The origin of human cruelty--where does it come from?

Discussion in 'General' started by Makaha99, Feb 10, 2013.

  1. Everyone knows about the Holocaust, but there is something called the "forgotten holocaust" or the Rape of Nanjing (alternate spelling Nanking). The Nanjing massacre occurred during roughly the same time period (historically speaking) as the Holocaust (the Nanking massacre occurred in 1937). What the Japanese soldiers did to the civilian population was unbelievable, to me it was even worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews, Gypsies etc. I mean you had Japanese soldiers pouring sulfuric acid on a man's head to see what happens, raping 80 year old ladies and 1 year old babies, decapitation contests with a katana, slicing open pregnant women and putting the fetus on the tip of the bayonet and parading it around the street. And after the war, these soldiers had no remorse. I remember reading about a japanese lady who in the 1950s remembers overhearing in a bar a couple of former japanese soldiers bragging about killing chinese in Nanjing and talking about how far they could stick their arm inside a woman's genitals. Unbelievable....

    Even Nazis themselves were appalled by the violence. There were a few Nazi officials residing in the diplomatic safe zone in Nanjing who witnessed what happened and chronicled it....

    The Chinese population did nothing to provoke those japanese soldiers. Why was there so much hate against the chinese? It's not like how someone would hurt your wife or family member, and you want revenge. No....these civilians did nothing to the japanese soldiers.

    And these kinds of behaviors continue today. A couple of months ago, I heard this on the radio on the BBC World Service: they were interviewing a lady from an African country, I forget which one, I think it might have been the Republic of Congo. But anyway, she survived an ordeal where some thugs beat her up, and cut off one of her feet, threw her foot in the fire, then took it out of the fire and told one of her kids to eat her dismembered foot, and when her child refused, they killed that child. I don't even know how a person would even think of doing something like that.....

    So my question is: what is the nature of human cruelty?
    Are we naturally evil?
    Is it proof that we evolved from animals?
    Because believe me, in war zones, humans, especially the males, can damn sure act like animals. It's still happening in this world today in war zones, and I think it's utterly disgusting.
    What do you think about the nature of human cruelty?
     
  2. how you were raised, and in a "war" scenario preservation of life kicks in.
     
  3. Just a left over genetic gene thats slowly disappearing as we move foward, most people would be furious if that sort of cruelty occured today. Just look how people are treated in the middle east... Its is beyond a joke and it proves how far behind they are compared to the rest of the world i hope in 100 years violence nothing compared to now and our history. One can only hope. Peace
     
  4. Animals aren't evil, so it's not our link to them.

    I'd say it's our spiritual test we are burdened with.

    God gives everyone a dark side and test whether of how far we will go.

    You just gotta hope God doesn't give you a difficult test and I can't figure out why some get far more difficult test than others.
     

  5. yes, preservation of life prevails in a war sceneario....

    But what does 'preservation of life' have anything to do with torturing people, making them suffer??
     
  6. Wow, I had no idea about the 'Rape of Nanjing' - that's disgusting!!

    I believe every person has the ability to do evil, it's just if that darkness is provoked and unearth inside them for whatever reason. The nicest people you know can switch one day and that's it - they're the complete opposite of what you knew them to be like! Weather it's due to loss, mental illness or just pure ridicule throughout their life - it changes a person and can make the most strong minded people, so bitter and twisted leading them to do the most despicable things. I feel there's somehow a balance in the world, so for every clean & innocent person - there's a nasty, disgusting evil person.

    We didn't evolved FROM animals, we evolved ALONG SIDE them! and for whatever reason we developed a deeper conciousness than every other animal on the planet (well at least what's been discovered!). But just because we have developed a deeper concious and understanding our actions doesn't mean that will stop people from acting like beasts.

    I'm not exactly evil but I have my animalistic moments where all I feel is pure rage and dont see any reason whatsoever and take things well too far and I've done a couple things I never thought I'd be capable of! Sometimes people just snap I guess and the beast inside takes over.

    Not to justify things such as the Nazi movement and the rape of Nanjing but I know a lot of the shit the Nazi's did to people, like 80-90% of the people that participated didn't have a choice - it was a either kill or be killed situation.
    If someone was to put a knife in your hand and say saw someone's head off for no reason or it'll happen to you, your parents, wife and children - what decision would you make? I do believe some people are just born evil such as Eduard Wirths & Aribert Ferdinand Heim, who if you research some of their experiments and documents of what they did, actually enjoyed doing what they did, like it was their passion in life.
     
  7. I agree animals are not evil, they dont get satisfaction from prolonging death by torturing thier pray or enemys
     

  8. Killer whales... nuff said.
     
  9. Name says it all haha there are always exceptions
     
  10. Some cruelty is just some goddam eveil shit that wants to see something else suffer. I would make anyone that is cruel to dogs wish they were never born - tell that for a fact! Fucking assholes.
     
  11. It seems likely that humans are inherently evil to a degree. It seems like cruelty, up until recently was ingrained in Japanese culture. These aren't the first stories I've heard about the Japanese during this era. What pieces of shit, seriously.
     
  12. makahaaaa99

    torturing/making ppl suffer will come from mob mentality that your on the winning side, it does become u vs them eventually and YOUR ATTITUDE WILL CHANGE!
     
  13. I don't think people are naturally evil.. I just think the evil people are the ones with all the weapons.

    Everyday I interact with tons of people who have never and will never kill another human being.
     
  14. the 2001 movie monolith? Or those shadowy figures gathered around to worship it and then run the natives off their land into concentration camps?
     
  15. When I found out about the Nanjing massacare, at first I wanted to disown my own Japanese heritage (well I'm a quarter Japanese, half Chinese, and a quarter native Hawaiian), because I was so disgusted. And I understood why until today, some Chinese still hate the Japanese. Currently there is a dispute over some islands off the japanese coast, but several years ago, there were widespread protests across China (and South Korea--comfort women etc. but that is a whole other story), because in Japan, in school text books, all references to the Rape of Nanking were removed, as if it never happened.

    I believe that in some countries in Europe, Holocaust denial is a crime punishable by imprisonment. But there is nothing like that in Japan. Some japanese deny that the Nanjing massacre even happened. But if that were the case, why did Nazi officials and other foreign officials in Nanjing during the massacre see these things with their own eyes, and also photos from japanese soldiers were later confiscated which showed the atrocities? Why did people from all across the Pacific islands that were under Japanese occupation talk about the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese army?

    And the sad part is that since you dont' know about the rape of Nanjing, I'll tell you that it gets worse from there....yes, worse......

    The japanese experimented with biological weapons, dropping them on villages, they also had a medical unit that did vivisection (cutting open live human beings without anesthesia for medical study)--just incredibly disturbing stuff.

    Only a tiny handful of the top japanese officers were punished, but everyone else went scot free, which brings me to my next point....

    And this is the most disturbing thing of all.....is that supposed war hero General Douglas McCarthur brokered a deal with the japanese where the U.S. and it's allies would not seek prosecution of war crimes if the japanese would share information with the U.S. about scientific/medical information that was learned by the japanese when the japanese used biological weapons on chinese villages. At that point, when I found out about all of this, my heart sank and I felt like jumping off a bridge in disgust.

    The U.S. and it's allies were going to make a mockery of justice, just to glean info about biological weapons tests the japanese carried out on the chinese. If that is not the definition of disgusting, then I don't know what is.....
     

  16. Yeah I've heard of the vivisection and biological weapons tests and torture tests done by the Japanese but I had never heard of the Nanjin incident, I guess it was overlooked by the holocaust.

    It doesn't surprise me that someone along the line bartered for something or someone and people got let off! It's always the way, so many Nazi war criminals that are publicly known of were set free into society with no repercussions of their actions - a lot didn't even assume a new identity, as if it was a badge of honer to be who they were and what they did during the war!

    Just because it was carried out by the Japanese doesn't mean you should disown your heritage, it's not the race or country, it's the individuals. There's been so many fucked up shit caused in the world by us Brits in the past 1000 years but I wouldn't renounce my heritage ever as it was those individuals/sects that carried out those actions. You might as well disown being a human instead of the country you or your parents come from.

    And out of all I wrote you quote ONE LINE? lol
     
  17. #19 Makaha99, Feb 10, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2013

    LOL!
    I did read your entire post, and I like what you said about there being a balance in the world, for every nice clean cut person, there is an evil, nasty person. It's just that your one line I quoted was what my reply was mostly about.

    I like your idea about renouncing being a human being!! I do like humpback whales, so maybe I can get some scuba gear and try to assimilate into one of their pods. LOL!

    On a related note to your idea, on one episode of Spongebob Squarepants (yes, I admit I watch that riduculous animated show), Spongebob gives up being a sea sponge and decides to live with the jellyfish as a jellyfish, they end up stinging the hell out of him, so that shows how good that idea is, LOL!
     

  18. Hahaha I've seen that episode lool and I dont watch much spongebob (probably like 2-3 hours worth in total ever :) )

    I'd like to go and like with some silver back gorillas or a pride of lions would be cool lol.
     

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