Volume 1

Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink.

  • Wilhelm Stekel
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Where this component is absent, the cruel action is wanting. Man is cruel for the sake of the pleasure which the barbarous act produces. Who would deny that the need for the expression of sav- agery has increased rather than diminished ? Our epoch, which likes to call itself an epoch of humanity, is in truth one of bar- barousness. What do we see if we look at art, politics, life? Coarse, atavistic impulses awakened to new power; every- where joy in the repulsive, ugly, common. Books which treat of horrible themes (H. H. Ever's Alraune [Alruna], Mirbeau's Jar din des Supplices [Garden of Tor- tures], and many modern novels) have the greatest success, reach the stage, and are filmed. People crowd everywhere where there is something gruesome to be seen (publicity of murder trials). It is really no better than in the Middle Ages, when public executions were a favorite spectacle. Bull fights are becoming popular even outside of Spain, and in the centers of civilized countries bloody boxing matches are fought daily.4 To cruelty belongs the pleasure in another's pain and an- other's suffering. The child is not actually cruel from the start, because he has not the consciousness of cruelty. He de- lights merely in proving his power over smaller objects. He brings with him into the world that bit of cruelty which may be reduced to the formula, The pleasure for me, the pain for you. Then gradually from this formula comes a second one, which reads: Your pain is my pleasure. The period of cruelty in the child passes away quickly if he is not systematically trained in this trait. Fairy tales, which certainly represent a heaping up of the most frightful deeds, correspond to the child's need for the barbarous. From many of these tales there proceeds a determining force influencing the whole life. Yet these tales plainly satisfy a pressing need. The more gruesome the better. (The children like to hear it.) The cruelty is soon turned to compassion. The in- fantile cruelty remains only through bad training and through the influence of the environment. He who sows hate reaps hate. Normal children who are brought up with love, but not too much love, will retain merely that amount of hate which is indispensable even to civilized man. Children rich in affect,