Has Our Culture Normalized Sadism?

Human Cruelty–Is It New? Has It Always Been There?

I am deeply concerned with the jarring mismatch of online behavior, versus our personal interactions with each other.

My personal life, despite having a very large family, a husband, four grown children, 12 employees, and many friends–is quite peaceful.

I have had my share of strife, in life. But in any given day, the odds are good that all my interactions with others will all be positive, productive, and peaceful. Any differences of opinion can be navigated with fairness and grace.

When I go out to eat, or to the grocery store, it is extremely rare that anyone is anything but pleasant and helpful.

But I do not go a day without getting lacerated, online. On the road, too:

I am often flipped off, and several times since moving to Florida, I have been intentionally run off the road.

I assume this is because I drive an electric car, and political conservatives here are angry about the assault on oil/gas, and make assumptions about me.

(These assumptions are probably false, as I’m as pro-oil & gas access as they are, most likely. I’m also as excited about low-cost, clean energy as anyone–and dozens of people have discovered ways to create clean energy, and had their careers and lives destroyed by entities with a profit motive, rather than their discovery embraced and invested in.

I’ve invested in alternative energy, and followed the career trajectories of many people who may have discovered why human beings on this planet once had an endless supply of free energy. An exploration of history, beyond what we’re taught in school, will boggle your mind, about how human beings have lived in some periods of civilization. It hasn’t been a linear path, from the “Stone Age” to today’s high-tech world.

Even if I like my EV and as a libertarian-minded person, I believe everyone should purchase whatever car they like. I don’t think I’m saving the planet by driving an EV. But I did think so, when I first bought a Tesla in 2016.)

These things happen only rarely to my husband when driving the same car–perhaps because he looks like a person you don’t want to mess with?

I don’t know, these are just theories, but I’m a conservative driver who has never caused an accident that wasn’t in a parking lot.

I take my turn, I don’t cut people off, and I follow the rules. I can’t remember the last decade I got a speeding ticket–but it wasn’t in the last 10 years.

But let’s take a quick look at at four psychopathologies, or “aversive personalities,” as Dr. Del Paulhus defines them, who has spent his career studying the “darkness” in human beings:

Machiavellianism: people in power who seek to obtain and maintain power and control

Narcissism: people who are preoccupied with obtaining unearned status from others

Psychopathy: parasitical predators, out-of-control sensation-seeking impulsivity

Sadism: delight in the suffering of others

The problem with the research on psychopathology is that the Venn diagram of each of these personality disorders shows great overlap, almost always.

In other words, if a person is narcissistic–he might also be sadistic, too.

What pathological people have in common: lack of empathy, a desire to exploit others, and a tendency toward cruelty toward other living beings.  

And mental health professionals have not found any way to actually rehabilitate people with these aversive personalities.

Are we all too trusting, because in our everyday lives, we have mostly people around us who are not sadistic, psychopathic, or narcissistic?

So we just don’t “see it coming,” when one of these people enter our lives?

Consider that the most popular video games, Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto, have the player tearing people’s heads off and enjoying blood spurting out of the conquered avatar’s heads.

Consider that hockey games get more cheers from the fights, than from the playing. But when a player goes down, a hush comes over the crowd. “The duality of man?” We like violence, to a point?

Consider that Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV shows in history. So many people recommended it to me, that I tried to watch it. I couldn’t get past the first episode, when a child was mercilessly thrown to his death from a second-story window.

Do you think that the “duality of man” means that we all have cruelty and sadism in us, most of us, and we’d all better watch our back, and make sure that all our relationships have strong incentives to treat each other well, because anyone can turn on you?

That would be at one extreme.

Or do you think that most of us are kind, good people and would never do something truly terrible? The other extreme.

The Milgram Experiment disturbingly discovered that 65% of study participants would continue shocking the actors in the lab, on the other side of the glass, even when told that the person being shocked might die. Even seeing the subjects reacting to the electrical shocks with great pain.

One man in the Milgram Experiment kept administering the shocks, muttering, “It must go on. It must go on.”

It might sound like I’m trying to convince you that a majority of people are sadistic. Actually, I don’t think that. I just think “herd mentality” is real, and that when people in power want to encourage sadism, it comes out of some people who were previously reasonable, empathic people.

Recently, my oldest friend in the world, 42 years now, “reported me to the authorities,” for a Facebook post in which she did not like something I said in the 7th paragraph.

While my post was partly related to her, it did not name her or identify her in any way, and the post started with something very positive and complimentary about her.

I wrote about how even though she is absolutely brilliant, and knew before the general public knew it, that sunscreen was very toxic and causes cancer–but then, years later, she was immediately willing to get herself and her whole family injected with the experimental Covid product.

Now, you may say, Robyn, you must not reference your experiences with other people, and if you do, you must suffer the wrath of those whose experiences you write about.

Fair enough. That is one perspective. Mine is that if I do not identify the person in any way, I have also not harmed them in any way.

But does it surprise you at all, that people we love would default into assisting the censorship of free speech, and Big Tech and government overreach, at the expense of our oldest friendships in the world?

It surprised me. I have never seen her be cruel, vindictive, or in any way exhibit any psychopathology. In 42 years. My point being that even good, kind, loving people, when encouraged by “the majority”--have shown, throughout history, that they can be cruel and even sadistic.

I suppose I have thought, “That could never happen here, where we studied history, we said ‘never again!’ after every year’s unit on the Holocaust; we have enjoyed many decades of peace and prosperity in a liberal democracy.”

I would never have imagined that with humans evolving in so many ways, that a media narrative could make people cruel, even vengeful. Thinking that if a friend didn’t agree to the forced vaccination, they should be imprisoned, locked out of society, punished with the loss of their job.

But we all just watched it happen.

I have read extensively about people turning in the people they loved most, for “thought crimes,” to the government, in Mao’s Chinese Cultural Revolution, and in North Korea to this day.

And tens of millions of people disappeared, as a government van pulled up, the mother or brother or colleague “reported to the authorities” never seen again.

I can dismiss the death threats and wishes I have gotten, via DM, for well over three years now. These people are strangers, and we already know psychopathology exists, in small numbers of the population.

I am very curious to know if you think we have more narcissists, psychopaths and sadists among us, than we think?

Or do you think, based on your lived experience, that we all have this “duality” and it comes out, when the stakes are high–

–when we have the “majority” behind us, or billions of news stories, making us quickly commit to a popularly held cult narrative?

I don’t want to be a person who sees the worst in others. (Unless it helps me avoid a disastrous, parasitic relationship with them.) When someone took advantage of me in business, 25 years ago, a mentor and BYU professor asked me to go for a walk up Provo Canyon.

And on that long walk, he advised me not to let this setback and betrayal destroy my faith in other people. He told me of a study that showed that mistrustful, cynical people are more, not less, likely to be taken advantage of again.

It may have been some of the best advice I’ve ever given. As a 36-year entrepreneur, I have become far more cautious about who I’ll work with. However, I am also very determined to see, encourage, and appreciate the amazing, generous, loving spirit in most people.

How about you? Are you struggling to regain your faith in humanity? Do you think that people are overwhelmingly good, kind, fair, and want the best for others?

Thank you for your support of this blog platform. We highly value your support of our work. We don’t require paying subscription, but thank you for it, if you’re able. We would love your comments on this one. What’s your view of humankind?