Brutality is a set of cruel acts a dominant individual or group perpetrates on others, often denying their basic human rights. Brutality originates from a person’s selfish desire to achieve his or her desire at the expense of the freedom and happiness of others. For instance, when slavery was common in America, a master would severely punish his slaves by flogging and putting them to starve. The slaves did not even enjoy the basic human rights which the ordinary Americans were enjoying. Similarly, in a group level, brutality occurs at a wider level when one group wants to dominate the other group by suppressing the interests of the other group. In many countries, certain communities are subjected to racial or religious discrimination that often leads to brutal treatment of the minority communities by the rest. In short, brutality is using violence against others to establish the strength of an individual or a group for selfish motives in most insensible ways.
Committing violence is the central theme of brutality. Often, the powerful in the society are the doers of brutality against the weak individuals or communities. Back during the colonial era, African slaves were employed in American farmlands as human tools (Rothbard). Land owners who are rich bought poor African slaves and used them to work in their agricultural fields. They were treated inhumanely as though they were animals and simply meant for doing works like machines. Slaves who tried to escape were flogged severely that more often led to death. This brutality was the way the White American landowners established their supremacy or power over the hapless Africans. More importantly, the Africans were a minority group and economically weaker that gave the landowners the upper hand to treat them cruelly. The Americans would not have dared to enslave fellow White Americans because everyone enjoyed equal status.
Similarly, in certain countries the minority communities are brutally treated by the majority communities to establish their supremacy and right to rule. For example, in the African nation of Rwanda, the ethnic majority group Hutu brutally killed as many as 800,000 people belonging to a minority ethnic group called Tutsi (“The Rwandan Genocide”) to establish their traditional supremacy to rule the country. In olden days, powerful kings brutally attacked the soldiers and civilians of nearby countries towards invading the regions. Sometimes, brutality is employed to establish law and order in certain regions, which again is establishing the power of the rulers.
Many times, the perpetrators of brutal acts perform cruelty upon individuals in insensible ways. Human beings sometimes act insensibly to perpetrate brutality on animals and the environment. For instance, hunting and poaching animals for fun and massive destruction of forests are typical insensible acts of brutality to satisfy man’s greed. Sometimes religious beliefs influence individuals to commit brutality on innocent animals. For instance, in Nepal thousands of buffaloes, goats and roosters are brutally sacrificed by individuals to Gadhimai, the Hindu goddess. The sacrifice is intended to get the blessings of the goddess.
Thus, acts of brutality, whether done on fellow human beings or on non human beings, have one thing in common: to satisfy the selfish motives of human beings. In other words, brutality is insensible behavior of human beings that ends up in treating others in most inhuman ways to establish their supremacy over the poor victims.
Works Cited
Rothbard, Murray. The brutality of slavery. Mises Institute. 28 January 2013. Web. 11 March 2016. https:// mises.org/ library/brutality-slavery
The Rwandan Genocide. History. 2016. Web. 11 March 2016. http://www.history.com/topics /rwandan-genocide#
