What is cruelty? Psychology of cruelty: causes and consequences. Indifference

The final December essay in the direction "Indifference and responsiveness" ...

Where does indifference come from? Can people close to each other be indifferent? V.P. Astafiev answers this question in his story “Lyudochka”. The main character comes to the city for a better life.

Introduction

Indifference is one of the greatest vices of mankind. This topic worries writers for a long time, because it is from the silent indifference of people that terrible deeds are committed.

Fragment of the work for review

People close to Ludochka contributed to the girl's despair, pushing her to commit suicide. Thus, the problem of indifference of relatives to each other leads to unconscious ruthlessness. But indifference often goes beyond the boundaries of the family. In the mercantile world, indifference leads to the fact that a person ceases to be a person. In I.A. Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”, the main character is presented as a person without a soul and inner world. He has no name, which makes him an ordinary person, no different from others. The world in this story is completely indifferent to everything. The people in it resemble the "living dead". The gentlemen on the upper decks of the ship are absolutely indifferent to those who work on the lower deck. These people are not served, no one thinks about them. The lower strata of society should only please the masters. Love in this world is also indifferent. This is a dummy, because the “real feelings” are shown by the actors for the money hired by the owner of the ship. The protagonist himself also treats everything with indifference. The purpose of his life is money and status. The culmination of this work is the death of the hero.

Bibliography

V.P. Astafiev "Lyudochka"
I.A. Bunina "The Gentleman from San Francisco"

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A man who died of an epileptic attack in the center of Irkutsk. A schoolgirl swallowing pills in front of passers-by on a playground. Homeless people who fell asleep in the cold and never woke up. The theme of people's indifference and the transformation of a part of society into an amorphous mass is more relevant than ever for Russia. An AN correspondent tried to figure out why people “turn off” their hearts.

“People call an ambulance without first understanding what happened to the person. Once we arrived at the stadium, where, as we were told, there was an unconscious man. It turned out that the guest worker just lay down to sleep in the shade.

Wedding Palace. Perhaps the most contrasting place in Irkutsk. Brides in cake dresses, doves soaring towards the clouds, champagne in the river - all this is somehow absurdly combined with beggars diligently looking for coins among rose petals. During one of the ceremonies, which I attended, under the next protracted “Bitter!” a homeless woman falls juicy upside down. Most people try to delicately avert their eyes “so as not to spoil their holiday”, and especially compassionate and just onlookers from different weddings flock to a tight circle around the old woman. It so happened that in the general confusion and confusion, only my husband and I performed a specific action - they called an ambulance. And while the rest of the guests at the wedding to which we were invited were already raising another glass for the newlyweds, we were waiting for the doctors - judging by the woman's dragging gait, she had a broken leg and, possibly, other injuries. Our friends at the wedding were divided into two camps: some took our act nervously or with a bit of irony (“Are you sure you came to the wedding?”, “Oh, you interfere with your grandmother’s work - how many kopecks she won’t collect through your fault!”), Others, on the contrary showed sincere concern about the condition of the woman.

Half an hour later, the long-awaited ambulance arrived, and its employee began to examine the victim. The fallen old woman behaved not quite adequately, and answered “No” to almost all the questions of the nurse. When the orderlies began to put her on a gurney, she made a noise and even put up a little resistance. To be honest, at that moment there were ambivalent feelings - maybe it was not worth it?

There must be a middle in everything. Even in civil position

“Our society has a civil position, only it is directed a little in the wrong direction,” comments an ambulance officer (let's call him Alexei). - Often people call an ambulance not because of compassion, but out of a desire to eliminate the "body" from their territory - an entrance, a playground. One song perfectly reveals this reality: “Two organisms are sleeping on the lawn. A kind passer-by called an ambulance. A passer-by cannot see drunken people. Give them in the face, these passers-by! I also noticed that many people call an ambulance, without first even really understanding what happened to the person. There was a case when we arrived at the stadium, where, as we were told, a man was unconscious. It turned out that the guest worker just lay down to sleep in the shade. Often, elementary disgust prevents the population from approaching a person whose health is in doubt, and humanly asking if everything is in order.

Alexey adds that such false calls take too much time from the ambulance, and because of this, the crews, unfortunately, do not always have time to arrive on time to those who really need help. That is why even in the manifestation of a civil position there must be a golden mean.

If earlier in the ambulance there was a sorting of calls (in the control room, a doctor and two paramedics found out the details of the calls by phone, sometimes they could just give advice to the patient), now the team is obliged to leave for every call. And this is despite the general trend of reducing the number of brigades and increasing the population. “There used to be a standard - one brigade per thousand people,” says Aleksey. “Currently, there are only nine brigades in such microdistricts as Sverdlovsky, Universitetsky, Raduzhny, Yubileiny, the territory up to the Irkutny Bridge plus nearby gardening.”

Another problem is that there is no clear regulation on what to do with people without a permanent place of residence and in a state of intoxication. “In order to hospitalize such individuals, certain indications are needed. The poison center takes alcoholics only in a state of severe intoxication - when the person is already in an unconscious state. If a drunk can give his name and address, neither toxicologists nor psychiatrists will take him in. And if the poor fellow does not have any chronic diseases, then there are no grounds for hospitalization in other hospitals. Therefore, sometimes you have to pull the diagnosis by the ears, just not to leave a person on the street. In addition, now ambulances are prohibited from taking patients to their homes (yes, many drunkards and “homeless”, oddly enough, have apartments), which could save them from injury and frostbite,” Alexei explained.

One hundred "likes" or zero real help

With the advent of technological means, many people have a reflex - at the slightest hint that something extraordinary is about to happen, take out a mobile device from their pocket, and not call an ambulance or the police.

“More recently, the following incident came to my mind. On the central street of Irkutsk, a man tried to set fire to the office of a company. By the time the police arrived, the man was near a multi-storey building. I accidentally raised my head and was amazed - from the upper floors, about 50 people were recording what was happening on cell phone cameras. Moreover, these were not teenagers, but adequate adults who worked there, - says German Bratchikov, head of the criminal investigation department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Irkutsk. - Anonymous activity, when people without a signature post a video on the Internet, is now very popular. Perhaps there is some psychological explanation for this - the desire to feel involved in something important, but, in my opinion, most often it is some kind of herd feeling.

Another cost of modern technology is the "sickness test" - various messages on the Internet calling for donating blood to some dying person or participating in fundraising for sick children. Fortunately, the Russians have already weathered the influx of fraud on this ground, now people have become more vigilant, distrustful and perhaps even more callous. A person, remembering the negative experience when the last money was withdrawn from the phone, will no longer be as receptive to requests for help as before. At the same time, the very format of the call for indifference instills a certain passivity in society: real actions (the same money transfer or blood donation) are replaced by a virtual one - numerous “likes” and “reposts”.

The head of the Volunteer-Irkutsk search and rescue team, Vladimir Kharitonov, admits that the Internet has become a spontaneous platform for various social and volunteer projects these days. However, according to Vladimir, despite the visible activity of citizens, only a few are ready to participate in volunteer projects: “The people respond very poorly. When people began to disappear en masse in our city two years ago, the people of Irkutsk became more active - about 2.5 thousand people applied to participate in our volunteer movement. Now, no more than 10 people actually work in the detachment. Although the problem of the missing remains one of the most acute in Irkutsk. According to my observations, it is a little easier for relatives of missing people to experience their grief when they see how many volunteers are helping them. The outcome of many cases with which we work is tragic, but we do not cease to lose faith in people and universal justice.”

Human society has been constantly and intensively developing for many centuries. Some epochs are replaced by others, progress in all spheres of activity has erected man on the pedestal of the dominant species on planet Earth.

One thing is bad: everything changes on the path of progress, but no one, with all the aspirations, forces and opportunities, could neither prohibit, nor overcome, nor cancel cruelty. This character trait, like many others, manifests itself in different situations, changing a person to unpredictable consequences.

What is cruelty?

Cruelty is selfish selfishness, envy, hatred and malice towards other people, towards life and towards oneself. This is the result of a lack of success in achieving one's own goals and objectives with intentional or accidental harm to everything around.

It's no secret: what you sow, you reap - cruelty breeds cruelty. Causing harm to everything around in order to obtain benefits for themselves, people do not think about the consequences that will not take long to wait.

Forms of manifestation of cruelty

Cruelty has different forms of manifestation: causing physical pain to a living being without any pity and compassion, offensive words, all kinds of actions and even inaction, and often unhealthy fantasies. She finds a loophole in straightforwardness and stubbornness, in mockery and deceit, in anger and unfriendliness, in intolerance for the mistakes of others.

The worst thing is when cruelty brings moral or physical pleasure. This is sadism. Moreover, people, animals, plants, buildings, monuments, transport, places of leisure, etc. suffer from harmful consequences.

Causes of cruelty

People are not born cruel. In society, there have always been norms of behavior, ethics and morality, on the border of which cruelty dozed. Violent people become violent for many reasons:

1. Overestimated or underestimated self-esteem. Dissatisfaction with life and yourself.
2. The concepts of morality and morality have lost their power.
3. Self-affirmation in a distorted form as a misunderstanding of the ways of self-preservation.
4. Children's fears that survived into adulthood in people who were faced with indifference, cruel punishments and a strict upbringing regime in childhood.
5. Demonstration of one's greatness and power in humiliating, mocking words, oppression and suppression, violence, murders. Sadism is the highest form of cruelty.
6. Pride and, as a result, a sense of revenge.
7. Concealment of personal complexes due to inferiority and weakness.
8. The manifestation of inhumanity in inaction, the enjoyment of it, the deliberate refusal to help.

Permissible cruelty

To better understand what cruelty is, you need to consider it as a reaction to intolerable circumstances that threaten the existence of a person. And the more violent they are, the more the response goes off scale.

The psychology of cruelty is a fine line on which good and evil balance. Is it possible to be a harmless, sympathetic, compliant person for everyone if you are faced with meanness, injustice, humiliation and insults? I think no. And the cruel ones are feared, shunned, sometimes even respected.

A tough person is a strong personality. Kindness cannot be opposed to cruelty if human life depends on it. Therefore, cruelty must be developed not for violence, but in order to resist it.

Why do cruel people exist? Man by nature is a predator. If you look back at the whole history, then the wars with the most severe destruction of all living things cannot be counted. Therefore, in any developed society, laws are necessary, the violation of which is fraught with severe punishment. Cruelty is an integral part of life, which means that you need to learn to live and fight with it, to look for new models of behavior.

Examples of cruelty in everyday life

Every person at least once asked what is also cruelty, examples of which are found all the time. All media are simply full of reports of atrocities and violence. Television, radio, the press, the Internet, fiction and non-fiction, history books - everywhere you can come across examples of cruelty.

Any historical social system, kings, serfdom, wars, repressions - everything is permeated with cruelty. The cult of cruelty in religions, sacrifice, aggression, intimidation, abuse of power, the off-scale level of crime and impunity, terrorism are also cruelty.

In family life, examples of cruelty can be suppression of the will, energy vampirism, the creation of obstacles to the realization of intellectual, creative and professional opportunities, all kinds of prohibitions in planning offspring, budget, leisure, etc.

And, of course, cruelty to animals is an abyss from which it is impossible to get out. If a person is able to offend a dumb creature, then it is already difficult to call him a person.

What is cruelty in the children's world

Very often, cruelty manifests itself in children who are out of control. The cruelty of children is primarily associated with unfavorable relationships in the family. Lack of respect between family members, frequent quarrels in the presence of children reduce the level of trust in parents, which causes anger and aggression in the child.

Attention, care, patience, frankness will help protect children from cruelty. A personal role model is very important. The absence of cruelty on the part of parents to children and people around them will raise respect in the family to the proper level. Seeing and appreciating a child's personality, taking into account his opinions and interests, trying to see the world through his eyes is the key to success in the eternal problem of fathers and children.

How to overcome cruelty?

Knowing and understanding what cruelty is, you can take certain measures to protect yourself from it. Among them are simple methods and work on yourself:

1. If you realize that cruelty is evil, then this is the first step towards solving the issue of getting rid of it.
2. It is necessary to love yourself, people and the whole world around you, thereby getting rid of internal fears.
3. You need to give to the world what you yourself want to receive: mercy, compassion, kindness.
4. Increasing self-esteem, striving for success, public recognition is one of the effective ways to combat cruelty.
5. Restriction of the circle of communication. Surrounded by kind and decent people, the world becomes cleaner.

Thus, cruelty is due to both external and internal factors that are laid in a person from childhood. We talked not only about our own ability to be cruel, but also about the very attitude towards such a manifestation of other people. Therefore, it is necessary to fight and prevent this property of character from childhood, instilling in the child kindness and mercy towards the people around him.

Indifference is the highest cruelty.
M. Wilson
The worst thing in our world is indifference, indifference and cruelty. Sometimes you look around and involuntarily ask yourself the question: "Where is this world heading?". Who will answer this question for me? Why is there so much cruelty and indifference in our world? Visiting various sites, reading people's comments, I am more and more surprised and horrified at how quickly our society is degrading.
A. Chekhov said: "Indifference is paralysis of the soul, premature death." People don't care about what is happening around them, they just laugh, mock at people who have any problems. Let's take, for example, people who are seriously ill, tell me how you can laugh at them and mock them? I myself witnessed one such case when teenagers, and not children, who seemed to be already adults, doing everything consciously and, as they say, responsible for their actions, mocked a guy with cerebral palsy in all sorts of ways. On any, on my part, attempts to explain to them that it is impossible to do this, they did not pay attention. Tell me, why are there so many heartless and cruel people in the world? How do their parents raise them in such a way that instead of understanding, capable of compassion people grow up, pardon the expression, such scumbags?
These teenagers forced him to chase them, and he, not realizing that they were just mocking him, tried to catch up with them, which of course he did not succeed. He believed that they were playing with him, trusted them, and they .... without a drop of compassion, continued their mocking games. It hit me especially hard and cut into my memory, the moment when this boy, a child (yes, he really was a child, because he believed people, not a bit doubting the purity and sincerity of their actions), during lunch, taking his portion , went to the table, and at that moment another teenager, older than him, passing by, pushed him, touched him so that this guy dropped his portion from his hands to the floor, for which, of course, watching nurses began to shout at him. They called him clumsy, they said that his arms were growing out of the wrong place, everyone laughed at him. You should have seen his face at that moment, there was so much pain, resentment, despair in his eyes that it was impossible to remain indifferent to this. He cried!!! It was at that moment that it was clear that he could no longer restrain himself, he no longer laughed and smiled, as at the moment when he thought that teenagers were just playing with him, and I don’t think that even at that moment he understood who was really to blame for dropping the plate. I think he blamed only himself for what happened.
People, change your mind! What are you doing? Where it leads? After all, this is the natural degradation of society, don’t you understand this? Try to put yourself in the place of these people, and what would happen if you were so mocked or laughed at? I don't think you would be happy with that. They are the same people, but, unfortunately, few people will really be imbued with my appeal and share my resentment that there are really a lot of cruel, indifferent people in our world and, unfortunately, their number is increasing day by day.