"Some human beings are monsters, in this sense: their deeds and their characters are so foul that there rightly appears no space in the characterization of their lives and feelings in which one could imagine remorse to grow. It is a mistake to think that there must be something in their lives and characters which a psychologist or novelist could show to be the reason why we should acknowledge them as fully our fellow human beings." Raimond Gaita, A Common Humanity
This past week, Xev bragged to me of her pleasure in hurting people. When gendanken recently came from nowhere to deliver an insult, I simply reminded her that her insult is more telling about her than me. Her response: "Eat my shit."
A horrible scene comes to mind from the film Pasqualino's Seven Beauties, where Pasqualino is degraded by an obese female Nazi concentration camp commandant. We're led to understand that prior to her appointment as commandant this creature was a social outcast. Having been previously shunned by men, she now uses her position to humiliate and torture them. Similarly, Xev and gendanken rarely miss an opportunity to degrade and humiliate others. Xev appears to take a particular delight in insulting a man's masculinity. These two wallow in obscenity and openly fantasize about murder and mutilation.
But the virtue of toleration in no way requires us to tolerate having good people routinely driven away by these two snarling attack dogs. Their apologists claim that people wishing to belong to this community ought to be able to stand the abuse by Xev and gendanken. In other words, a prerequisite for the pleasure of discussing topics of science and philosophy is that we should be capable of absorbing unwarranted and boorish insults from these two. Am I alone in thinking this is an unreasonable demand?
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote that "the well-tempered man is angry at the right things and with the right people, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought." I'm saying that we ought to be angry that these two diseased souls continue to use this forum to hurt, to humiliate, to violate and degrade.
Michael
