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January 02, 2007
Cruelty
"Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself. It only requires opportunity."
-- George Eliot
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at January 2, 2007 03:33 PM
Comments
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It's interesting to think of cruelty as a vice. I've always wondered why people could get enjoyment out of being mean, but when you think of that behavior as being like alcohol or drugs or gambling, then I guess it makes a little more sense.
Posted by: Fern R at January 3, 2007 12:03 AM
I just read something that I think serves as a good addendum to that quote:
"The truth is that the British and the French, like us Americans, are so peace-loving that it has always been hard for them to realize that there are gangster peoples going about the world seeking whom they may devour. We have all refused to believe until the very last moment that there were Dillinger nations prowling about with completely laid plans of evil portent... For in the makeup of the Anglo-Saxon peoples there is the extreme of humaneness that abhors cruelty and will have naught of it."
-Tom Lamont, 1945 (quoted from page 480 of Ron Chernow's "The House of Morgan" Grove Press, 1990)
Posted by: Jake at January 3, 2007 07:00 AM
Fern:
Yes, people are always looking for "motives" in crime. But if you look at serial killers for instance, they almost always kill for psychosexual reasons, and after a while it, literally, becomes an addiction that must be fed.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 3, 2007 08:48 AM
Jake:
Great quote. Explains why we are so slow to recognize human monsters like Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Assad of Syria, etc--thus it makes it that much harder for us to come up with solutions to deal with such leaders. Saddam's end was, if you think about, quite unique in the annals of history: we witnessed true justice for a true tyrant.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 3, 2007 08:53 AM
Sadly, Lamont had to learn this lesson the hard way. In the 1920's and 1930's he was J.P. Morgan & Co.'s leading proponent for investment in Imperial Japan and Mussolini's Italy. At the end of his life, he realized how wrong he had been and spoke out against deluding ourselves with high-minded thoughts about our enemies.
And of course, I highly recommend all the works of Ron Chernow. "The House of Morgan" is the only book of his that I had not already read. His books on John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Hamilton, and the Warburg family are really essential reading.
Posted by: Jake at January 3, 2007 09:49 AM
Jake:
Thanks so much for the recommendations. Amazon.com, here I come. Again.
If their stock were not so highly overvalued, I'd buy.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at January 3, 2007 11:05 AM