“Cruelty & Gross Negligence”
by Kelvin Chin
Author
Meditation Teacher
In our previous discussions on Transcending Cruelty, we have spoken about the need for “intent” to be present. We have defined cruelty as when someone intends to do harm to another person for their own happiness in making that other person unhappy. And that if the intention to do harm is not there, we may just call it “callousness” on the part of the bad actor.
However, I want to suggest that there may be a level of lack of care for others, a degree that may rise so high that the intent to do harm may not be sufficient to hold someone accountable for exceptionally bad, hurtful behavior. Yes, we may agree that philosophically the technical definition of cruelty may require intent to do harm to another. However, in everyday life, experientially, we may need another term — perhaps calling it “grossly negligent callousness” — that most people might still call cruel behavior in their daily conversations.
Drawing from my legal training, I would like to propose an analogy. This analogy is not meant to imply that there are any “laws” in spirituality, because as you may know from my other writings and talks, I see Free Will as an inherent function of every mind or consciousness in the universe. And neither is this analogy meant to imply any duty as in the ancient use of the concept “dharma” that we each as individuals have towards others.
We have choice. And we have consequences to those choices we make. The following analogy is meant to shine a light on an area of “hurtful” behavior towards others that I think needs more attention, so that we as a world society might choose to move more towards a kinder, more thoughtful way of living life with one another.
In law, there is a concept called negligence. To be deemed negligent, the person must have breached a basic principle that we all agree as a society we hold for each other. It is referred to specifically using the word “care.” And the level of care that we are expected to display towards others must be a “reasonable” one. It is called being a “reasonable person.”
I want to suggest that we interject an analogous notion into this discussion about cruelty that we have engaged in, especially although not exclusively since the 30th November talk. Again, maybe what I am going to suggest may not be “actual cruelty” in the way we have traditionally, philosophically defined it. But I propose that we think of “exceptionally bad hurtful behavior” in this new light.
Can we, as a society, agree that we generally each owe one another what we might call a basic level of “kindness?” I think so. Perhaps we can borrow from the above negligence example and consider the idea of each of us holding ourselves individually responsible for demonstrating a “reasonable” level of kindness.
If so, then I think a person’s level of “lack of kindness” can in fact sometimes rise to a level that would be the equivalent of what is analogously in the field of negligence called “gross negligence.”
That is where that lack of kindness, even though there is no intent to do harm, causes so much harm that it is worthy of special attention. This harm would be a direct result of a person’s actions that are so outrageous and so negligent — so uncaring or lacking in forethought as to what the consequences of their actions might be — that we might consider that person’s behavior, while not “actual” cruelty, to be skirting the edges of what we have previously called cruel behavior.
Again, an example from law, purely for analogous teaching reasons — not meant to be applied literally in this spiritual discussion.
In law school, there is an example often used to illustrate the severe, life-altering consequences of grossly negligent, unthoughtful behavior. The example involves a TV.
It is not against the law to throw a TV off a balcony. In fact, there may be a good reason to throw a TV off a balcony, especially if it’s broken and someone is just trying to get rid of it quickly without straining one’s physical body from carrying it down many flights of stairs, for example.
However, because there is this inherent societal agreement that we should treat each other with “reasonable care,” in this law school example, we cannot just throw a TV off a balcony at any time of the day or night without any legal consequences if we happen to injure another human being, perhaps a pedestrian passing by on the sidewalk below the balcony. If that happens, there are consequences. And they could be very serious, life-altering consequences.
If we throw a TV off a balcony without showing any care at all for others, and if it falls on someone’s head and kills them, we could be guilty of homicide even if we did not intend to cause harm.
I suggest that we may need to look at our own behavior towards others with relation to how we treat them emotionally and ask ourselves if we have sometimes, even without an intent to harm the other person, been so grossly negligent, so lacking in our care for another human being, that we may have committed — and I am making up this term here — “emotional homicide.” Would we benefit from holding ourselves individually responsible for not inflicting that level of harm? Not as a group holding others responsible, but as individual souls — as each of us — holding ourselves to that level of care.
I know this may sound extreme. However, I think the level of cruelty in the world — and if we truly have a desire to reduce that hurtful behavior in the world — requires this more nuanced view.
Avoiding “intending to harm and deriving enjoyment from it” — what we have defined as “cruelty” — is important to understand to be a happier individual. In addition, I think equally important is recognizing (and calling it out when we see it) grossly negligent behavior — especially within ourselves. Holding ourselves accountable when that happens and learning to not repeat that behavior. I suggest that we may need to add that type of conduct to what we consider unacceptable hurtful behavior.
What I am suggesting is that we may need to take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror — individually — if we really want to see someone looking back at us who is in fact, not just in theory, a kinder, less cruel person. But who actually is.
Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.