@philosophyminis: #History teaches us that most people are only ever a small nudge away from being able to abuse, torture, and murder other human beings. We only need a reason to be evil. As the writer Aldous #Huxley put it, ‘The surest way to work up a #crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people that they will have the chance of maltreating someone.’ This is known as the ‘cruelty of moral indignation.’ #Nietzsche once argued that there will always be some people in the background of a community who will take great pleasure in some insatiable outburst of violence, all in the name of some holy or justifiable revenge. They will seethe at some imagined offence and take great pleasure in harming other people, because they will see it as a kind of justice. Huxley takes this idea further because he says that these moral crusaders will find no problem in recruiting others to their cause, because there is an element of righteous sadism to many people that needs only the slightest fuel to take flame. As Huxley put it, ‘To be able to destroy with good conscience is the most delicious of moral treats.’ And so, the manipulative will play these emotions easily. They will label something quite obviously cruel as being ‘for the greater good,’ and they will shed crocodile tears at some sad but unavoidable harm we need to do other people to reach some utopia. The road to Eden will be paved by the bodies of dead enemies and the mutilated ‘other.’ Beware those who seem to love the cruelty of moral indignation. They do not seek a better world; they seek only the pleasure of punishment. #philosophy

Jonny Thomson

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Monday 03 March 2025 15:39:13 GMT