Cruelty and Oxytocin. On the Origin of Somatic Disintegration from Psycho-Somatic Dualism

Avant, Vol. XI, No. 2, doi: 10.26913/avant.2020.02.10
published under license CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Mieszek Jagiełło
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
mj17669 @ amu.edu.pl

Received 18 July 2019; accepted 25 January 2019; published Online First 28 February 2020  Download full text

Abstract: Somatic disintegration is the removal of body parts or the forceful introduction of objects into the body. If considered a medical treatment, no connections to psycho-somatic dualism can be made, but when it is an act of malignant violence, both phenomena correlate. The following paper aims to explore a new hypothesis on the origin of cruelty. It sheds light on the correlation between inflicting physical cruelty, especially somatic disintegration, and a predominant belief in psycho-somatic dualism and explains various techniques that break the integrity of the body through the prism of their symbolism. Its purpose is also to set out cultural elements connected to ontological dualism as factors fostering the use of excessive violence. The argumentation is based on atrocities committed during armed conflicts or as a result of rebellions. It turns out that the so-called oxytocin paradox plays an important role in connecting the dots.

Keywords: somatic disintegration; cruelty; oxytocin; ontological dualism; atrocity; armed conflict; war


References

Adelman, H. (1997). Membership and Dismembering: The Body Politic and Genocide in Rwanda.
Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The Science of Evil. On Empathy and the Origin of Cruelty, New York: Basic Books.
Bethlehem, R. A. I., Baron-Cohen, S., van Honk, J., Auyeung, B., & Bos, P. A. (2014). The oxytocin paradox. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 8, [48].
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00048
Bourgon, J. and Erismann, J. (2014): Figures of Deterrence in Late Imperial China. Crime, History and Societies, 18 (2), 49-84.
https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.1487
Barden Dowling, M. (2009). Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Brook, T., Bourgon, J. and Blue, B.. (2008). Death by a Thousand Cuts. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press.
Brody, H., Leonard, S. E., Nie, J. B., & Weindling, P. (2014). United States Responses to Japanese Wartime Inhuman Experimentation after World War II: National Security and Wartime Exigency. Camb Q Healthc Ethics, 23 (2), 220-230.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180113000753
Canetti, E. (1996). Masa i władza (E. Borg et al., transl.). Warszawa: Czytelnik.
Churchland, P. S. (2013). Moralność mózgu. Co neuronauka mówi o moralności (M. Hohol, transl.). Kraków: Copernicus Center Press.
Dharmananda, S. (2005). Towards a Spirit at Peace. Understanding the Treatment of Shen Disorders with Chinese medicine.
Freud, S. (1994). Poza zasadą przyjemności. (J. Prokopiuk, transl.).Warszawa: Wydawnictwo PWN.
Fromm, E. (1973). The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Gilligan, J. (2011). Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goetz, S., Taliaferro, C. (2012). A Brief History of the Soul, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444395938
Lebeuf, A. (2012). Marital exchange and cannibalism. Studia Religiologica, 45 (4), 255- 265.
Jagiełło, M. (2020). Definiując okrucieństwo: od filozofii okrucieństwa do neurofilozofii. In K. Olkusz (ed.). Rejestry kultury. Wrocław: Ośrodek Badawczy Facta Ficta [forthcoming].
Jung, E. G. (2007). Ursprung des Schindens in Assyrien, in: Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Haut, Heidelberg: Steinkopff Verlag.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7985-1758-5
Nelson, M. (2011). The art of cruelty: a reckoning, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Nietzsche, F. (2016). Also sprach Zarathustra, München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. (T. Common, transl.).
Nietzsche, F. (2008). On the Genealogy of Morality. K. Ansell-Pearson (ed.). (C. Deitel, transl.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pierre, J. M. (2015). Culturally sanctioned suicide: Euthanasia, seppuku, and terrorist martyrdom. World Journal of Psychiatry, 5 (1), 4-14.
https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v5.i1.4
Pineda, R. (2003). La Pasion por la guerra y la calavera del enemigo. F. Castaneda (ed.). Revista de los Estudios Sociales, 14 (1), 38-51.
https://doi.org/10.7440/res14.2003.03
Radner, K. (2014). High visibility punishment and deterrent: Impalement in Assyrian warfare and legal practice. Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Geschichte, 21,103-128.
Shestov, L. (2005a). Potestas clavium (Władza kluczy). Kęty: Wydawnictwo ANTYK.
Shestov, L. (2005b). Początki i końce. Zbiór artykułów. (J. Chmielewski, transl.). Kęty: Wydawnictwo ANTYK.
Taylor, K. (2009). Cruelty: human evil and the human brain. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schulze, S. (2009). Das Paradox der Grausamkeit. Zur Theorie der Grausamkeit bei Nietzsche. In Grausamkeit und Metaphysik: Figuren der Uberschreitung in der abendländischen Kultur (pp. 41-51). Hg. M. Schaub, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
Žižek, S. (2016). Lacan. Eine Einführung. Frankfurt am Main: FISCHER Taschenbuch.


“Avant” journal – the task financed under the contract 711/P-DUN/2019 from the funds of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for the dissemination of science.
Czasopismo „Avant” – zadanie finansowane w ramach umowy 711/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

Comments are closed.