[lit-ideas] Re: Virility and Slaughter
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 20:35:49 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
-----Original Message-----
From: "Richard Koenigsberg, Ph. D." <libraryofsocialscience@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Feb 3, 2005 6:23 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Virility and Slaughter
The implication of the passage below is that the officer is cruel
because he finds it "fun" to shoot and kill people.
However, the underlying meaning contained within the story has to do
with morality. It is only because his culture tells him that it is GOOD =
to
kill that he is allowed to express the sentiment that it is FUN to kill.
A.A. This makes sense.
Beneath every case of slaughter carried out in the name of
civilization, there is MORAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is not cruelty or =
pleasure in
inflicting cruelty that is the central issue (or problem), but how
civilizations come to define killing and cruelty as GOOD.
A.A. I'm not so sure of this. We Americans like to think we don't define
killing and cruelty as good. Yet we managed well enough in the Civil War,
Vietnam and other places. Plus we love our guns. Part of it's fear and
feeling small (same thing), but I still think it's a nearly universal enjoyment
of inflicting pain. Why else would the corporations do it, such as banks and
pharmaceutical companies? They're clearly victimizing the poorest no less.
Why domestic violence (even our illustrious president is reputed to have
indulged), child abuse, verbal violence, cruelty to animals. We love our
steaks dripping with blood, and on and on. There is definitely a pleasure
component in it or it would never be so widespread and so voluntary. (Picture
Lyndie English with a big smile on her face for example.)
Andy
Richard Koenigsberg
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