Intellectual Sadism

Human kind has a history of obsession with conflict. From the blood
sports of the Aztecs to the Roman gladiator to the conventional
obsession with organized sports, the attraction to physical combat in
one form or another is a sizable brick in the foundation of human
social existence. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with realizing
ones “inner warrior” through the tribal collective that is being a
sports fan. Quite the contrary, I wholeheartedly participate. However
this collective seems to be maintaining an increasingly sadistic nature
as the UFC (and American, near no holds barred blood sport,)  the K-1
(it’s tamer Japanese counterpart) gain popularity  and various camera
phone captured adolescent “fight club” matches find their way into the
public mainstream. This sadism doesn’t end here, however.

From
the perspective of mainstream America I will posit that the advent of a
global forum for opinion, self grandeur and free speech (the internet)
has jumped our inherent want for sadistic physical entertainment to one
of intellectual contest. In short, the popular politics of the Free
World have, in many cases, devolved to a perverse form of Intellectual
Sadism fomented by what could (and should) be an incredible visage of
free thought and constructive debate but which as often as not finds
itself a wallow of tit for tat banality. Generally, we have reached a
point where presenting a sound, if provocative, political opinion or
assertion does not breed excited debate but instead manifests itself as
an intellectually sadistic want to viciously mitigate and deprave those
that do not meet our strict framework of social understanding. We
attempt to undermine our political adversary’s ideals through shallow
verbal attacks with full knowledge the reciprocation will be equally
banal and even more savage. The sad part is we seem to look forward to
a blistering reply to our galvanized position so that we might lash
back with equivocal sarcasm, insult and even blatant hate. It’s a cycle
not of construction but of basic, boring and bleak nothingness.

As
we of the western “modernized“ world have socially evolved past the
tyranny of expansionistic communism and found a global situation in
which there exists a vacuum of collective world vision we have too
often chosen not a Renaissance of free thought but a Dark Age of
partisan verbal warfare. From newspaper headlines maligning the
“idiocy” of American voters to the shallow “Freedom Fries” version of
international outlooks we succumb to idealistic herd mentalities with
pontificating ideologues waving us to our proper battle stations. These
ideals are then further magnified in this vast virtual world in a
fashion that appears not as constructively partisan but more partisan
genuflection. With every salvo of “Bush is a Nazi” or “Liberalism is a
disease” we await a counter salvo to further fuel our damn near tribal
resistance to the evil of the other.

There are, of course,
various online elements that make up a silver lining in what is
increasingly sullied in political absolutes. Some of these free thought
arenas are linked on this very page. They assert challenging ideas and
invite not a partisan following rather an exchange of ideas based on
critical thought and enjoy a very healthy amount of traffic and
commentary. Others assuredly float, as yet unknown to me, in near
obscurity (a principle I am not at all unfamiliar with J)out in
cyberspace while the galvanized ideologues enjoy the unchecked
attention of our apparent intellectual sadism.