Look up cruelty in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Cruelty can be described as indifference to suffering and even positive pleasure in inflicting it. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Suffering is any aversive (not necessarily unwanted) experience and the corresponding negative emotion. ... Pleasure is a positive sensation, which by analogy to pain, can be physiologically described as either peripheral or central (euphoria). ...

Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve violence, but violence is not necessary for an act to be cruel. For example, if another person is drowning and begging for help, and another person is able to help, but merely watches with disinterested amusement or pleasure, that person is being cruel — not violent. Violence is any act of aggression and abuse which causes or intends to cause injury, in some cases criminal, or harm to persons, and (by some definitions) animals or property. ...

Cruelty usually carries connotations of supremacy over a submissive or weaker force. Supremacism is the belief that self-determination and freedom of association are principles less important than the virtues obtained by ones race, religion, belief system or culture ruling over others. ...

The term cruelty is often used with regard to the treatment of animals, children and prisoners. See: punishment, draconian, and cruel and unusual punishment. When cruelty to animals is discussed, it often refers to unnecessary suffering. Look up Punishment in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The statement that the government shall not inflict cruel and unusual punishment for crimes is found in the English Bill of Rights signed in 1689 by William of Orange and Queen Mary II who were then the joint rulers of England following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. ... Cruelty to animals refers to treatment which causes unacceptable suffering or harm to animal. ...

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, almost all higher culture comes from the spiritualization of cruelty. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a German philologist and philosopher. ... Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. ...

See also

• Cruelty to animals
• Sacrifice
• Sadism
• Zoosadism
• Torture
• Violence
• Theatre of Cruelty

Cruelty to animals refers to treatment which causes unacceptable suffering or harm to animal. ... Marcus Aurelius and members of the Imperial family offer sacrifice in gratitude for success against Germanic tribes: contemporary bas-relief, Capitoline Museum, Rome Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning to make sacred, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; sacred + facere, to make) is commonly known as the... Look up sadism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ernest Bornemann (1990, cited by Rosenbauer 1997) coined the term zoosadism for those who derive pleasure from inflicting pain on an animal, sometimes with a sexual component. ... The word torture is commonly used to mean the infliction of pain to break the will of the victim(s). ... Violence is any act of aggression and abuse which causes or intends to cause injury, in some cases criminal, or harm to persons, and (by some definitions) animals or property. ... The Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin Artauds book Theatre and its Double. ...

External Source

• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, (2003)

• Judith Shklar