Gongol.com Archives: May 2025
May 18, 2025
Cruelty practiced by people, enabled by the state
BBC China correspondent Stephen McDonell has delivered a stunning account of the cruelty of treatment inside China's prisons. Through the ordeal of one Australian citizen, the reader is exposed to treatment ranging from sleep deprivation to overt psychological torture, from inhumane rules around the use of toilets to outright malnourishment. It may not be surprising in its cruelty, but the details remain shocking. ■ No matter how much some people would like to believe otherwise, government cannot love you. People can love other people, but institutions -- especially governments -- cannot love. They can, however, become vectors for cruelty and even hate. ■ The treatment described in the BBC report is sadistic. It resembles how a person might treat an inanimate object rather than another human being. And that's the essence of the problem: The practices described are intended as means of dehumanization. In essence, it is a tale of what happens when the real deviants aren't the prisoners inside the cells, but rather the sadists trying to show just how cruelly they can treat their fellow human beings. ■ No normal child wants to recklessly inflict pain on other children. It takes disordered systems to produce the kind of person who would engage in the kind of cruelty described behind those prison walls. Both the systems and the individuals carrying them out are part of the problem. Both should find themselves constrained by limits on their power and their cruelty.
