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hide his laughter; on the contrary, he feasted on it. Father and son alike punished Elli with their laughter. We can infer that neither father nor son was fat; had they been, it is unlikely their laughter would have been so easily, openly mean. If they had also been fat, Kafka and his father would have laughed  with  her, rather than  at  her.
    We do not hear the voice of Kafka’s sister or father. It is not too hard to imagine how Kafka’s father may have defended himself: exasperated, he may have felt that the only option left to him was sarcasm. He may have believed that some laughter at Elli’s expense within the privacy of their home would have goaded her to improve her physical appearance and so meet with greater happiness in the world.
    If not exactly cruel, Herr Kafka’s manner was far from kind. Cruelty properly attaches to suffering, which exceeds mere teasing. We speak of “the cruelty of children” (as in teasing) from time to time, but such “cruelty” usually amounts to curiosity and lacks the destructive intentions of (adult) cruelty.
    5.         Schadenfreude  and cruelty
    Though a cruel person will invariably celebrate the misfortunes of others, it is by no means obvious that someone who celebrates another’s misfortune is cruel. Finding pleasure in the misfortune of another amounts to cruelty whenever such pleasure follows from a lack of respect for the sufferer as another human being.
    To be sure, failing to recognize evil when we see it poses a real danger. Is unwillingness to condemn pleasure in the setbacks of other people out of hand an apology for cruelty? Does defending Schadenfreude amount to advocating a self-serving morality? No.
    Because arguments about what people deserve in the way of suffering may appeal to their actions (as persons to be respected), it can be quite difficult to distinguish Schadenfreude from cruelty. Was pleasure taken from the suffering of gay men in the throes of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s or in the suffering of Jews under German National Socialism in the 1930s a function of cruelty or justice? Such pleasure was arguably more cruel than righteous, given the well-known struggle of Jews or gay people to earn social respect for their  personhood . The Nazis knew well that widespread cruelty requires a legitimating ontology, one which supports the claim that the victims of cruelty are not persons.
    Many societies perceive outsiders, enemies, and criminals as beyond the “social contract.” Convinced that outsiders need not be treated with the respect due to insiders, those who delight in harm suffered by outsiders may then throw ordinary moral reflection to the wind. In the United States, belief that Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and feminists secretly obey Satan has in certain eras made the most uncivil behavior toward them a badge of piety and religious devotion. Such repugnance can spread easily, due to the insidious way in which such social biases are both reinforced and cultivated. As C. Fred Alford has astutely observed,
    It will do no good to implore people not to demonize others. People demonize the other not out of ignorance or intolerance but to protect their own threatened goodness. Demonization of the other is a defense against doom. That the doom is self-inflicted, the aura of one’s own aggression, makes their defense more poignant but no less destructive.8
    Mentally separating good from evil represents on some level a very healthy love for the self, a commitment to one’s own sanity. While we do well to urge others like us to keep the faith, we must be careful not to allow such expressions of support to humiliate or oppress others.
    Moral argument and inquiry can sometimes resolve serious moral conflicts. In the United States slavery and civil rights legislation furnish good examples of successful resolutions of moral disagreement. When we agree to disagree morally with other people, we may see ourselves entering a kind of competition with