this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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Probably not, although I think Ace is correct that even in the extreme historical examples there is often a "real point". I probably should have been more clear, but I meant something like "in all the examples I've heard of people using this phrase, it didn't seem true to me."
Can you give me some examples of things where "cruelty is the point"?
I'll concede on the lynchings and Jim Crow. If the goal is to torture and kill someone then cruelty is obviously the point.
Regarding the rest, and specifically abortion, I think you could still say that it's not accurate to claim that the cruelty is the point. No (or few) anti-abortion people are anti-abortion specifically to hurt women. They're trying to stop abortions from happening. Mostly because they think it's murder, but partially because they think that the risk of pregnancy will stop people from having sex.
If there were a way to stop abortions from happening that (somehow) didn't place constraints on what women could or couldn't do with their bodies, and it didn't conflict with any other beliefs of the anti-abortion people (like sex ed does with Christian morality), they would probably be for it.
The phrase "the cruelty is the point", to me, implies that the cruelty is the goal. If the people advocating for cruelty would take a non-cruel option that accomplishes the same goal, then the goal wasn't cruelty.