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Tag: Human Nature

“The freedom and exhilaration of moral insensibility” (Newsletter)William Hogarth (1697–1764) The reward of cruelty, 1751 from series Four stages of cruelty
William Hogarth (1697–1764) The reward of cruelty, 1751, from series Four stages of cruelty (engraving) See note at end of post. Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne

“The freedom and exhilaration of moral insensibility” (Newsletter)

Published by Admin on October 25, 2021

This is a difficult subject, but recently it’s been bothering me a lot and it’s all Steve Bannon’s fault.

Let’s say you hate something—anything from water pollution to child trafficking—with a passion. Maybe a kid you know got poisoned by PCBs or disappeared. You loathe it so much, you feel, that if you ever captured a trafficker or a polluter you would gladly torture him. Better yet, get someone else to do it and enjoy their suffering vicariously.

Maybe you wouldn’t get off on that, but mightn’t you titter at someone slipping on a banana peel? That’s a mild form of schadenfreude, and we’ve all felt it at some point in our lives. We’re talking about human

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