Cruelty
and the aphrodisiac thereof...
Cruelty used to wear a mask.
It called itself Empire.
Called itself Order.
Called itself Civilization while stealing land, severing hands,
and teaching the conquered to thank their conqueror.
King Leopold wore Cruelty like a medal.
Another uses it like a ‘Stay out of Jail’ card.
Today, Cruelty wears a suit.
A flag pin.
A uniform.
A television smile.
It stands behind a podium
and says:
Be afraid.
Be afraid of the migrant.
The Muslim.
The Black child.
The queer child.
The protester.
The poor.
The stranger.
Be afraid of anybody
whose suffering might interrupt
your comfort.
Because fear is the funnel.
Pour fear in at the top—
and Cruelty comes out
at the bottom.
Cruelty committed:
the bullet,
the bomb,
the cage,
the child beneath the rubble.
Cruelty authorized:
the law,
the order,
the funding,
the leader who never pulls the trigger
but keeps the guns well supplied.
And Cruelty absorbed:
the quiet citizen
who watches, shrugs, changes the channel
and calls indifference “staying out of politics.”
But neutrality is a luxury the wounded do not have.
And Cruelty has become entertainment.
A rally laugh.
A viral clip.
A swaggering officer.
A politician proving his strength by finding someone weaker
and making them afraid.
Cruelty is sold as courage
to people terrified of compassion.
Sold as Christianity without Christ.
Sold as patriotism without people.
Sold as strength without the intelligence to understand consequence—
or the emotional imagination to recognize another human being.
That’s the Trick. First, rename the person.
Invader.
Animal.
Criminal.
Infestation.
Collateral damage.
Then Cruelty no longer feels cruel.
It feels like housekeeping.
But perhaps the most ordinary Cruelty does not carry a gun.
Perhaps it carries a phone.
Consider this:
A princess disappears from public view,
and because we do not know why,
we do not offer silence.
We offer suspicion.
We enlarge photographs.
Invent betrayals.
Dissect her face,
her marriage,
her body.
We make jokes
from a life
we know nothing about.
Then she says:
Cancer.
And suddenly—
Oh, the tenderness.
The hearts.
The thoughts and prayers.
The soft voices
from the very mouths
that had been sharpening knives.
But she was human
before we knew she was ill.
She was worthy of mercy
before she presented
a medical explanation.
Why must pain show its papers
before compassion lets it through?
Why is Cruelty
our first language…?
and kindness,
the translation we offer
only after we discover we were wrong?
We have no clue what lives behind another’s door.
We do not know
what terror has entered their body,
what grief sits beside them,
what news they are trying to survive.
And still…
we reach so easily for the stone.
Cruelty begins there:
not only in hatred,
but in the belief that we are entitled
to punish what we do not understand.
So before the joke…
stop.
Before the accusation…
stop.
Before turning another human life
into entertainment…
remember:
You should not need
to see the wound
before deciding
not to cause one.
Cruelty survives
because we permit ourselves
one small act at a time.
Compassion begins
the same way.
One pause.
One refusal.
One human being
recognizing another—
before needing to be given a reason.
And if you have, perhaps
forgotten...
Jesus is holding your stone.
Good writing.