Is a certain amount of cruelty just an inherent trait of man?

What color is the sky in your world? Originally Posted by pjorourke

You know, that really was funny. I needed a grin this am!

Elisabeth

WTF is cruel Elisabeth?



Can we define cruel?


Which one is cruel the swordsman on the right or the swordsman on the left?

WTF is cruel Elisabeth?



Can we define cruel?


Which one is cruel the swordsman on the right or the swordsman on the left? Originally Posted by WTF

The swordsman who is the cruelest is the one who isn't doing his manly duty by me. I find it one of life's ironies that being an escort doesn't mean having (at least somewhat) a consistent state of sexual fulfillment.

I would think that Becky's example of marauding dolphins and other earth creatures, with the exception of guppies , doing unspeakable acts of indecency, and sometimes violence, would be an example of cruelty but it does make me laugh a little bit.

Third, my current example of cruelty is having a teenager in the household.

Hopefully, that state of cruelty isn't a permanent one.

The other discussions of what cruelty is and how it manifests itself in so many different forms is more than my pea-braininess (if that is even a word) can respond to at this time.

Finally, the overuse of smiley faces is a slightly smaller source of cruelty. I especially find the little kitten ones to be repulsive but I cannot find one to post.

Is that a start, WTF?

Most sincerely,
Elisabeth

I especially find the little kitten ones to be repulsive but I cannot find one to post. Originally Posted by ElisabethWhispers

Always happy to help out a friend. Here you go Elisabeth, just for you.
Gosh I hate cute.

Third, my current example of cruelty is having a teenager in the household.



Is that a start, WTF?

Most sincerely,
Elisabeth Originally Posted by ElisabethWhispers

LOL


No caca....teenagers are hell!



Dolphins raping other dolphins.....and to think I was swimming with those lil horny bastards last week! Good thing they did find me sexy...

LOL
Dolphins raping other dolphins.....and to think I was swimming with those lil horny bastards last week! Good thing they did find me sexy... Originally Posted by WTF

Boy did you just dodge a bullet.Dolphins are famous for their attempts at molesting divers


Friendly dolphin 'a sex pest'
Swimmers warned to avoid horny dolphin
(June 4, 2002) In the UK, tourists enjoying the waters off Dorset have been warned to beware of a horny dolphin named George, who arrived in the area about two months ago. "This dolphin does get very sexually aggressive. He has already attempted to mate with some divers," said Ric O'Barry, a marine mammal expert who warned that "dolphins are wild animals and get very rough with one another when they mate. They can weigh up to 400lb and someone could easily drown under the sheer weight." Read the full story at The Times Online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-316359,00.html

God, I am looking over my proverbial shoulder as I write this because we're touching on no-no subjects here on eccie with the animal thing, slightly, but I find this segue with the dolphins to be absolutely interesting.

I mean, we think of Flipper when we think of dolphins, right? Before we drift in a different direction on the cruelty subject ... and we should ... I want to personally thank Becky for changing my views on dolphins for the REST OF MY LIFE!!!

Lol. Thank you again, Becky!

Elisabeth

P.S. The "getting rough" thing only added to the titillation, btw.

LOL


No caca....teenagers are hell! Originally Posted by WTF

Yes. Aren't they, though?

Elisabeth

[quote=ElisabethWhispers;28299

P.S. The "getting rough" thing only added to the titillation, btw. [/quote]


LOL tell me about it.I think Flipper just replaced James Spader on my (men I can only dream about) list

I would say that the word (actually, concept of) cruelty is essentially normative rather than comparative. And if you are saying that the validity/truth of evolution somehow implies that judgements or moral/normative values are "impossible" or meaningless, I think that is a a debatable stance (to put it mildly)...a sort of reductionist fallacy, imo.

-Ww Originally Posted by Wwanderer

evolution supposedly proceeds by abberation..its worth is established in abberation not in stasis; if cruelty is a non-normative value, what makes it so if it aids in personal survival, some societal stricture? where other than in man would you apply the concept of cruelty?

of course, you make my point, which may have been obscured from you, having been couched in sarcasm, allowing for moral values in full light of natural processes, only i take it that you would ascribe morality to some totality or hidden combination which, while explainable by darwinian views, remains only unexplained to date, which is convenient, and in itself is a sort of reductionism.

evolution supposedly proceeds by abberation..its worth is established in abberation not in stasis; if cruelty is a non-normative value, what makes it so if it aids in personal survival, some societal stricture? where other than in man would you apply the concept of cruelty?

of course, you make my point, which may have been obscured from you, having been couched in sarcasm, allowing for moral values in full light of natural processes, only i take it that you would ascribe morality to some totality or hidden combination which, while explainable by darwinian views, remains only unexplained to date, which is convenient, and in itself is a sort of reductionism. Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

I can't follow what you are saying above in any detail (starting, for example, with the point that I called cruelty a normative concept in my previous post, the one you quote, not a non-normative one), perhaps because I was and still am being misled by sarcasm...always a tricky mode of expression in this medium. Anyway, here are a couple of possibly relevant comments that might make my point a bit clearer:

Darwinian evolution is almost certainly a correct "theory", but I think that you are attributing too much to it here. It is an inefficient and incomplete tendency for genomic fluctuations (aberrations as you call them) that enhance the chance of survival to become common/dominant in populations, but it definitely does NOT mean that every characteristic of every organism or even every species is beneficial to its survival. Many are simply neutral or not very important re survival, and even traits that are disadvantageous biologically are not that rare. Someone (clever) summed this point up by noting, "It should have been called 'survival of the fit enough'!"

More fundamentally and perhaps importantly, it is now pretty clear (though not entirely uncontroversial) that even simple physical systems and idealized virtual ones cannot be entirely understood/described by reductionist methods. It thus seems very unlikely that a model as reductionist as Darwinian evolution can completely explain the complexity of human minds, behavior and society. In the jargon of complexity theory, normative values may well be emergent rather than reductive.

-Ww

. Someone (clever) summed this point up by noting, "It should have been called 'survival of the fit enough'!"



-Ww Originally Posted by Wwanderer

Great the last ones standing will be a bunch of slightly above average bankers....

http://eccie.net/showthread.php?p=286578#post286578

Cruel enough for you, WTF? I actually started a topic about it in the Dallas coed area. The link is above.

I still am not on the intellectual wavelength today to respond to some of the more cerebral responses on this topic (still worried about those dolphins!). It's great reading, though!

Elisabeth

I can't follow what you are saying above in any detail

-Ww Originally Posted by Wwanderer

you misread me and think i am one way when another , perhaps my fault, regardless its not worth continuing although i appreciate your recitations.