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BULLYING PULPIT - When I was 10 or 11, I joined up with a group of girls at summer camp to single out a tall, gawky campmate who had reached puberty much earlier than the rest of us. Ganging up on Ilene was a way to bond with the other girls, to reassure myself that I wasn’t an undesirable outsider like her. There was a brief, intoxicating sense of power in it that quickly curdled into guilt when her mom came to speak to the camp counselor about her daughter’s misery.
While I’m embarrassed by this memory, I think under the right circumstances almost all of us are capable of being cruel. It often arises when we’re repulsed by our own insecurity or weakness. We then project it onto others so we can avoid feeling bad about ourselves.
Cruelty is also a tool of power. From authoritarian rulers to internet trolls, cruelty is often disguised as strength, when instead it reveals a profound weakness—an inability to engage with others in good faith. Right now we see it playing out in the White House, as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to assert his control through fear, modeling the dictators he coddles. “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president,” explains journalist Ezra Klein. Terrorists use terror because they know it’s the only tool they have.
When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness.
As a child of Holocaust survivors, the president’s public displays of callousness chill me. His proud, unapologetic heartlessness reminds me how humans are capable of unspeakable brutality. Yale University psychology professor Paul Bloom describes cruelty as even worse than dehumanization. Dehumanization is what enables soldiers to enter into battle and kill without moral paralysis. By contrast, Bloom writes, “Cruelty is when you act fully aware of the humanity of the persons you are mistreating or humiliating. In fact, that’s the whole point.”
This sadistic streak was fully evident when Trump and Vice President JD Vance ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, making him grovel for an empty deal and publicly humiliating him for being insufficiently submissive. That the meeting was even televised made it feel like a gladiator fight in the Colosseum. Red meat for the masses. A signal that cruelty is not only acceptable, but to be celebrated. “This is going to be great television,” said Trump, smiling at the cameras as the meeting ended.
And that's what really makes this so dangerous. Because history shows us that cruelty has a seductive pull. The Nazis weren’t an anomaly; they were an extreme manifestation of a tendency that has existed throughout human history. When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness. And cruelty, when normalized, begets more cruelty. One sees it in how families often pass down abusive behavior over generations or how everyday Germans behaved under Hitler during World War II. “If you and I were in Nazi Germany,” says Bloom, “we’d like to think we’d be the righteous ones, we’d be the heroes. But we might just be regular old Nazis.”
Ultimately though, while cruelty can be contagious, tyrants fall not just because people oppose them, but because, deep down, most of us long for a world where respect is earned through decency, not domination. Through every dark time in history, there is always a counterforce—a fundamental human longing for justice and decency—that helps bring down oppressive regimes. In the end, cruelty is a learned behavior, but it’s also a choice. It’s easy to be an asshole, especially under duress, while compassion takes practice and intention. If we recognize our own capacity to be cruel, we can opt to counter it or at least refuse to nourish it.
But it’s not that easy. When I hear about the slashing of programs that will result in the death and suffering of millions or how trans people and immigrants are being scapegoated to serve as distractions from billionaire plunder or when Musk says that “empathy will be the downfall of western civilization,” I feel murderous. It makes me feel cruel and stirs a desire for retribution. Yet, if I let the rage take over, I have fallen right into Elon’s trap.
Recently, I was talking with my best friend from high school about Israel when she told me that Muslims aren’t like us, that you couldn’t think of them as people. My gut response was to berate and shame her. But instead, I chose to hold back until I could give more thought to my response. Two days later she called me to tell me that her partner was gravely ill. We still haven't been able to talk about her troubling words, but now I have a better idea of what I will say. I will ask her to share the pain behind her anger. I’m not sure what made her utter the words she used, but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Muslims.
When we do talk, I hope she can acknowledge her misplaced resentment and that we can repair our relationship. I hope I’m able to extend her some compassion and not lash out. I will remind myself that the world won’t get better by giving in to my worst instincts. If we are to defy the power of cruelty, we must choose—again and again—to respond with something better.
(Sarena Neyman, who writes a syndicated column for PeaceVoice, is a Massachusetts grant writer. This article was first published in CommonDreams.org.)
