Every day, continuous negativity of various sizes penetrates into our lives. The media helpfully report who killed, robbed, and ran over whom. Constantly various sources of information bring to our attention information about new disasters and political unrest. And the positive news, compared to the amount of negative news, is negligible. It seems that there is absolutely no kindness and goodness left in the world. Unfortunately, this stream has so “clogged” people’s heads that today no one even thinks about why people are so cruel? How can I change this? And is modern humanity really so soulless?
Main reasons
Why are there so many cruel people? The answer to this question should be sought in the causes of aggression. It should be noted that the manifestation of cruelty has many faces. However, it is not difficult to identify her. A person who causes pain to another, causing them to suffer, whether morally or physically, is fully aware of this and seeks to cause harm - cruel.
Psychologists identify three reasons why people are cruel:
- Dissatisfaction with life. People who are dissatisfied with their fate are quite often exposed to stress and depression. These emotions overwhelm their souls so much that they are ready to break free at any moment. That is why all the negativity is often spilled out by mothers on their children. Some people, out of anger, break tree branches and beat animals. This mental state is quite dangerous, since it threatens the owner with the occurrence of neuroses and mental disorders. In addition to all this, constant negativity seriously shortens life expectancy and leads to the development of heart disease or skin problems.
- Indifference. Very often it is this that gives rise to unjustified cruelty. Some people don't even try to understand how much pain their actions, and sometimes words, can cause. They don't think about how much they can hurt someone else. At the same time, the object of their cruelty becomes a weak creature who cannot show emotions and explain what pain they caused him.
- Suppressed emotions. Sometimes a person shows aggression “on the side.” This behavior is typical of those who in everyday life are forced to constantly hide and suppress desires, emotions, and impulses. Most often, such cruelty is characteristic of grown-up children (especially boys) who grew up in a family of authoritarian parents. Employees who are forced to unquestioningly carry out the orders of their boss, without being able to express their will, in some conditions can show extremely cruel ruthlessness.
Historical cruelty
The older generation likes to wonder why so many cruel people appeared? Everyone was kinder before. Listening to their complaints, you involuntarily agree. You just have to open a newspaper or watch the news.
People used to be kinder. It's worth thinking about. And before – when? Millennia ago, when cannibalism flourished? Well, these people can, by and large, even be justified somehow. They were primitive. And they didn’t know at all about humane treatment of one’s neighbor. Or maybe those who lived during the era of the Inquisition were kinder? Or during the reign of Stalin? Many people were in prison thanks to denunciations. How many of these “good-natured people” sincerely tried to present their neighbor with a “gift”!
Why does it feel like there are so many cruel people today? Of course, the media made their contribution. In the era of democracy, they pay more attention to manifestations of cruelty. It should be noted that the level of humanity among humanity has increased, which is why aggression is so striking.
The country is experiencing a moral impasse
Name three words that most fully and accurately, in your opinion, characterize the current moral climate in our country.
Sergey Enikolopov:
Perhaps we can get by with two: moral impassability. That was the name of a book once published in the West. It characterized the situation that developed in Europe at the turn of the 70-80s, when the old morality collapsed, and a new one had not yet been born, and people were left without a rut. Russia is experiencing something similar now. One ideology is gone, but we don’t have another. And people enter the arena with an existential vacuum in their heads, as a result of which they become easily manipulated. I saw several people who were traveling to ISIS (an organization banned in Russia). But there was a feeling that if another manipulator had taken charge of them, they would have gone to the starving children of Africa or somewhere else.
The most paradoxical thing is that everyone hates everyone. Each social stratum has its own objects of hatred
But this is more of an ideological impasse than a moral one.
Sergey Enikolopov:
One is interconnected with the other. Now it is difficult to say with certainty what is good and what is bad. The boundaries are blurred. There are no moral taboos. Everything is permissible, everything is permissible.
Relationships with family
All people tend to be cruel. For some this happens very rarely. Others show aggression quite often. At the same time, anyone can commit a cruel act, and quite often such outbursts occur in truly kind people. Unfortunately, all the negativity spills out on those closest to us. For those who are truly loved and very dear. Why are people so cruel? What makes them “take out” their anger on their relatives, and restrain their outbursts of anger with those around them? Why can’t you control your behavior when communicating with loved ones?
Yes, because relatives are not going anywhere. When communicating with strangers, a person restrains himself. There are many reasons: the desire to win over the interlocutor, and the fear of losing an interesting friend. In the case of a boss, intemperance can lead to dismissal. But when you find yourself in a circle of relatives, especially in a bad mood, even one word can make a person angry. That’s when a scandal breaks out out of nowhere. Of course, this is fundamentally wrong, but the accumulated negativity requires discharge. That’s why it spills out on those closest to us. They, even if you greatly offend them and quarrel with them, love them so much that they will still forgive.
Everybody hates everybody
The teacher hit the student, the student hit the teacher... One driver did not give way to another - he got out and took a bat from the trunk... The daily news feed is full of such stories. Anger, aggression, intolerance. How do you explain this from a psychological point of view?
Sergey Enikolopov:
Unfortunately, aggression is one of the best forms of protecting one’s “I” on a personal level. At certain moments, a person experiences certain threats, anxieties and fears because he is losing something: identification, work, place in the hierarchy, fame, etc. And then an explosion of aggressive behavior is possible. Take teachers, for example. They lost their Soviet status. Then the teacher was surrounded by an aura of respect and veneration, perceived as a sower of the rational, the good, the eternal. Who is he today? School has ceased to be a sacred place. A teacher can be humiliated and insulted. You can even hit him. The same applies to students. When I was studying, relationships could be sorted out either in the toilet or behind the school. You couldn't fight in class. If someone punched someone in the face in class, it was an emergency. Now you can do whatever you want at school.
Does aggression also stem from the fact that society is split along many lines? The poor hate the rich, losers hate successful people, locals hate those who have come in large numbers.
Sergey Enikolopov:
The most paradoxical thing is that everyone hates everyone. Each social stratum has its own objects of hatred. That is, it cannot be said that the poor hate the rich or vice versa. There are a lot of shades here. The completely rich, for example, hate the moderately rich, and together they hate the infinitely rich. Everyone has someone to hate.
It's easy to call such hatred irrational, but it probably has reasons. Which ones do you think?
Sergey Enikolopov:
In psychology there is a concept “I-concept”. This is a stable system of an individual’s generalized idea of himself. For example, the following “I-concept” is possible: “I am good. The world is fair." To support this concept, a person will give you many examples, although he knows very well that the world is unfair. But internally he has the conviction that the world is just, that it cannot but be fair. And when this belief collapses, the person receives severe psychological trauma. Why are previously unimaginable attacks on teachers and doctors now happening? Because this is the social status of these professions. Today, a school or a medical institution is a constant feeling that you are nobody, that you are despised and therefore you can be treated as you please.
Aggression is also generated by television talk shows, whose participants, from morning to evening, without mincing their words, wash their own and other people’s dirty linen. In the public space, things have become possible that previously, even in a close family circle, were often considered beyond the bounds of decency. Maybe our society is becoming more open and we should be happy about it?
Sergey Enikolopov:
Man is designed in such a way that he learns most effectively by observation. Seeing how close relatives squabble in public, the observer begins to feel anxious. How so? Am I really raising a little wolf cub now? As a result, everyone begins to doubt everyone. And these doubts, this uncertainty about human integrity, sooner or later result in aggression. It is no coincidence that when analyzing suicides in the West, the term “contagion” is used. If the media reports someone's suicide, wait for the next one. And celebrities make the greatest contribution to the suicide epidemic. Statistics showed that after the death of Marilyn Monroe, the number of suicides increased by 12 percent within a month. It's an infection. Infection.
Perhaps violence is just as contagious?
Sergey Enikolopov:
It's the same with violence. Having seen what some so-called law enforcement officers sometimes do, you are imbued with the conviction that if something happens, it is useless to contact the police. It is this anxiety, the perception of the world as hostile that forces a person to be on the alert all the time, setting him up to instantly rebuff anyone who, as it seems to him, is encroaching on his freedom, sovereignty, or even everyday comfort.
This is probably why today it is easy to predict the emotional reaction of the “average” Russian citizen to a request to turn down the music or stop swearing in a subway car. I must admit, I am afraid to make such requests.
Sergey Enikolopov:
Me too. Spend a day watching TV series about bandits, and you will get the feeling that you can’t trust anyone, there are lies, deceit, betrayals, and “set-ups” everywhere. And that there is no pain for the beaten person. An addiction to violence occurs.
Root of Evil
The feeling of anger is given by nature. It is necessary in order to mobilize all forces for the fight in dangerous moments. But how it will be used by a person depends on the moral standards instilled in childhood. If parents show aggression towards their child, it will definitely come back to haunt them. Relationships between children and fathers based on fear are likely to be adopted by the adolescent in his interactions with peers. It is in the family that one should look for the root of evil. This kind of upbringing clearly explains why people become cruel.
Although in this situation the child may develop another model of behavior: he decides that he is bad and is to blame for everything. Such a teenager becomes a victim of cruel treatment by peers. Often he does not even look for methods of protection, believing that he deserves this.
Sometimes the cause of aggression may not be violence at all, but overprotection. This method of education puts a feeling of permissiveness into the child’s subconscious. The teenager considers himself the most important and demands unquestioning obedience. Unfortunately, a person who was not taught by his parents to respect others will not gain this wisdom anywhere else. He won't even notice how he humiliates you.
Instability in society
An indirect cause of cruelty is growing anxiety. Social inequality and instability give rise to a feeling of discomfort. From TV screens, people again see cruelty. A person whose psyche is formed is able to distinguish the grain from the husk; he will not accept aggression as a call to action. A child will absorb on-screen scenes of violence like a sponge. And he can perceive all this as a kind of school of life. It is important to realize how much such television hurts the child’s psyche, and the answer to the question: “Why did people become cruel?” will be received instantly.
Egyptian plagues
There is a place in the Bible that can be considered as a kind of universal key to understanding human hardness in all its diverse manifestations. This is the story of Pharaoh, to whom God sends the prophet Moses to rescue the Jewish people from slavery, and at the same time speaks strange words to him: ... when you go and return to Egypt, see that all the miracles that I have entrusted to you, do before the face of Pharaoh, and I I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go (Exodus 4:21 ). Then a whole series of disasters hit Egypt, known as the “plagues of Egypt.” As a result, the frightened Pharaoh first lets the Jews go home, having paid them very rich compensation for their years of slavery. But then he changes his mind, goes in pursuit of them, and as a result, dies at sea. You can read more about this whole story in the biblical book of Exodus. - A.T. with all his army.
There is a blatant injustice in the above words of God. Still: You yourself hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and then began to punish him, and, in the end, destroyed him? It is not surprising that this very passage in the Bible turned out to be the touchstone on which first the Soviets, and then today’s propagandists of atheism, honed their wits. However, hasty conclusions have always been evidence of a not very deep mind. And since we are talking about a replica from the Bible, there is probably a direct reason to familiarize yourself with the interpretation that the Church gives to it.
Illustration for the fairy tale “The Snow Queen”, Kai Nielsen
Feelings of rejection
It is especially developed in adolescence. However, many adults carry these feelings into adulthood. Quite often you can observe a picture when a child exclaims loudly on the street and points his finger at a person with a different skin color or who has a physical disability.
Adults react completely differently. On a subconscious level, they experience a sense of danger. Immediately there is a desire to withdraw. But for some it manifests itself in cruelty and violence. It is this feeling that sometimes makes teenagers bully peers who are different from them. Why are people so cruel? Again, the instilled skills of tolerance and respect in the family will not allow a teenager or adult to behave this way.
How to defend a victim
Psychologists say that in a group it is quite easy to determine which people are cruel and who is a “lamb.” Therefore, it is recommended to identify a victim of aggression by the following signs:
- low self-esteem;
- diffidence;
- full acceptance of the view that trouble is deserved.
You should start with awareness of your “I”. Every person has a number of advantages and disadvantages. He is what he is. And no one has the right to offend him. Only by fully accepting this truth can you move further along the path of raising self-esteem and developing a sense of success. Parents can help the child in this awareness. For an adult, since the pattern of behavior is ingrained, it is better to use the help of a professional psychologist.
As a rule, being interested in some new activity helps a lot. You can even enroll in a martial arts section.
It is very important to think through your reaction to the offender. He will perceive you completely differently if the answer is different from his expectations. In some cases, a sense of humor helps. Try not to give in to irritation and direct a complex conflict into a joke. At the same time, learn to perceive unpleasant situations less acutely.
Dirt and sun
The words “I will harden my heart” would seem to speak of some kind of violent action on the part of God, which deprives Pharaoh of his free will. But the very logic of the biblical narrative directly suggests the opposite. The Monk Ephraim the Syrian draws attention to this: “If God hardens the heart, then in the heart that God hardens, changes cannot occur. If Pharaoh, suffering punishment, says: “I will let you go,” and after the execution has passed, he holds back and does not release the Jews, it means that the hardening of his heart was not from God, but from an inner disposition, according to which, during the punishment, he was ready to keep the commandment, and as soon as he gets relief, he flouts the laws...” Actually, this is how it all happened: the Bible directly says further...And Pharaoh saw that there was relief, and he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, Moses and his brother. - A.T., as the Lord said (Exodus 8:15 ).
Pharaoh himself hardened his heart, and no one forced him to do this, much less God. But nevertheless, it is obvious that God was somehow involved in this, otherwise there would be no meaning in the words I will harden. But the nature of this participation was completely different than it might seem from a superficial reading of the biblical text.
Saint Theophylact of Bulgaria writes about the reasons for the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart like this: “What does it mean - God hardens? It would seem ridiculous. But it is said of God that He hardened Pharaoh's dirty heart, just as the sun hardens mud. How? Long-suffering, for He made him cruel, showing long-suffering towards him. What happened here was similar to what happens when someone has a vicious servant and treats him kindly. The more philanthropic he treats him, the worse he makes him, not because he himself teaches him vice, but because the servant takes advantage of his long-suffering to increase his own wickedness, because he neglects this long-suffering.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse says the same thing, extending this principle from the biblical situation to all cases of human hardness in general: “The word hardens should not be understood in such a way that God, by His power, brought about hardening in the hearts of the disobedient, like Pharaoh, but in such a way that those who were disobedient in disposition, under the influence of God’s mercies, they themselves, due to their evil nature, do not soften, but become more and more hardened in their stubbornness and disobedience.”
Illustration for the fairy tale “The Snow Queen”, William Heath Robinson
How to deal with your own aggression?
The reasons described above give an idea of why kind people become cruel. But how to deal with such manifestations? What to do if you start to boil internally?
Physical activity perfectly clears away negativity. After all, sport teaches conscious control over your emotions and body. Psychologists often recommend mastering breathing exercises. It will allow you to control both body and spirit.
Find a safe outlet for accumulated negativity. Release your emotions with a scream. Just not on your family or your colleague. Shout where it's needed. For example, become an ardent football fan or attend rock concerts.
By the way, psychologists recommend this technique: stand near the railway in the evening. When the train passes, scream as loud as you can, as loud as you can. The noise of the wheels will drown out any sound. No one will hear you, but your body will receive the necessary release.
