Cruelty is the Heart of Human Nature

Since I am writing this late at night, I am going to forgo sources for the this round.You accuse me of arguments from authority. I was unaware I had some authority over you. If you are referring to my quotes by philosophers, I named three. Surely you can find at least one who would disagree. Since you want testing, I recommend the Stanford Prison Experiment (just google it, I don't feel like sourcing here, as stated above). To give an overview, student volunteers were grouped into two categories: Guards and Prisoners. Prisoners had to take orders from Guards. The two groups were put into a single building and monitered by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who was conducting the experiment. In the beginning, it started out like an ideal prison with a few harmless pranks pulled on Prisoners. However, it quickly devolved into sadism, with such things as being forced to drink from a toilet and sleep deprivation. The experiment got so brutal that it had to be shut down early.Now we enter into the comments you make about the Revolutions and other actions in recent history which demonstrate my point. These are in fact, acts of Cruelty. Now, the reason individual citizens of countries, whether it be the United States, Finland, or Italy, or wherever, do not engage in Cruelty is out of fear of retaliation, or Cruelty in return. This is a major facet of the Social Contract. You say that I am "just and only looking at the cruel acts ongoing in the world at the moment and in the past." I don't deny this, but find it odd that with ten thousand characters at your disposal and three posts so far, you have neglected to offer a single example demonstrating Human Kindness. No matter, I will do so now and show how it is influenced by Cruelty.Let us examine the act of charity as seen in giving money to the needy. I don't know about Finland, but in the US it commonly heard that one should not just give money to beggars on the street. Two justifications are provided for this. The first the assumption that they will just use the money to buy intoxicants. How Cruel is that, to make a mere assumption about a person's behavior merely because they are begging! The second is that the act of giving money to beggars encourages panhandling. Again, this is Cruel. Those saying this are those that just don't want to see the needy and downtrodden, as not to be saddened by them. They are happy just sweeping the desperate under the rug! And how exactly is the desperate beggar to buy his next meal if not through panhandling? But no matter, the shoppers must not be scared off by a man down on his luck. Sensibilities must be respected! Instead, it is suggested that the money should be given to charities. See above to see how some charities are corrupt. And besides, is it not better to give one beggar fifty dollars, instead of giving that same fifty to charity, who will take a portion for wages and other overhead, and then distribute what remains among several hundred beggars? The charity essentially takes large donations and converts into small change for the poor. I do not suppose this is by accident, as that if the desperate and down-trodden cease to exist, then the charities would be out of business!This brings me to my next point in this argument post: What acts of kindness are done are not done out of pure love for one's neighbor, but out of a need for self-interest. People give to others in hopes that their gifts will be repaid somehow. People are kind to members of the opposite sex (or same sex in the cases to which it applies) out of the hopes of sexual intercourse. Even the truest of the religious, who espouse themselves to be selfless, are charitable in the hopes of being rewarded by whatever deity that they worship. People are Pragmatic, albeit some more than others.However, we can see acts of Cruelty, especially small ones, being committed merely for the pleasure of doing so. Outcasts are ridiculed solely for the pleasure and hilarity found in ridicule. People cheat on their lovers to get back for some transgression. If we were not a Cruel species, and our goal was in fact kindness, then such things would not be. Outcasts would be welcomed into communities. The panhandlers and beggars cups would overflow, and they would receive constant invitations to dinner and to spend the night. Those poor souls who seem unable to even get a date would find a sympathetic slut who would cure them of their virginity. Not a single woman would be abused by her man. To make my final point: what large cruelties we do not commit, we entertain ourselves with through the media. Millions can quote names like Jeffery Dahmer and Ted Bundy, but so few can name a single one of their victims. We live vicariously through the villains of slasher movies, and delight in the blood and gore (not unlike the ancient spectators watching gladiators in the Coliseum of Rome). When there is a protagonist against an antagonist in a story, we delight in the death of the antagonist.Again, humans are an inherently Cruel species.