have indulged in over the years–gladiator battles, public executions,
jousting, hunting, bullfights, boxing and so on–it seems that the pos-
sibility of taking pleasure in suffering (on stage and off stage) should not
be ruled out without discussion.^24 Indeed, plenty of philosophers, among
them Lucretius, Hobbes, Burke and Nietzsche, have thought it relatively
uncontroversial that we enjoy watching people suffer, especially (as in
theatre) when we know ourselves to be safe and sound.^25
I have placed responses of these kinds under the heading of‘sadism’.
But it might be helpful to make a distinction between a strong and a
weak version of sadism. Both versions maintain that we enjoy watching
the suffering of others. According to the stronger version, when we watch
other people suffer, we feel no negative emotions at all; on the weaker
version, there is some negative, perhaps painful response to watching the
sufferings of others, but there is also a pleasurable response, which is
inextricably linked to the suffering and which outweighs the pain. In
both cases, the point is that our experience of tragedy is not especially
unique and does not require a special explanation.
Burke appeals to a strong version of sadism, by way of an explanation
of tragic emotion.^26 His starting point seems to be the observation (uncon-
troversial in his day) that the public take great delight in executions–
greater, in fact, than in the best tragedies:
[Choose] a day on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tra-
gedy we have; appoint the most favourite actors; spare no cost upon the
scenes and decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting and
music; and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment
when their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state
criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining
square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the
comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the
real sympathy.^27As Burke realises, most people aren’t going to be thrilled at the sugges-
tion that we all want to hurt each other. After all, it’s not as if we go
around happily mutilating strangers. But he has a response. The key
distinction, he maintains, is between,first, wanting some horrible event
to happen and, second, given that it is happening, wanting to watch.
Whereas thefirst desire would be peculiar, perhaps pathological, the
second, he suggests, is almost universal. Most people don’t want a hor-
rible accident to happen on the road; but, driving past one, most people
crane their necks to see. This allows for a general desire to see other
people suffer without the extra (and at leastprima facieimprobable) claim
that we actively seek to make them suffer whenever we can. Because
140 From the Stage to the World