Alexander Mitscherlich
TWO KINDS OF CRUELTY
Brutal and cruel behavior by man to man punctuates the
story of mankind . Cruelty reaches even into our fantasies about the
next life . According to Christian belief, the horror of hellish punish–
ment pursues the sinner into eternity. At the same time , the central
cultural drama of Christianity, the passion of the crucifixion, is a cruel
scene of execution . Hell symbolizes a definitive , eternal , and cruel
punishment for infractions against the law. Nevertheless , this inexor–
able, cruel execution is to be acknowledged as an element of God's
absolute goodness, power, and justice, as if God had no other way to
negate cruelty than by means of cruelty.
There are other paradoxes in regard to cruelty. When an individ–
ual offence is in question , one is threatened with criminal punishment.
The accusation is mainly based on the hypothesis of free will : the
individual , it is assumed , could have avoided acting cruelly. On the
other hand, and at other times , society induces thousands upon
thousands of its members to visit the most cruel treatment upon its
enemies . Guilt , we see , is dealt with on a group level very differently
from guilt in an individual.
We can use these collective outbursts of rage to differentiate
between cruelty and the impulse toward destruction . Cruelty is
characterized by a distracting , pain-evoking and anxiety-evoking
behavior towards members of our own species . But cruelty is not the
only kind of aggressive-destructive behavior. In reckless passion we
have destroyed large tracts of the natural ecology . The numerous
