Cruelty as Community

A theme that has been returning to my mind as of late is “cruelty as community”. In my last post, I mentioned being a youth online and finding community, friends and connection, and that is such a radical departure from where I currently find myself. Social media is something I entirely avoid contributing to. Every time I visit to get a glimpse of what is happening in the world, I find a toxic environment where the bad actors are no longer fringe outsiders putting hateful remarks on whatever they happen to come across. Instead, echo chambers are reinforced by algorithms that trigger the viewer into giving a response or rebuttal, or worse, encourage others to pile on in hateful torrents that widen the maw of the trap.

It was Saturday night and I was walking home with grocery bags in each hand. I had earbuds in, but sirens emerged through the tune and grew louder as I approached the street corner. It was a green light and all the vehicles remained in place, yielding the right-of-way to the rapidly approaching police SUV. I stood at the corner, ignoring the walk signal, but across the street a family followed it, casually walking to the other side as if they were unable to hear the sirens or see that the world had paused around them.

The flashing SUV finally reached the intersection, turned sharply to the left, then halted abruptly when its driver realized the casually strolling family was about to be mowed down and in need of emergency services themselves. Nobody was hit. But for a moment, everyone had to imagine it. My thoughts went toward the pedestrians, the officers who would have struck them, and the families whose lives would have been divided by the impact. Online, the same imaginary accident would produce a different response. Many would insist that the pedestrians had somehow deserved it, gloat over their suffering and troll those who offered sympathy to those involved. Much of the defence would merely give cruelty a Trojan horse to hide inside.

These platforms and their algorithms have made a sport of this kind of fighting. Even the leader of the “free world”, through the proxy of the official White House account, posts provocation, trolling, cruelty and division. Just today, September 7, the President posted a map depicting all of North America as the USA, and droves of bots, literal and figurative, hopped on to repost it and join in with comments such as, “LMAO! Imagine the tears!” Perhaps it should be no surprise that this year the lawn of the White House was physically transformed to host UFC Freedom 250. The combat sport itself not being the issue, but the symbolism is difficult to ignore. The political spirit of the administration had been made into a physical spectacle: Fight! Fight! Fight! One comment beneath these presidential “troll posts” said that this was simply America finally being free to be itself, having grown sick of hiding its nature.

The current American administration has turned its alliances into opportunities for antagonism, fighting with lies, threats and manipulation. The machine echoes it, and people join the contest as if identity politics were a team sport.

The cruelty is not incidental to the community. It is what produces the feeling of community. A target is identified, and strangers briefly become companions through the shared act of attacking it.

The Buddha is recorded as saying in Saṃyutta Nikāya 3.14, translated by Bhikkhu Sujato:

Victory breeds enmity; the defeated sleep badly.
The peaceful sleep at ease, having left victory and defeat behind.

I’ve listened to The Necessary Conversation since its inception. It’s a podcast by Chad Kultgen, who I discovered through the comedy podcast Dudesy, co-hosted by Will Sasso. On it, Chad and his sister discuss the week’s news with his MAGA-leaning parents, who consume and repeat the hatred fed to them. They have repeatedly called gleefully for people to be slaughtered and for entire populations to be subjected to genocide, remarked “Good!” when covering the deaths of protesters, and celebrated suffering whenever it was inflicted by the political movement they support.

In the September 2 episode, Chad and his mother, Mary Lou, discussed JD Vance’s recent remark that he was willing to do what he viewed as God’s work even if it led to the End Times. The episode also featured a clip of Peter Thiel arguing that, for the past fifty years, the world has submitted itself to “peace and safety”, which he indicates is evidence that we have fallen into the trap of the Antichrist. In this vision, peace and safety become the trap, while turmoil, division and war become conditions to embrace.

It is easy to look at this seemingly endless cruelty and feel disgust toward those participating in and spreading it. The greater difficulty is to avoid joining the same game from the opposing side. The target may change, and anger may feel more righteous or justified, but we can still find ourselves forming another community through the pleasure of having a shared enemy.

Chan monk Yongjia Xuanjue writes in the Song of Enlightenment:

觀惡言是功德。此即成吾善知識。
不因訕謗起冤親。何表無生慈忍力。

Regard abusive words as a source of merit;
their speaker thereby becomes my spiritual friend.
Do not let mockery and slander give rise to distinctions between foe and friend.
How else could the unborn power of compassionate forbearance be revealed?

Neither the abusive words nor the harm they cause thereby become good. They become an occasion for practice by revealing what they produce in us. They show how quickly the mind divides the world between those we embrace and those we despise, and how easily opposition to cruelty can become permission for another cruelty. Forbearance here does not mean passively enduring the ridicule and abuse of others. It means bearing the discomfort of our own anger and afflictions without allowing them to govern us.

Compassion is not only kindness extended to another, but something that rescues us from what hatred would make of us.

The Buddhist master Ouyi Zhixu wrote:

世出世事，莫不成於慈忍，敗於忿躁；故君子以慈育德，以忍養情。

All undertakings, whether worldly or supramundane, are accomplished through loving-kindness and forbearance, and undone by anger and impatience. Therefore, the exemplary person nurtures virtue through loving-kindness and cultivates the disposition through forbearance.

I don’t know if this is an answer to cruelty as community, but it at least gives me a practice. I can recognize cruelty, oppose it where I can, and still watch what that opposition produces in me. Opposing cruelty does not require me to desire suffering for those who practise it. If cruelty can build a community around shared hatred, perhaps another kind of community can be built by refusing to pass that hatred along.

The world seems eager to step into turmoil, division and war. I would rather leave victory and defeat behind and sleep at ease.