cruelty

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Cruelty (adjective: cruel : Middle High German: grūwesam ; derivation from this to grūwe: shudder ) is an emotional-mental attitude that creates a perpetrator - victim relationship, in such a way that the perpetrator gives the victim a special physical or mental attitude out of a callous, ruthless disposition or inflicts mental and physical agony.

Unlike brutality , which manifests itself eruptively in individual events on the physical level, cruelty is a basic mental and emotional attitude of the perpetrator towards his victim, which damages the victim on all levels of his being, through the perpetrator-side mental-emotional attitude and through brutal acts on the perpetrator side .

The causes and forms of cruelty have been discussed philosophically since ancient times, in Christianity in terms of religious philosophy ( theodicy ), since the late 19th century in terms of individual psychology ( Sigmund Freud ) and social psychology ( Theodor W. Adorno , Herbert Marcuse ).

In the legal field, cruelty is a decision category when defining a criminal offense as a capital crime : murder , (“Murder is a killing in which the perpetrator acts particularly reprehensibly”, “especially reprehensible” is used as a distinguishing feature between manslaughter and murder. “Cruelly kills who inflicts pain or agony of a physical or emotional nature on his victim in a callous, merciless disposition, which in severity and duration go beyond what is necessary for the killing. Example: starving, burning, torture, etc. ")

From a psychological point of view, the immediate trigger for cruelty is the absence of empathy , be it triggered by upbringing, socialization , practiced dulling or neurotic or psychotic processes ( psychopath ).

A form of enhancement to the colloquial term for cruelty with bloody bodily harm is the combination with the concept of bestiality : bestial cruelty (also synonymous : animal cruelty ). Example: medieval torture methods.

Certain forms of government and life situations increasingly lead to the development of cruelty: for example in totalitarianism , in war , in apartheid societies , class societies and the like. a. Aimed at discouraging the exercise of cruelty of man against man international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948 and the banning of cruelty as a crime, for example in the case of cruelty to animals by laws against animal cruelty .

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Cruelty  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Etymological derivation of the word cruel from grüwe: Schauder. The word has been used since the 13th century. from de.wiktionary.org, accessed June 21, 2013.
  2. ↑ Definition of "cruel" on rechtswoerterbuch.de, accessed on June 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ See on cruelty: Bruno Bettelheim: Education for survival. On the psychology of the extreme situation. New York 1979 / Munich 1982 and: Klaus Theweleit: Male fantasies. Volume 2: Men's Body. On the psychoanalysis of the white terror. Verlag Roter Stern / Stroemfeld 1977, 1978, licensed edition as TB by Rowohlt 1983-94, DTV, Piper 2000.
  4. ↑ Definition of "murder" at juraforum.de/Lexikon/
  5. ↑ Definition of "murder" at juraforum.de/Lexikon/
  6. ↑ brutally from Latin: Bestia - the beast, based historically on the observation of carnivorous predators , carnivorous prey hunters who prey after striking tooth and nail to break and piecewise gut .
  7. ↑ Descriptions of atrocities in a totalitarian system, for example in: Alexander Issajewitsch Solschenizyn : Der Archipel Gulag . 1973 .; And so: A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich . 1962.
  8. ↑ Descriptions of atrocities committed in wars: Thomas Klein, Marcus Stiglegger, Bodo Traber: War film. 2006 and Mariatu Kamara, Ulrich Dr. Mihr, Susan McClelland: The Girl Without Hands. 2010, ISBN 978-3-86800-386-4 : War atrocities against the civilian population of Sierra Leone: Chopping off the hands by child soldiers so that the victims cannot put a cross on the ballot paper
  9. ↑ Descriptions of atrocities committed in an apartheid regime, for example in: Mark Mathabane: Kaffern Boy - A life in apartheid. Ehrenwirth Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-431-02915-9 (original title: Kaffir Boy).
  10. ↑ Example of descriptions of cruel acts in a clerically dominated class society: Methods of the ecclesiastical inquisition in the Middle Ages: The Hexenhammer , Part Three . First edition 1489. Detailed descriptions of brutally cruel torture practices