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This weekly thread will focus on the phrase “The Cruelty Is The Point”, which may take some explanation.
Frequently on Lemmy (and elsewhere), I see the phrase in comment threads. In my experience, it has been referencing any policy that is contrary to a Liberal or Leftist belief that the thread discusses. I have found the phrase when discussing trans issues, housing, taxes, healthcare, abortion, and many more.
This does not mean it doesn’t exist elsewhere, it is simply where I see it since I spend much of my social media time on Lemmy. If your experience differs, please let us know!
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Do you believe this? If so, why?
- Is it true / false in some or all scenarios?
- Is it with certain groups or regarding certain things?
- Do you feel that speech like this is conducive to fixing societal issues?
- Is what is considered “kind” always the best course of action?
Honestly, there’s a lot of writing about this sentiment already which explains it in great depth. To understand it, that would be a good place to start.
But, yes, I absolutely believe it’s true in many cases. For example, the criminal justice system, from police brutality to prisons. There are many proven alternative methods to rehabilitate, reduce crime, and make society safer, and a certain political persuasion utterly refuses to consider any of it. Digging into their arguments, the only internally consistent explanation is that they want people to punish. It doesn’t matter if crime could be prevented and everybody made better off. In short, the cruelty of the punishment is the point, even if it means that we have more crime victims as a result.
I beleave your are correct here. however, I do want to point out that humans can have some very strange derivitive goals (goals that are formed to accomplish other goals).
Hatrid of The Other can be created by capitalism’s built-in hunger for human blood. Phrases like “we need to kill or deport X or we will become unemployed, run out of money and starve.” If you dont consistantly sacrifice human lives, you enter an Overproduction Crisis (literally meaning not enough scarsity) and the money becomes viscous. Anyone who is selfish or scared will treat the world like its kill or be killed. Any mechonism to make the process look and more importantly feel legitimate (civil, humane, “he was a criminal anyway”, a just war, slautering of unwanted “livestock”, killing of “hostile beasts”, etc…) is embraced with passion.