Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!
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?
Probably not, although I think Ace is correct that even in the extreme historical examples there is often a "real point". I probably should have been more clear, but I meant something like "in all the examples I've heard of people using this phrase, it didn't seem true to me."
Can you give me some examples of things where "cruelty is the point"?
I'll concede on the lynchings and Jim Crow. If the goal is to torture and kill someone then cruelty is obviously the point.
Regarding the rest, and specifically abortion, I think you could still say that it's not accurate to claim that the cruelty is the point. No (or few) anti-abortion people are anti-abortion specifically to hurt women. They're trying to stop abortions from happening. Mostly because they think it's murder, but partially because they think that the risk of pregnancy will stop people from having sex.
If there were a way to stop abortions from happening that (somehow) didn't place constraints on what women could or couldn't do with their bodies, and it didn't conflict with any other beliefs of the anti-abortion people (like sex ed does with Christian morality), they would probably be for it.
The phrase "the cruelty is the point", to me, implies that the cruelty is the goal. If the people advocating for cruelty would take a non-cruel option that accomplishes the same goal, then the goal wasn't cruelty.
I'm not disputing that minorities and women have been the target of discrimination, but the question is whether the phrase "the cruelty is the point" is accurate. There are obviously times when it is, as in some of the cases you've described, but most of the time when I see someone saying "the cruelty is the point", they're referring to conservative policies on things like immigration or abortion, which have goals aside from cruelty.
I think that the phrase is often used to demonize conservatives. If the cruelty is the point, then everyone who supports the policy is knowingly cruel and malicious.
Your point, as I understand it, is that lots of policies both past and present are cruel to or unfairly impact women and minorities, and this suggests that the cruelty is the intended outcome, rather than whatever the stated goals were of any individual policy.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, I was about ready to end it as well. Thanks for the interesting conversation.
I'll probably be using this as next weeks weekly thread, but I would argue that current immigration policies hurt the non-wealthy which would include any white men who aren't wealthy. It's one of the few policies where I don't agree with any political party.
Not to break into my Econ schooling, but also DEI initiatives, social assistance policies, scholarships, grant funding, many hiring initiatives, and almost everything I experienced in many predominantly non-white countries overseas could be framed as "hurting white men" in the same way the policies you listed above. It really depends on the lens you use to view things.
Most of these (including things you mentioned) are put into place by the wealthy to maintain things as they are, and yes, some white men are wealthy. I'd remove race and sex from things though and draw the battle lines elsewhere, say "gross and abusive amassing of wealth."
I wanted to make sure I came back to this when I had the time in real life. For what I state, you should know that I was an extremely meek child and hardly a troublemaker.
None of these are made up or exaggerated experiences. Cruelty wasn't the point of any of these. The point was (in order) robbery, sexual gratification, power, power, and power.
Misassigning motive is harmful because it stops you from addressing the issues presented and assumes that people are "lost causes." I don't believe that to be the case. You can't fix something where the point is cruelty, because people can't get a fix of cruelty in other ways. You can try to repair other issues however.
We want the same outcome, but I want to find out how to get there without pushing people out of the solution.
I... Am kinda taken aback here and legit don't know what you're referring to. I could delete my posts if it would help?
I'm sorry if I pushed buttons I should not have, but I genuinely do not grasp the friction here and would very much like to. I was enjoying the discussion and was happy that a thread actually took off for us for once.
If this is a touchy subject that you would rather move on from, then we will.