Understanding Suffering

[Pearly Di]

I need this thread to post in. I've already blogged about this on my Live Journal, but need to let off steam here too.

This morning I saw the most horrible story in the newspapers on my way to work – just happened to glance across the aisle of the train, where another passenger was reading a paper, and this item caught my eye.

It was an appalling story about how some vicious thugs had tortured a pet dog to death. The photo in the paper of the animal's pathetic corpse was ghastly. I wish I hadn’t seen it. I desperately wished I could get that image out of my head.

Now it is evening and I am at home and I can hear a robin singing in the birch tree outside and some of the horror is fading.

I’m not sentimental about animals (says she - you should hear me talking to cats.) OK, let me qualify that. I don’t like other people’s sentimentality towards animals *wry grin*. But I can’t stand to think of a helpless, dumb, innocent creature being treated with such revolting, savage cruelty. I can't stand it. :(:(:(:(:(:(

I hate humans.

I hate them when they do this.

I want to flog people who do things like this.

OK, so there are worse things in the world. There are little children suffering. People dying and being tortured.

But how can that be comforting, to set the death of that small dog against larger, more significant suffering? It’s as if that poor, pathetic little dog’s corpse somehow symbolises for me all the pain and ugliness that humans can inflict on creation, themselves and each other.

It's the specific images that linger in the mind and are so hard to erase. Somehow, too, you don't want to erase them ... you need to remember that such horrors do happen.

Suffering is awful and so hard to understand.

I feel the pain of it more and more. I feel for the world more and more.

I just need to cry here. That's all.

[Jnyusa]

OK, so there are worse things in the world. There are little children suffering. People dying and being tortured.

I don't think we should disregard or downplay cruelty when the victim is an animal, Di. Your revulsion against this is well-placed.

Torturing animals is an early indicator of sociopathy. The people who do that are a threat to all of us.

Jn

[Primula Baggins]

I am so sorry you saw that, Di! I wish human beings were not capable of such things, but we are.

Though it may be small comfort, human beings also cherish and care for millions of beloved pets, and though some children suffer real and terrible abuse, most are loved and kept safe by parents who would do anything to protect them.

That doesn't make suffering easier, or easier to explain. But in the face of something like that, I think it's easy to forget that human beings probably bring more good into the world than evil. That you yourself can be so hurt by what you saw shows that you are a warm-hearted, caring, decent person (not that I didn't already know that! ).

[Teremia]

Di, I'm sorry!

One thing that keeps going through my mind is how much easier it is to destroy things (or work evil) than it is to build things up and tend them. Think how much loving effort has gone into raising up the man whose life is erased in a moment by some bullet or bomb. How much work it takes even to keep a pet in good health, much less a baby or child. A person could be a decent, loving, constructive person 99.99% of his life, and the harm he works in that other 00.01% could undo the lives and efforts of many people.

So on the one hand this makes me despair, but on the other hand it gives me hope, because if the world is still muddling along, despite all the horrors and failures and cruelties that chill us when we see or remember them, that means that MOST people must be behaving MOSTLY lovingly by far MOST of the time!

(I'm afraid Teremian optimism is sometimes mighty thin gruel!)

[Nin]

The other day, I wrote a scene about torture. Truehobbit has read it - it is in my LJ too, but it's in German.

However, often the key to violence is unconciousnes. Many of the Nazi executioners did not think of their victims as human beings. I remember very vividly a passage in the diary of the director of Auschwitz in which he complained that the "units" were not treated quickly enough... so that he might not be able to go on holiday and see his lovely wife and children. The question of good and evil only exists if you are able to understand that what you do is evil. And maybe if you really understand what you do, you won't act.

[Pearly Di]

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and reflections. They are comforting.



There is so much sadness in this hurting world, but there is much that is beautiful and good too ... the traces of the Divine whose image we bear.

All I can do in my small corner of the world is share as much of His light and love as I am able to.

And, being only human, I will not always succeed in that all of the time.

But friendship and encouragement help.

Yes, Nin - people find it scarily easy to justify all manner of things by dehumanising their victims ...

Thanks again, everyone.

[anthriel]

Pearly Di... I am quite selfishly going to admit that the first thing I thought of when I read your account was... thank GOD I didn't see that picture. the second thought was: I am SO sorry that you did.

[Pearly Di]

I'm very glad you didn't see it, Anthy.



And, actually, I hope there were sensible parents who would shield their child from seeing such a thing in a national newspaper. Such an image would have deeply traumatised me as a child. I was very sensitive.

And still am. Which I think is a good thing. It's GOOD to be shocked by cruelty. But as an adult you can process your emotions. Children can't, they can only feel them.

That wasn't selfish, Anthy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There is good in this world, and it is worth fighting for.

Ahem.

Di, I'm very sorry that you were exposed to that horror. I'm afraid I am somewhat more cynical then the wise women that have posted in this thread. Its hard for me to accept that the good really does outbalance the bad in this poor misguided world of ours. But really, we have no choice but to make every effort that we can to increase the good. After all, we only have control over ourselves.

[Pearly Di]

Thanks, V-Man.

Thanks so much.

[Primula Baggins]

Well, I have had reason to study the general goodness and worthwhileness of life lately, and I am convinced of it, Voronwë.

[truehobbit]

I think it's when we look at the whole that it seems the evil prevails, but when we look at the detail and at individuals, we see all the good things there are.

Mankind as such makes a pretty poor impression, but then I only look at the last page of this thread and I see Prim and Pearl and Voronwë and Jny and Anthy and Nin and Teremia...and I could just go on and on for ages pointing to good people and that's just the ones I know!

So sorry you had such a shock from that picture, Pearl!

Nin, that story was grisly! *shudders*

Good example about the Nazis, Nin - but, in addition to what Pearl said, I don't just think it's only about "justifying" the violence but also "normalising" it. You don't have to justify to yourself what you don't even see as unusual behaviour.

A while ago someone recommended reading Primo Levi to me - he's not so well known here, I think - so I'm currently reading "Is this a man?"
I was afraid I wouldn't be able to read it, because last time I started on a concentration camp account I couldn't, but here, the account itself is mixed with thoughts about it all, so on the one hand that interrupts the story a bit, and on the other seems to contain some interesting analysis on the nature of evil (haven't read so much yet, so I can't say a lot so far). (Or maybe I've toughened and should take up the other book again, too.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The ensuing discussion regarding the morality of caring about animal suffering versus human suffering has been moved to a separate thread in Lasto Beth Lammen:

http://www.thehalloffire.net/forum/view ... 8769#18769

[Windfola]

The question of suffering in the world is a profound one that has haunted the faithful for millenia. It has been at the center of my own troubling and difficult spiritual journey for some time now. Humans throughout the ages have come up with a myriad of ways of explaining and dealing with suffering as it relates to the notion of "god". And though I have found some small comfort in learning that so many of the great religious thinkers have voiced my questions, I haven't found any of their answers to be satisfactory. It's not that I reject them intellectually. It's that I perceive a "wrongness" about the human explanations/rationalizations for suffering that hits me in a visceral way I can't quite describe or even fully understand.

That said, I just wanted to insert a brief post in this thread, mainly as a placeholder. I won't be able to compose my thoughts and write a proper post until after the upcoming holiday weekend.

Jnyusa: I'm also planning to post a few thoughts about non-attachment from Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy". I think the concept of non-attachment is a hard one to grasp, too often being confused with uncaring detachment, which is not at all what it's about.

So there you have it. A post from Windfola which says . . . . absolutely nothing! :D Aren't you glad I joined you guys over here?

I'll be back . . .

[Jnyusa]

Jnyusa: I'm also planning to post a few thoughts about non-attachment from Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy". I think the concept of non-attachment is a hard one to grasp, too often being confused with uncaring detachment, which is not at all what it's about.

That would be super, Windy. I'll look forward to it.

Jn

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Aren't you glad I joined you guys over here?

Absotively, posilutely.

[Sunsilver]

I believe such crueleties can only be done by 'normal' human beings (as opposed to sociopaths) if they see the person being tortured as less than human, or as someone to be feared. We fear what we do not know. In the past, rival tribes and cultures were often invaders, come to kill and steal. People were naturally afraid of those who spoke a different language, or had different customs.

I think there is a way to overcome this, though. For me, it's the central message of a book written over 2000 years ago. "Love your neighbour as yourself" and "perfect love casts out fear."

I think it is the duty of parents of whatever faith or creed to teach their children to hold life sacred. In medieval times, the victor in a battle would take his enemy's son hostage, and raise him at court, to ensure the loser's good behaviour. Often, the boys were treated as family members, or honoured guests. They learned the customs and language of the rival court. I am sure this custom prevented many wars. It becomes hard to lift your hand against someone when you have shared their table, and slept under their roof.

I think the modern world could learn from this. I'd like to see more cross-cultural exchanges happen with young people, especially those that are planning to go into politics. I doubt the States would be in such a mess in Iraq if they'd understood the culture a bit better before going in there.

...but let's leave that one for another thread!

[Maria]

I suspect cruelty and suffering are a plot device designed to make the whole experience more interesting.

[yovargas]

I suspect cruelty and suffering are a plot device...

Yeah, but who's reading the book?

[Maria]

I don't know if it's interactive entertainment or passive. *shrug* I just hope the author is paid well! I'd certainly hope all our lives are a best seller....