them. Most people in that situation lost their sanity eventually, but this one guy silently said a prayer for the dead each time. To him, it maintained a sense of dignity for them and for himself, and sustained in him a belief that there was something greater in life, and even in death, than Nazi depravity.

[John Ludi]

12. After

four years of Trump, QAnon, anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers, dozens of school and mass shootings and the lack of action taken because of it, the responses to Fukushima, the BP oil spill, Katrina, and too many other modern events too numerous to mention...oh, and four decades of independent reading and research in the arenas of history, psychology, anthropology, etc., any optimism I once had for the future of humanity and any notion of our innate "goodness" has melted into a tiny puddle of nothingness under the heat blast of a billion human cruelties.

[BigmanPigman]

49. Well said.

[Doc Sportello]

13. Fascism requires this

I feel the same way when there are so many out there that just have a screw you attitude toward their fellow citizens and have shattered the social contract that is a pillar of our democracy. I don't know what the answer is to this situation but we have to keep fighting or fascism will win.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. It has created mental and physical health problems and the right just loves it. National tragedy. It

has cost us friends and family. I wish I saw it improving, but I don't. I wonder what it would take to pull people together again. Nuclear war, famine, authoritarian takeover of democracy, a pandemic? OK, so the attempted coup and pandemic didn't work. That leaves two possibilities.

[bullwinkle428]

15. I've dealt with too many people who equate empathy with weakness across

all of my nearly 57 years on this planet, and that's become something that's actually celebrated amongst a large segment of our society.

K&R for an incredibly timely and noteworthy piece.

[BobTheSubgenius]

16. This condition has been described around here for some time, and I've observed it within myself.

I've never heard it called "Cruelty Sickness," but that's as good a name as any, and better than most. The important thing is that JP encourages action, which will help shake off the angui (yes, a portmanteau of my own) and provide some impetus to forward motion once again.

[hamsterjill]

17. Compassion fatigue

A very real thing and it’s very prevalent in many scenarios, one of which is animal rescue.

I know a lot of us on here do rescue, and the suffering, anxiety, uncertainty and cruelty we see and hear about adds up. It adds to the other stressors in life beyond the rescue business.

That’s why we need to always be able to vent to one another here - without judgment or condemnation.

[Bettie]

18. What is really disturbing to me is that

a whole lot of people seem to thrive on it, to enjoy casual cruelty, they cheer it on, they demand more.

That's where my feeling of helplessness comes from: there seem to be more people for whom cruelty is a good thing, a desirable thing, than there are good people.

[Elessar Zappa]

38. If it helps, remember that Biden

beat Trump by seven million votes. So I think us good people still have a slight numerical advantage.

[Bettie]

41. Yeah, that is true

but I live in a red town in a red county in Iowa.

The question then is this: Is it worth staying and fighting for better or time to move on and find someplace with better people? I don't know the answer.

[Elessar Zappa]

43. Speaking personally,

I would move. In fact I live in a reddish purple area in NM and there's way too many Trumpers here for my taste. I'd like to move to a blue city where MAGAs are less than 20%. I just don't have the money to move.

[Bettie]

45. My DH's job is in Iowa

and he travels from place to place in the state fixing some hospital equipment. But, we own a house in a town no one wants to move to and anyplace better is WAY more expensive to live in. So, we're stuck for now, but I've kind of decided that once Covid is done, I'm going to join some groups in nearby larger towns where there is a better pool of people who might share my interests and values.

[Elessar Zappa]

47. There's good and bad people everywhere, of course

but some places seem to have more assholes.

[pandr32]

20. My family is pretty fried

...but a few of us see some hope on the horizon and it is picking up our outlook.
Weariness needs a little self care and a string of good news events. The best remedy would be to see some serious accountability for the crooks that ravaged, and pillaged our government, our resources, the proceeds of our production, and broke trust with our allies.

[Probatim]

21. I used to think assholes were the outliers, not so much any more.

I'm weary of mean, stupid people whose sole purpose in life it make matters worse - even at their own expense.

There's a certain pride in being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. We're seeing families and communities ripped apart from this behavior and a lot of us don't know how to handle these conflicts or the people causing them.

It used to be we could ostracize them; however, with social media, they now have millions of others to bond with. To find new and improved ways to be assholes. And to revel in it.

We have to find a way to get past recognizing what's wrong and work to find a way to fix it. I don't know the answer to that.

[Martin68]

23. It takes real effort to not just let yourself go numb and look the other way. "How many times must a

man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see?"

[plimsoll]

24. I worry about good people deciding it's not worth the effort.

In fifth grade my teacher said that one of the differences in America was that in general, people paid their taxes and obeyed the law.

It's not the last 4 years, it's the last 40.

Systemic corruption of the tax system, failed enforcement on wealthy scofflaws, special loopholes and exceptions for the wealthy, it's no wonder people are upset with the system. They're forgetting it was not always thus in the US.

Simple traffic laws systematically ignored. We (US citizens) used to make fun of the fact that other countries (specifically Italy) didn't follow the traffic codes and ignored those. Now, I'll gladly compare the typical SUV or luxury car driver to Italians. I don't think we'll come out any better.

We're still carrying around this image of ourselves the the 1940's as saviors of the world, but we haven't been those people for decades.

[Elessar Zappa]

39. Remember

this country was always horrible for people of color, especially decades ago.

[plimsoll]

54. No doubt about that.

But instead of trying to make things better for people of color, we collectively chose to make it worse for everyone.

[hatrack]

63. We're running on fumes . . .

We've been coasting on our self-appointed role as the world's savior during World War II (though you might want to check with the Russians on that) and our secondary triumph after the Cold War, two events that wrapped up more than 75 and 30 years ago, respectively).

[DSandra]

25. Good people have to support and defend each other

It’s harder than ever to be a good person in a world where being good is being more and more of a competitive disadvantage (due to the proliferation of sociopaths, narcissists, and increasing corruption) and where survival is getting harder and harder.

[calimary]

26. A possible solution, humbly submitted:

Get thee to an Indivisible group!

Find an Indivisible group in your area. THAT’S where you can find the community, the fellow travelers, others likely to be active in their efforts and actually DOING SOMETHING.

That’s an OUTSTANDING group to which to tether oneself. Sure has buoyed me up, gotta say!

AND: the former leader of our local Indivisible group was interviewed on local radio a year or so ago. She prepared for it by reviewing the group’s activism and its rate of influence and success, and found 26 or 27 different issues on which they actually changed our “Blue Dog” congressman’s opinion - AND HIS VOTE - after our group lobbied him and pressured him.

It CAN work.

It DOES happen.

[BigmanPigman]

50. Great solution!

[DSandra]

27. American Society effectively breaks people to the point where they become passive

It’s why so much bad happens and the people feel like they can do little to nothing about it, and instead focus on eating up capitalism’s little rewards. When your being screwed day to day by soulless unsympathetic corporations, government institutions, assholes, and the general nature of life, and when society shoves so much helplessness on your face (from making it super hard to solve problems to government being super unresponsive, making it look like change and help is next to impossible), it has an effect of breaking people and making them passive and cynical, and possibly even wearing down their soul to the point that they are effectively converted into apathetic soulless money chasing capitalist (because money for one gives people a sense of power and control in a world where they otherwise wouldn’t get much if any, as well as money being a potent drug.) Just think of what happened to many baby boomers, worn down by the tumultuous ness of the late 60s through the 70s, got caught up in the greed wave of the 80s. Keeping your integrity in this world when you don’t have support is damn hard.

[Oldem]

31. W.B. Yeats wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity."

I've always read that as the best being feckless. But this post suggests that the best are reduced to a lack of conviction because of the bombardment of crap from the worst.

But our own passion can't fail; if it does, we're lost. Whether it's from anger, or a feeling that we refuse to be treated this way, or high-minded principles, or--whatever--we have to find the motivation to fight back against dumpism, McConnell and his cronies, governors and state legislatures who constrict access to the polls, big corporations, misinformation from whatever source, or any other purveyor of crap. We can't afford to be passive.

We have to act beyond our community here at DU. We must vote. We must contribute to candidates who call out and oppose the crap and offer progressive solutions. We can't afford to let the repugs retake the House or Senate in 2022. If we can retain control of government for the last four years of President Biden's administration, more progress can be made, and more erosion of repug support can be attained.

repugs have already achieved the packing of federal courts at all levels. If they retake or split control of the legislature, they will have effective control of government at all but one level. But if dems retain control of the legislature, new seats can be added to courts at all levels, not just the Supreme Court, and the influence of dumpist judges can be nullified.

We have to be active. We have to fight for our freedom. We can't "...lack all conviction...."

[ancianita]

44. Good idea for DU. Keep up continuous fundraising for candidates against 10 Repub incumbents.

Action raises hope and energy.

[Pepsidog]

32. Well said. We are tired of getting screwed over at every turn.

[MontanaMama]

33. This speaks for me as an individual and as a mother.

Life feels like a delicate dance of shielding against meanness and cruelty, finding the strength to fight back when it is necessary and modeling those behaviors for my son so that he can learn them as well. I believe my sig line says it all.

[G_j]

34. Howard Zinn

In his 2002 autobiography You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, Howard Zinn wrote:

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

There was nothing naive or sentimental about Zinn’s positions. He had seen firsthand the worst that humanity was capable of, and simply chose to confront it as a challenge rather than accept it as our final destiny.

[Peregrine Took]

36. Or "You can't stand still on a moving train."

Excellent analogy.

[calimary]

59. That's a GREAT quote!!!

Howard Zinn. Gotta make a note!

[yonder]

35. What an excellent, timely post and comments!

And one of the best I've ever seen on DU. Without meaning to be self-centered, it's almost as if Mr. Pavlovitz took a journey to my own mind with a chair and notepad, sat down, observed, then started writing.

So many times a person can't quite put a finger on the source of their increasing hopelessness. This helps explain reasons for it while also pointing out that kind and sensitive thinking people are not alone with these feelings either.

Thank you for this babylonsister, it pretty much made my day.

[Grammy23]

42. Perfect. My husband and I have rented a cabin in North Georgia along with

my niece and her husband. We’ve all been vaccinated and have been careful in our comings and going’s, wearing masks, etc. We are going to hang out, play games, cook good food and utilize the hot tub. The whole point is to reconnect after more than a year apart and just relax and enjoy the forest and peace of the mountains. We’ll go on April 18th ....I’m counting the days! We all so need this. 🥰

[lunatica]

48. This explains why I've become a shut in.

I can’t deal with shitty people anymore. My entire being recoils in reaction to people who are users, mean, power trippers and assholes. I’m so much more relaxed and happy with just my cat for company. It amazes me!

[BigmanPigman]

51. I understand.

I was doing more than OK with my little dog to keep me happy, until last June when she died at 17. I still cry all the time.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

56. I am a shut in too

For the same reasons.

Sick of sociopaths and narcissist assholes.

[Richard58]

52. I totally get what you are saying.

I used to be proud to be an American. I used to think we were progressing as a society and that one day we would be like Scandinavia with its universal health care, free higher education and a great social safety net. Those dreams were shattered when Obama became President and I saw all the racist hate and vitriol spewed against him. Then America elected a fascist by the name of Donald Trump and he made hate a virtue. I have watched hateful cretins become more and more bold targeting immigrants, gays. transgender people and religious & ethnic minorities. I see religious fanatics gaining more and more power and threatening our civil liberties. It seems like we are on a slippery pole to hell.
I am now embarrassed to be an American. We are a nation of science-denying, racist morons. Huge swaths of our population would rather let people die from Covid than wear a mask and social distance.
It disgusts me. And the fact that 74 MILLION people thought Donald Trump deserved to be re-elected totally broke my spirit! WTF is wrong with us? I truly despair. We are racing towards being a fascist society and millions are thrilled with the idea! All I have to say is, "Fuck you!"
I have seriously thought about emigrating to Canada or New Zealand. The people there are sane and not hateful asshats. But at other times I think I should stay and fight. But it is so damn exhausting!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

55. Good people

With empathy,compassion and a moral compass cannot thrive around sociopaths narcissists and other dark triad personalities.

These dark triad assholes live to abuse people ,make them hurt and destroy thier lives. It's what they do because of who they are.

Giving them compassion only gives them more ways to hurt you.

We as a nation have to do something about the dark triad problem.

Because dark triad people never get cured never stop the abuse and criminality and they can't be around us without causing us harm.

I think they need to be separated from us,into thier own society somehow,or the abuse won't stop.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

57. Cruelty sickness...

Do I even want to get started?

Decades of bigotry. Decades of loss. Even before TRE45ON, even before COVID-45, I felt like I've seen five lifetimes worth of death, and fifteen lifetimes worth of hatred and bigotry. But where things have gone over the last 5~ years are more horrifying than anything Wes Craven or Stephen King could've come up with.

I've watched over the years as stupidity has become applauded, and cruelty has been rewarded. That things have become twisted into a reality where kindness is seen as weakness, and nastiness is seen as strength. Maybe that would be manageable without all the loss, but.. Handling both?

"Leave them alone." "Get tough." "They'll grow out of it." "Quit being an elitist. You were the same way when you were their age!"

But it seems like all the shit accelerated to warp 9 after Baron von Fatfuck rode down the escalator in 2015. "Fuck your safe space" went beyond a catchphrase and became a way of life for... too many people. Where nothing is a safe space.

9 years and 7 days ago, in the process of volunteering for a charitable cause to raise funds for a high-profile nonprofit, I wound up being sexually harassed. We're talking sexual harassment that would make MF45 proud. That bad. Well, that wasn't the kind of shit I was there for. I was there trying to help make a difference. I was there in memory of someone. I was there to try to do the right thing. To this day, I don't know what my biggest mistake was... Being silent for 7 years, or waiting 7 years to speak up?

Over the years, I paid the price for rebuffing that sexual harassment. I went from being sexually harassed privately to being bullied publicly. Why? Because how dare we say "no" to the powerful and rich and famous. They have the gold, they make the rules. Conform or be castouts.

So, yes. Stupid me. Stupid, self-entitled me. Stupid, self-entitled, wanting special rights me. After 7 years of hell, I took a stand. I spoke out. I opened up about what I endured... What others endured. I couldn't take it anymore, and, I thought "Hey, I doubt *insert organization here* would want to be associated with this kind of shit."

Yeah, right. Anyone really believe that? You all want to doubt cancel culture exists?

Why clean up your house and deal with your shit when you just cancel a nonconformist, turd in the punch bowl like me? What's better for the bottom line - putting a stop to your very own Harvey Weinstein, or getting rid of a nobody like me? You think me taking a stand did a fucking thing? Right, and Rose McGowan is going to find real work again in Hollywood. And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a Ferrari.

So forget erasing us... Let's destroy us. Why stop at canceling, when we can go right into retaliation? Drumpf, or Weinstein, or Sandusky, or Moonves, or Epstein aren't the monsters... Us bitches who didn't lay back and enjoy it are! How dare we deny the chosen ones their "right" to grab us by the pussy? Let's just add more hurt to the harassment and assaults by destroying our reputations and turning people against us.

Here's your cancel culture. It's real. And the fucking QOP loves it. Speak out against pussy-grabbers with power and YOU (or ME) get canceled! Canceled by society. Canceled by friends. Canceled by family.

Cruelty sickness. Yeah. You got that right. Many of us have been made sick by the cruelty of these monsters. Try to do the right thing. Try to help others. Fuck our safe space. It's only natural to be worn out and beaten down and sick from all this cruelty. I'm fucking tired of this kind of insane-ass shit being treated as the new normal. I'm fucking tired of "both sidesism" and being expected to give equal time to people choosing to be assholes. I'm tired of hate being given equal time against equality. And I'm fucking tired of coddling the thugs while punching down on victims.

I'm sure this post comes across as insane rambling. It probably is rambling and at this point, I'm probably insane. This is the epitome of cruelty sickness. 21 months and counting of being canceled and being in a prison behind bars for the crime of speaking up.

America is sick. Trumpism is a disease. I'm tired of this prison beyond bars. And I truly hope Bidenism is the cure, because, we can't take much more of this shit.

Fuck the American Chemical Society.

[TigressDem]

58. When my life was at it's worst....

It seemed my ex who had tried to kill me and was still lying his way to a better life than I could provide for our child on my own...

Life was SO unfair.

Reagonomics.

The W Bush years.

So I decided to look for pictures of Sunsets and Sunrises. Because it was something so beautiful I HAD to believe there is SOME force for good in the universe. Seems silly in a way. But it led me to the Cloud Appreciation Society. LOL
https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/


When you can't get someone on the phone, you can still look for the beauty in the world and just let it fill you up.

[Delphinus]

61. Hubby

and I both feel this. Good article.

[niyad]

62. Bookmarking.

[kimbutgar]

64. I just can't get over how people who say they are Christians can be so cruel

And support the ex hate monger president. Who has divided so many family and friends and has caused so much damage to this country physically, socially and emotionally. And who has practically broken every 10 commandment. Makes me think Christianity is bunk. I was raised Catholic and are appalled by the Catholic priest attacking President Biden. Even the archbishop in my liberal SF is anti President Biden but loved the orange maggot!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

65. Kicked and bookmarked.

❤️👍

[Bluethroughu]

66. Somedays are better than others

But when you're on your feet, put one foot in front of the other and get something accomplished for the cause that day.

It is nice to wake up and enjoy the birds singing, and not be afraid to read the newspaper.

Thanks Biden!

[smirkymonkey]

67. K&R

[Hortensis]

68. What do you do? You just cleanse your life of toxic people

Last edited Fri Apr 9, 2021, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)

and influences the way you would your home if it became infested. Only it's much easier: Just don't go there.

The syndrome this article is moaning about self-induced. No one is forced to marinate themselves in online groups and articles constantly foaming over what the worst are doing elsewhere, creating and reinforcing unbalanced and unhealthy attitudes.

Break the habit, or addiction, by doing the many nice things that nice people have always done instead.