satori writes:
I’ve never understood violence and humiliation as humour. Today I watched a video on the nets where a woman was humiliated. Comments on the video were overwhelmingly of the flavour that while they’d be mad as hell if it happened to them they had laughed their asses off. I also don’t get the whole Three Stooges I-hit-him-in-the-head-with-a-hammer school of funny.
I think it speaks to a lack of compassion for others. I think it’s pretty pervasive in our society, and I’d bet there’s a marker for it in individual charts. Suppose there are markers for everything: isn’t that what reading a natal chart is all about? Markers, for compassion, lack of compassion, maybe markers for killing.
When you have non-compassion with a marker for killing, well maybe you get the potential for a puppy-torturing serial killer, a monster. You mix the marker for compassion with the one for killing and you get The Soldier. It’s not the killing that makes one a monster; it’s the lack of compassion. Good men can kill, and yet there are many monsters who never lift a hand in violence.
I read the comments of those without compassion and felt sickened. They didn’t directly hurt anyone but I don’t get the impression they would care if they did. I’ve met so many people who think they’re compassionate when clearly they are not. I guess it’s like how everyone thinks they have a great sense of humour…
Do you have compassion? Could you kill? What if there were a marker in your chart that contradicted your answer?
I’ve got compassion, all right, and I also do not find humiliation funny (though I am that rare woman who loves the Three Stooges, just because I admire their choreography so much). I don’t know if I could kill; maybe, to save my life or the lives of others. But I am not much interested in being put in a situation where I would have to find that out for sure.
If I just THINK about battery-caged hens, I cry… I care just as much about people but with them I’m a little more defensive… My sun is on the 8th/9th house cusp and I’ve got a T-square involving the moon in Pisces, Venus in Gemini and Neptune in Sag… two of the aspects are exact, and the widest is 1.13 degrees… and they’re all afflicted to the ascendant too.
It kind of sucks… I get depressed pretty easily sometimes… but I’d much rather be this way than cruel.
(None of this is to say I wouldn’t be capable of extreme violence though… but it would ONLY be under extreme circumstances, self-defense or something like that… like a good soldier)
As far as humiliation goes… even when I do find it funny (like when the person totally deserves it), I usually feel incredibly guilty about it… for the most part I don’t find it funny at all though, it just pisses me off. I can’t stand mean people. Argh.
Well, I love just the sort of slapstick/physically violent/non-PC comedy you’re talking about. Much of the humor comes from recognizing it as taboo and laughing at the discomfort one feels in watching it. It’s not a sociopathic response. That said, I am someone who has been accused of lacking empathy in my personal life sometimes. Aries stellium, scorpio rising, cappy moon.
I’m the one who is appalled when my children laugh at someone else’s misfortune as is often shown on TV shows such as America’s Funniest Home Videos and those of similar ilk. Am even more appalled at myself when I laugh at some of it and like Prana feel guilty when I sometimes do!
I don’t think I could become a monster of that sort. I cry over everything, my heart bleeds for everything, I have a 12th house Moon, conjunct ASC.
But how can one see the violent tendencies in the chart? My Mars is in a t-square but it’s in Libra, how nasty can it be? Never 😉
I don’t like imbalance of power, imprisonment, those kinds of things–like really strong reactions to it. I don’t like that kind of humor either, because someone is a victim.
But if someone puts himself in that position, then I feel like the playing field is leveled and that’s different. I could certainly kill in self-defense because that person is coming after me and I’m not going to die for that.
Compassion is one of the themes of my thinking and living. To me, that’s the only real way to connect with others.
dreamsareality – I didn’t write this, satori did so what you are asking me is a million miles away from my mind. I am on the Elizabeth Smart vibe… some other things and very deep in at the moment, so have to stay there. Sorry! Maybe someone else will come along???
Thinking about this Elsa, as I’m not all that savvy at reading stuff from my chart, I was wondering if you could point out what specifically you’d think are markers for compassion, dark-humour or violence?
I dislike humiliation-as-humor, but I can see the black humor in someone’s death (for instance, there was a brilliant book I read recently where the protagonist’s married father dies while humping a caterer at a wedding … now that was funny).
I’ve got a Pisces moon doing various things with other planets but I don’t really know where I’d say my compassion came from.
In spite of what I wrote earlier I’m 100% anti-PC… you can’t have freedom of speech if you’re not allowed to offend people and/or hurt their feelings, either purposely or inadvertently (Uranus in House 3 seems to make me pretty open-minded).
Also I laughed until I cried when I saw that part in Pulp Fiction where the guy in the backseat of the car accidentally got shot… if there’d been gore it wouldn’t have been funny to me though. But still.
I suppose I do have a bit of a dark side :p
I do have compassion, but also love dark humor. I dont get 3 stooges or americas funniest videos either.. any form of hurting or humiliating another I just dont understand. Hell, I dont think we should have a death penalty. But I do understand dark humor. To me, its different.
I thought parts of pulp fiction were hysterical and parts where I closed my eyes and was sickened.
And yet, I am pretty sure I could kill if it came to my children. I think I’d do anything to protect them, at all costs.
Very contradicting.. but there it is.
I feel the same way that Satori does…I hate that sort of thing. I talked to my Dad about people who laugh at over people tripping (I just don’t get what’s so funny) and he thought it was the ‘element of surprise.’
As for if I’d kill? Of course my 1st House Moon would say no, as would my Neptune trined Mars conj. Venus…
However…I have Pluto in Libra opp. Mars in Aries, Pluto square Capricorn Moon, and a Taurus Sun opposed Uranus on my MC. I was once dragged to the ground by my hair and kicked in the head for instinctively jumping into a fight between two other people. Two big men! I don’t know my strength (or in that situation, lack of strength and poor timing).
I don’t know what I’m capable of (or crazy enough for my Mars to think I’m capable of).
I’m sure there are circumstances in which I would kill. In self-defence say. Or in defence of someone I loved. I would also happily kill fish to eat (and probably other animals if I got hungry enough), but in real life I generally can’t stand the thought of killing anything.
I can’t be doing with genuine cruelty, but I dig black humour.
I think compassion gets confused with empathy sometimes. Empathy means ‘I will sit and cry with you’ – compassion is more complicated. Compassion (to me) can be ‘I feel your pain, and I’m sorry, but I may still kick your ass if I think it will be in your best interests’ (much in the way Elsa tends to do in the advice that she gives).
I think compassion is hard to get right sometimes because it often involves a balance (too much ass-kicking is not a good thing, and neither is too much molly-coddling nor is it always appropriate to contribute to someone’s ‘poor victimised me’ mentality) so we do our best and live and learn I guess.
I can come across and cold and compassion-less (Saturn in 1st, lots of Libra, no Water except for Neptune), and I do have a sick sense of humor…but I also have a 5th house Sun in Leo. The big heart makes up for the rest of it. I hate to see defenseless creatures getting hurt, and I’ll fight for them (Aries rising).
I feel that I am compassionate and could not kill, but me and my SO have been on this topic of late. He travels for work and worries about my safety…so he thinks I should keep the gun he bought me close at hand (near the pillow) in
‘case’. I told him I’m not ready to do this as I don’t want to be in a position to kill someone even if they come in to hurt me. And if I did need to shoot, it would be to injure them only if possible. He’s pisces sun, venus and mercury and says only shoot to kill!!!
Don’t think I could kill.
But here’s the sentence that sticks in my head from this: “Good men can kill, and yet there are many monsters who never lift a hand in violence.”
What is that? I know of people who never, ever smack their spouses about, but treat them like crap, yell, seem to get off on putting them down. In a way, you almost wish they WOULD get physically violent, because then in a way it might be clearer that Something Is Wrong Here. We all “know” that Hitting Is Bad, but where to draw the line on emotional abuse seems so much less clear with some people. Maybe they got brought up with it, I don’t know, maybe it’s that they already had the “You suck” voice in their head before meeting the abuser and to them it’s just normal anyway. But it’s a stumper.
Who knew? There is a word for this:
“schadenfreude” means to delight in someone else’s misfortune.
It’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to but I just don’t have the definitive answer yet.
I know I could kill a human if it became necessary. I’m not so sure about killing animals; I’ve got more compassion for them since the domesticated ones can’t fend for themselves and for the most part wild animals just want to stay out of our way. But people? No problem. *shrug*
Am I compassionate? I lean towards no. People tend to think I am (Cancer rising), but mostly it’s just empathy. I can understand another’s emotions and motivations very easily, I just don’t care very much usually. I have a small group of people, my “tribe,” that I am fiercely loyal to and protective of, and I genuinely care about what happens to my tribe. But it’s a select group and I don’t let anyone in readily, because these are the ones I would die for. Literally. And once you’re out, you’re out, part of the rabble. I may still be cordial, but you’re not “mine” anymore and you have to fend for yourself.
Maybe this is my 8th house Aquarius Moon trine Mars-Venus-Pluto conjunction in Libra?
I have pisces moon and cry when I watch the news, but I am with a man that is Scorp Sun, Agua Rising, and Aries Moon..he has zero..he will watch videos on ebaums that hurt others, degrade women and find it amusing.. I dont get it at all..I find it repulsive and it saddens and sickens me that people can be so calous.
I could kill if I had to – if someone was aggressing upon me or a loved one and it was either that or be killed.
I hate horror movies because I can’t watch people suffer and get hurt. It really bothers me.
I find that kind of dark humor very Scorpio. And 3 stooges very Aries (physical comedy)!
yes, and yes.
i wouldn’t venture to say if there were a marker for sociopathy. i think the ability to step outside oneself is a marker of maturity, not nature.
besides. empathy can be schadenfreude as easy as compassion.
there might be genetic predispositions (thus, also, astrological cues) towards nuerological miswires in empathic development.
but, i have to assume that, again, it comes down to choice.
I could kill if I were in danger but I definitely have compassion. And I’d probably be horrified at myself if I did so. I think my Mars/Saturn in Scorpio and Moon in the 8th can be ruthless if I let them rule, but I have enough other stuff to balance it- I hope!
I think compassion gets confused with empathy sometimes. Empathy means ‘I will sit and cry with you’ – compassion is more complicated. Compassion (to me) can be ‘I feel your pain, and I’m sorry, but I may still kick your ass if I think it will be in your best interests’ (much in the way Elsa tends to do in the advice that she gives).
I consider it to be the opposite, and I don’t think empathy is always about crying with someone (there is in fact a debate over what empathy really means).
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1. You can’t compare the purposeful humiliation of others with the Three Stooges, you just can’t. That video you found online wasn’t voluntary, which was the real creepy part.
2. Has anyone read Becoming Evil? It’s a nice little book about how non-sociopathic (and perhaps even compassionate and non-bigoted) people can end up participating in genocide. Worth a read. Cruelty can result from a number of reasons.
3. isn’t that what reading a natal chart is all about? Markers, for compassion, lack of compassion, maybe markers for killing.
I never saw it that way, it’s about tendencies, not a crystal ball.
4. They didn’t directly hurt anyone but I don’t get the impression they would care if they did. I’ve met so many people who think they’re compassionate when clearly they are not.
Very true, there are many people like that out there, especially among the self-righteous. But there are also times when compassion can be misplaced, and someone can simply be enabling self-destructive behavior in the name of compassion.
4. I’d kill in self-defense, maybe to even protect other people, but certainly not for selfish, impulsive purposes.
5. I’m sensitive to blatantly violent scenes (I don’t really care for sex scenes either, unless it’s like the screwedupness in Hentai, but it doesn’t turn me on either), which is one of the reasons why I didn’t like Pulp Fiction. I don’t think it makes anyone a psychopath for enjoying it though, since there are so many other factors that really make someone evil (there are many insightful comments about that so far, I don’t think I need to add to it here).