HOME
This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
Interested in What I Create?
Bibliography
The Great Little Hunter
Pinspired Philippines, 2022
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
Follow the Spy
Recent Crumbs
Blogs I Read
© 2002-2021
IAN ROSALES CASOCOT
Sunday, July 12, 2020
6:13 PM |
The Righteousness of Murderers
Why do some people still remain DDS after all these years, especially those who are "Christians" who should know what is right or wrong? I looked for answers. Found some in this
2017 article by psychologist Paul Bloom for
The New Yorker, who posits that the "root of cruelty" is actually borne out of a high sense of morality, if misplaced, and one that ultimately seeks to "teach a lesson." He writes:
In many instances, violence is neither a cold-blooded solution to a problem nor a failure of inhibition; most of all, it doesn’t entail a blindness to moral considerations. On the contrary, morality is often a motivating force: 'People are impelled to violence when they feel that to regulate certain social relationships, imposing suffering or death is necessary, natural, legitimate, desirable, condoned, admired, and ETHICALLY GRATIFYING.' [These actions] often reflect the desire to do the right thing, to exact just vengeance, or to teach someone a lesson.
In other words, these people are not indifferent towards moral distinctions. They're not sociopaths. They just believe they're in the right side of the divide ["if you can only see things our way" is a common DDS refrain]. If you do enough study of genocide, suicide bombings, school shootings, punitive rape, domestic abuse, gang violence, or honor killings, you will almost always come across the perpetrator justifying his or her act in terms of punishment or revenge against the victim. Think of mass shooters or incels gone amok who publish their manifestos online before doing the deed. Think about the Nazis who set-up a string of anti-Semitic laws to justify the Holocaust machine. Think about racists and homophobes who justify hate crime because the victims are "inferior" to them. Think of the DDS who label any dissent as "nanlaban," "adik," "dilawan," "komunista," "anong ambag mo?," "sana ma-rape," "presstitute," "dura lex sed lex," etc., fighting what should be common sense just to hold on to the moral justification of their choice in 2016. And it's not easy to admit you're wrong, even if blood is on your hands.
Their desire will always be "righteous." And with every win -- Delima in jail, Sereno impeached, Rappler hobbled, Maria Ressa found guilty, ABS-CBN locked down -- they smell blood, like sharks, and want more, their sense of being morally right going through the roof. As for the "Christians" I began with? Jesus is the last thing in their minds.
Illustration by Gérard DuBois
Labels: current events, politics, psychology
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
GO TO OLDER POSTS
GO TO NEWER POSTS