Thank you, Helen, for this (for me) very timely reflection. I think this is very important right now indeed, as we are all so constantly stressed out and on high alert due to the unpredictable world around us.. Unfortunately, ‘speaking truth to power’ can easily spill over into trying to force one’s will onto the whole world…I have been thinking a lot about this recently and am trying to restore my old-fashioned manners and norms when out and about in public, as as a gift to my better self…I hope that I may succeed!
Your essay is very thoughtful and important. You name something many of us feel but struggle to articulate, the increasingly open delight taken in the suffering of people seen as “bad.” You draw a careful and necessary distinction between justice and cruelty. Consequences can be justified. Strong criticism is often necessary. But enjoyment of suffering, especially when amplified by tribalism and social media, corrodes both the individual and the culture.
Here is what I took from your key points.
You distinguish between those who commit material harm, those who hold objectionable views, and those who are simply symbolic representatives of groups others resent. You show how easily those categories get blurred. You defend the need for proportionate consequences and strong critique in a liberal democracy. At the same time, you argue that pleasure in cruelty damages character and erodes social norms. And your framing of dehumanization as shrinking the circle of moral concern, rather than literally denying someone’s humanity, feels especially clarifying.
At a gut level, this resonates with me deeply. It feels morally right. It fits with a virtue-ethical way of thinking that asks not only whether something is justified, but what kind of person I am becoming by indulging it. Even when consequences are warranted, delight in suffering changes something in us. I think you are right about that.
Where my mind goes next is to systems.
You focus, rightly, on the moral formation of individuals. But I keep asking what happens inside organizations and movements that live in the kind of environment you describe. The incentives of modern discourse often reward outrage, humiliation, and moral grandstanding. There is a real tax on the person who tries to remain proportionate and restrained. It costs social capital. It costs emotional energy. It can cost status.
Without leadership, systems tend to slide.
In my experience, the only reliable way an organization resists that slide is through leadership that does some very specific things. The leader has to name the boundary clearly and say accountability is not the same as enjoyment. The leader has to separate justice from vengeance. The leader has to discipline their own side when cruelty becomes entertainment. The leader has to refuse the cheap status that comes from humiliating opponents. And the leader has to offer a higher identity than simple tribal loyalty.
If that does not happen, what you get is a quiet struggle between individuals who have the moral framework you describe and a system that constantly nudges them in a harsher direction. Over time, many conscientious people simply withdraw to protect themselves. That is not necessarily weakness. Often it is exhaustion. The moral tax becomes too high.
I also think this is one reason religious traditions build in regular practices that reorient people toward higher standards. Whether one shares that framework or not, the structural insight remains the same. Individuals need reinforcement if they are going to resist corrosive incentives over time.
So I see your essay as an essential moral reminder at the level of the person. I would only add that if we want to preserve the kind of culture you are defending, leaders have to make decency cheaper and cruelty more costly within their own communities. Otherwise the slope you describe will continue to win by default.
Thank you for writing this. It is an argument that needs to be made clearly and without sentimentality, and you did that well
Hard to do. I started with myself my husband and children. They are the closest tribe I have and we all have a similar moral framework to work from and we trust each other. Good training ground.
Brava!!👏🏼 "To become someone who delights in the suffering of others and even seeks to intensify it is to damage one’s own character and psyche. This is the objection on a virtue-ethical level. Do you truly want to become that kind of person? To normalise these kinds of interactions is to empower the worst impulses of human nature and legitimise them. This is the objection on the consequentialist level. Is this really the kind of society you want to help create? What is likely to be the result of that?"
I have given a variation of this message to young students hundreds of times and it works! The better angels of our nature need encouragement, and examples.
I cannot act in any other way but to let you know how much I appreciate the inclusion of the following proactive red herring smackdown:
“These distinctions do not depend on libertarian free will—moral categories and proportional responses remain meaningful even on deterministic or compatibilist accounts of human behaviour.”
I wonder how things might change if we all reserved our judgements and admonitions for the members of our own groups who are misbehaving and representing us poorly, rather than directing ire at our opponents?
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’—this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."
I like to think I haven't become so corrupted as to revel in anyone's suffering -- not exactly. What I will own is a feeling of exhilaration whenever my faction gains enough purchase to decide who's right and wrong, who's sinned against whom, and who deserves to be punished. I'm old enough to know that the power is mostly symbolic, as real malefactors often end up going unpunished, and that punishment is rarely enough to deter future copycats.
Wonderful and timely exhortation towards doing better (in the meaningful and not obnoxious sense), as is the Helen signature.
I'd only add the explicit link between social media and the encouragement of sadism. Platforms reward engagement, and fellow users reward "dunking" on shared "enemies" with likes and re-upping and virtual back-slaps, etc. The [say hurtful thing -> dopamine hit] circuit has to be reckoned with.
What do you think of pranks? Isn’t a prank by definition enjoyment over another person’s distress (even if the distress is short lived)? The Georgia teacher killed this week in a prank gone wrong is certainly not laughing.
Thank you for writing this, especially the reminder that our default is to be cruel or socially exclusive.
Recently there’s been some intense drama in my 10-year-old daughter’s friend group. They were fiercely divided and each side wanted to think up plans for how to “ruin the lives” (their actual wording) of the enemy faction. And my daughter was enthusiastically in the midst of it.
We had to have a talk about how getting revenge only makes us worse. But much better than my speaking was the example of one of the girls in their group who said, “I don’t want to be involved in this. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad. I’m not gonna join in this anymore, so don’t talk to me about it.”
If we as humans - really, if I myself - had the moral clarity and courage of that fifth grade girl, the internet would be a better place.
If humanity progresses just the tiniest bit, as I hope it will, the use of laugh emojis in our time, when someone expresses sadness for themselves or the pain of others, will seem awful.
well done. we can certainly do better than the politics of schadenfreude. or reverse schadenfreude for that matter.
Thank you, Helen, for this (for me) very timely reflection. I think this is very important right now indeed, as we are all so constantly stressed out and on high alert due to the unpredictable world around us.. Unfortunately, ‘speaking truth to power’ can easily spill over into trying to force one’s will onto the whole world…I have been thinking a lot about this recently and am trying to restore my old-fashioned manners and norms when out and about in public, as as a gift to my better self…I hope that I may succeed!
Your essay is very thoughtful and important. You name something many of us feel but struggle to articulate, the increasingly open delight taken in the suffering of people seen as “bad.” You draw a careful and necessary distinction between justice and cruelty. Consequences can be justified. Strong criticism is often necessary. But enjoyment of suffering, especially when amplified by tribalism and social media, corrodes both the individual and the culture.
Here is what I took from your key points.
You distinguish between those who commit material harm, those who hold objectionable views, and those who are simply symbolic representatives of groups others resent. You show how easily those categories get blurred. You defend the need for proportionate consequences and strong critique in a liberal democracy. At the same time, you argue that pleasure in cruelty damages character and erodes social norms. And your framing of dehumanization as shrinking the circle of moral concern, rather than literally denying someone’s humanity, feels especially clarifying.
At a gut level, this resonates with me deeply. It feels morally right. It fits with a virtue-ethical way of thinking that asks not only whether something is justified, but what kind of person I am becoming by indulging it. Even when consequences are warranted, delight in suffering changes something in us. I think you are right about that.
Where my mind goes next is to systems.
You focus, rightly, on the moral formation of individuals. But I keep asking what happens inside organizations and movements that live in the kind of environment you describe. The incentives of modern discourse often reward outrage, humiliation, and moral grandstanding. There is a real tax on the person who tries to remain proportionate and restrained. It costs social capital. It costs emotional energy. It can cost status.
Without leadership, systems tend to slide.
In my experience, the only reliable way an organization resists that slide is through leadership that does some very specific things. The leader has to name the boundary clearly and say accountability is not the same as enjoyment. The leader has to separate justice from vengeance. The leader has to discipline their own side when cruelty becomes entertainment. The leader has to refuse the cheap status that comes from humiliating opponents. And the leader has to offer a higher identity than simple tribal loyalty.
If that does not happen, what you get is a quiet struggle between individuals who have the moral framework you describe and a system that constantly nudges them in a harsher direction. Over time, many conscientious people simply withdraw to protect themselves. That is not necessarily weakness. Often it is exhaustion. The moral tax becomes too high.
I also think this is one reason religious traditions build in regular practices that reorient people toward higher standards. Whether one shares that framework or not, the structural insight remains the same. Individuals need reinforcement if they are going to resist corrosive incentives over time.
So I see your essay as an essential moral reminder at the level of the person. I would only add that if we want to preserve the kind of culture you are defending, leaders have to make decency cheaper and cruelty more costly within their own communities. Otherwise the slope you describe will continue to win by default.
Thank you for writing this. It is an argument that needs to be made clearly and without sentimentality, and you did that well
Yes, absolutely. The only way to wind this back in is to police our own tribes for it and make it something that causes people to lose respect.
Hard to do. I started with myself my husband and children. They are the closest tribe I have and we all have a similar moral framework to work from and we trust each other. Good training ground.
Brava!!👏🏼 "To become someone who delights in the suffering of others and even seeks to intensify it is to damage one’s own character and psyche. This is the objection on a virtue-ethical level. Do you truly want to become that kind of person? To normalise these kinds of interactions is to empower the worst impulses of human nature and legitimise them. This is the objection on the consequentialist level. Is this really the kind of society you want to help create? What is likely to be the result of that?"
I have given a variation of this message to young students hundreds of times and it works! The better angels of our nature need encouragement, and examples.
Don’t let your fight against bad ideas turn you into someone who enjoys hurting people, defend the principle, not the punishment. Simple 😆
A tour de force as always, Helen 🙏
I cannot act in any other way but to let you know how much I appreciate the inclusion of the following proactive red herring smackdown:
“These distinctions do not depend on libertarian free will—moral categories and proportional responses remain meaningful even on deterministic or compatibilist accounts of human behaviour.”
I wonder how things might change if we all reserved our judgements and admonitions for the members of our own groups who are misbehaving and representing us poorly, rather than directing ire at our opponents?
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’—this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."
– Aldous Huxley
I like to think I haven't become so corrupted as to revel in anyone's suffering -- not exactly. What I will own is a feeling of exhilaration whenever my faction gains enough purchase to decide who's right and wrong, who's sinned against whom, and who deserves to be punished. I'm old enough to know that the power is mostly symbolic, as real malefactors often end up going unpunished, and that punishment is rarely enough to deter future copycats.
Wonderful and timely exhortation towards doing better (in the meaningful and not obnoxious sense), as is the Helen signature.
I'd only add the explicit link between social media and the encouragement of sadism. Platforms reward engagement, and fellow users reward "dunking" on shared "enemies" with likes and re-upping and virtual back-slaps, etc. The [say hurtful thing -> dopamine hit] circuit has to be reckoned with.
It is what Orwell attempted to do with Animal Farm, and was attacked for giving ammunition to the enemy.
What do you think of pranks? Isn’t a prank by definition enjoyment over another person’s distress (even if the distress is short lived)? The Georgia teacher killed this week in a prank gone wrong is certainly not laughing.
I am not a fan of those which make people experience genuine fear or distress, no.
Gosh so true and so hard to do.
Thank you for writing this, especially the reminder that our default is to be cruel or socially exclusive.
Recently there’s been some intense drama in my 10-year-old daughter’s friend group. They were fiercely divided and each side wanted to think up plans for how to “ruin the lives” (their actual wording) of the enemy faction. And my daughter was enthusiastically in the midst of it.
We had to have a talk about how getting revenge only makes us worse. But much better than my speaking was the example of one of the girls in their group who said, “I don’t want to be involved in this. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad. I’m not gonna join in this anymore, so don’t talk to me about it.”
If we as humans - really, if I myself - had the moral clarity and courage of that fifth grade girl, the internet would be a better place.
If humanity progresses just the tiniest bit, as I hope it will, the use of laugh emojis in our time, when someone expresses sadness for themselves or the pain of others, will seem awful.
I'm honestly surprised that this essay doesn't mention Charlie Kirk by name. Seemed like a layup for making the point.
It does, but maybe you thought it should make a different point. I also addressed discourses around his murder here. https://www.hpluckrose.com/p/no-excuses-for-political-murder-07d
Oh, sorry, I missed that the first time around. Thanks for clarifying.