[lbo-talk] Re: sadists "sick in the head"? (was light of my life, maybe not the fire of my loins)

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Mon Sep 20 09:02:56 PDT 2004


Michael Pugliese wrote:
> Articles > Tikkun > Nov-Dec, 1993 > Article > Print friendly
> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1548/is_n6_v8/ai_14629906/print
>
> Sadomasochism in Everyday Life: The Dynamics of Power and Powerlessness. -
> book reviews
> Joel Kovel
>
> Other animals may exhibit aggression and be ferocious, but no other
> species besides the human is cruel. Watching the cat play with her prey
> suggests cruelty, but the similarity with human sadism is superficial.
> Take the mouse away, and the cat will forget about it until the next mouse
> shows up. The cat has an instinct but no desire, no longing to cause
> another creature suffering for sufferings sake. The mouse releases the
> instinctual mechanism, but otherwise means nothing. Finally, it is
> unthinkable that a cat would ever assume the position of masochism,
> sadism's subtle counterpart, and seek suffering for itself, as humans do.
>

what is the difference between 'instinct' and 'desire'? what is a 'longing'? if you took the children away from the pedophile maybe he watches oprah all day or fantasizes about big macs? how do we know what goes on in the mind of a cat, for us to know there is no 'longing' to cause suffering? chimpanzees live a mostly vegetarian life, but seem to have a 'longing' once in a while to eat monkeys, which they express by hunting them down and killing them. they seek out and kill the monkeys, not just kill monkeys that happen along. how do we define "suffering for suffering's sake" -- the chimpanzee ultimately eats the monkey, so that is not an instance of suffering for suffering's sake? but then a sadomasochist achieves some physical/mental gratificaion by inflicting suffering. what's the difference?

'behaviourism' may have been beaten to death, but does that mean we can now freely use poorly defined terms like 'desire' and 'longing' to make a case? as for assuming self-detrimental positions, members of various species actively do that (i believe wilson/sober's 'unto others' documents a few examples). of course it would be difficult to show that 'conscious personal gratificaiton' is at play rather than 'biological instinct' but that is only because, IMHO, the former words (conscious, gratification, etc) are ill-defined while the latter is not. well, unless you are an out-and-out behaviourist, in which case neither is 'instinct'.

--ravi



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