There is something to this. Research shows that if someone breaks a social norm, our brains treat their faces as less human. This makes it easier for us to punish people who violate norms of behaviour. It is also a dangerous delusion. The psychologist Paul Bloom argues our worst cruelties may rest on not dehumanising people.
The Nazis dehumanised and murdered millions of people during the Holocaust at concentration camps Credit: Reuters. For example, the Nazi Party dehumanised Jewish people by calling them vermin and lice. Yet the Nazis also humiliated, tortured and murdered Jews precisely because they saw them as humans who would be degraded and suffer from such treatment. Sometimes people will even harm the helpful. Imagine you are playing an economic game in which you and other players have the chance to invest in a group fund.
The more money is paid into it, the more it pays out. And the fund will pay out money to all players, whether they have invested or not. At the end of the game, you can pay to punish other players for how much they chose to invest. To do so, you give up some of your earnings and money is taken away from the player of your choice.
In short, you can be spiteful. Some players chose to punish others who invested little or nothing in the group fund. Yet some will pay to punish players who invested more in the group fund than they did.
Such acts seem to make no sense. Generous players give you a greater pay-out — why would you dissuade them? It can be found around the world. In hunter-gatherer societies, successful hunters are criticised for catching a big animal even though their catch means everyone gets more meat. Hillary Clinton may have suffered do-gooder derogation as a result of her rights-based US Presidential Election campaign.
Do-gooder derogation exists because of our counter-dominant tendencies. A less generous player in the economic game above may feel that a more generous player will be seen by others as a preferable collaborator. The more generous person is threatening to become dominant. As the French writer Voltaire put it, the best is the enemy of the good. Yet there is a hidden upside of do-gooder derogation. Once we have pulled down the do-gooder, we are more open to their message.
One study found that allowing people to express a dislike of vegetarians led them to become less supportive of eating meat. Shooting, crucifying or failing to elect the messenger may encourage their message to be accepted. In the film Whiplash, a music teacher uses cruelty to encourage greatness in one of his students. We may recoil at such tactics. Yet the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche thought we had become too averse to such cruelty.
Human history is marred with violence and cruelty against those who don't pose a threat Credit: Alamy. People could also be cruel to themselves to help become the person they wanted to be. Nietzsche felt suffering cruelty could help develop courage, endurance and creativity.
Should we be more willing to make both others and ourselves suffer to develop virtue? Arguably not. We now know the potentially appalling long-term effects of suffering cruelty from others, including damage to both physical and mental health.
The benefits of being compassionate towards oneself , rather than treating oneself cruelly, are also increasingly recognised.
And the idea that we must suffer to grow is questionable. Positive life events, such as falling in love, having children and achieving cherished goals can lead to growth. Teaching through cruelty invites abuses of power and selfish sadism. Here, we act from love to confront others to protect them from their greed, hatred and fear. For example, if a girl was raped by a man when she was 12 years old, unless she forgives that man and allows Christ to heal her heart and allay her fears, in that particular area of her life sexuality with a man her emotional growth will stop.
Even when she reaches her later years she may still have the emotional maturity of a 12 year-old. Hurt people are often frustrated and depressed because past pain continually spills over into their present consciousness. In many instances, they may not even be aware of why they are continually frustrated or depressed because they have coped with pain by compartmentalizing it or layering it over with other things over time.
Hurt people often attempt to medicate themselves with excessive entertainment, drugs, alcohol, pornography, sexual relationships, or hobbies as a way to forget their pain and run from reality. Until the church learns to deal with and emphasize the emotional life and health of the believer, the church will be filled with half-Christians who pray and read the Bible but find no victory because they do not face the woundedness in their souls.
Often their private life is different from their public life, which causes hypocrisy and compounds feelings of guilt, condemnation, and depression. Hurt people are often self-absorbed with their own pain and are unaware that they are hurting other people. This describes my oldest son. Also, I wish the church would go back to having steps to victory classes for emotional healing instead of finances all the time. A lot of people overspend to compensate for hurt in their lives.
Therefore if you treat the soul you can help the person in those other areas. By becoming aware of our defensive stances, admitting their origins, and acknowledging our need for change, we can take the steps we need to heal.
The process of change through admission can let us be loved again and let us love again. Most importantly, it lets us become willing to hurt again. Love hurts. Those people who rediscover that love is worth the pain, also find that they hurt far fewer people along the way to living fully again, because they can love deeply again.
Chip Dodd, PhD, is a teacher, trainer, author, and counselor, who has been working in the field of recovery and redemption for over 30 years. To read more from Chip, visit his blog , or check out his books. We defend ourselves from pain through resignation. We defend ourselves from pain through defiance. We defend ourselves from pain through compromise.
We defend ourselves, finally, through cowardice. Love can only be experienced through our capacity to be vulnerable and through accepting the vulnerability of another. Browse our therapists by location and setup your first appointment today: Nashville , Brentwood , Murfreesboro , Memphis.
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