America: Home of the Sadists

          In Miner's "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema", the author discusses the Nacirema's masochistic mentality and how horrifying it is to an outsider's point of view. So imagine my shock when I realize Nacirema is nothing more than a not very well-disguised cover for American culture and its ridiculous mindset.

          Miner points out "what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people has developed into sadistic specialists" (Paragraph 12, 13-14). Can we even attempt to argue this? On of the country's most famous television shows is labelled "America's Funniest Home Videos". I have only happened to watch it once or twice, but when I did, it appeared to consist solely of unaware people getting hurt followed by the viewers screaming with laughter. This sort of schadenfreude is deemed conventional in America which only seems to enhance how despicable its inhabitants are in the eyes of people from other countries.

           Of course, receiving pleasure from pain is not exactly exclusive to the United States. One of the most striking characters of Golding's The Lord of the Flies--Roger, an English schoolboy--is an allegorical sadist who enjoys torturing the other boys. Similarly, in Brown's The DaVinci Code, the eerie assassin Silas experiences sensual relief when a "barbed cilice belt" cuts into his flesh (Chapter 15). Then again, Roger is an unenlightened child and--in this case--Silas is only harming himself. What is America's excuse?