The Bully Hunt

In the aggressive teens, areas of the brain linked with feeling rewarded -- the amygdala and ventral striatum -- became very active when they observed pain being inflicted on others. But they showed little activity in an area of the brain involved in self-regulation -- the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction -- as was seen in the control group.

One of the unspoken modern results of the enlightenment is the moving away from all forms of corporal punishment. We no longer feel that physically hurting another human being - to control their behavior - is acceptable. The master/slave dynamic, which is growing less powerful day by day, leans heavily on corporal punishment.

It is interesting that these things are interconnected - corporal punishment, self-regulation, and satisfaction. Some seem to have control over their physical body while others need external forces to control them. I wonder if John Brown's amygdala lit up when he punished his son, and why he suddenly wanted to be beaten as opposed to beating..

During an unruly phase in his son's life, John Brown kept an account of how much punishment was due from John Jr's various infractions: for disobeying his mother, he owed eight lashes; for telling a lie, eight more. When the time came, John Sr., as anticipated, applied the whip to his son's back. A third of the way through the allotted number of strokes, however, he stopped, handed the whip to his son, took off his shirt, and demanded that his son finish the beating. John Jr. recounts, "I dared not refuse to obey, but at first I did not strike hard. 'Harder!' he said; 'harder, harder!' until he received the balance of the account." Initially mystified, years later John Jr. realizes that his father was offering a "practical illustration" of the doctrine of atonement - that "justice could be satisfied by inflicting penalty upon the back of the innocent instead of the guilty."
- John Brown's Body

Could it be that the satisfaction that comes from corrective punishment on a persons body was never related to the crime, but solely from the joy of harming another? That atonement is not to teach the person receiving the punishment a lesson, which is commonly the excuse, but that the one doing the beating is doing it for their own hidden satisfaction?

Pre-enlightenment, the outcasts tended to be the physically weak, the diseased, those with grey identities as compared to the standard male and female. The sadist was part of the ingroup, and found joy in physically harming those that broke the law, and this was sanctioned by society. Is it possible that without having the ability to regulate their own actions, that these aggressive men, who obtain pleasure from harming others, will become the outcasts?