Hate has always been with us, but why is it becoming unleashed now? Civilization is coming unglued—we don’t seem to value it anymore? Hatred is the cheapest way to experience a sense of purpose.
Nearly 100 House Democrats just refused to support a House Resolution condemning political violence. Why are people who believe this being elected to lead this country!
"Hate is associated with pleasure: Yes. Jonathan Turley notes that "we live in an Age of Rage", and that rage is a narcotic. The same could be said of hate. Both rage and hate free people from normal societal constraints, and provide them with permission to act out their most primitive emotions. And, like narcotics it is pleasurable but also very destructive.
You're right about hate being hard-wired in: it's easily learned and hard to forget, like fear and learning to speak.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Anthony Pratkanis, an experimental psychologist who wrote on persuasion (he offered 8 steps) in his article How to Sell a Pseudosciece (1995) https://tinyurl.com/2b8q8q96
"2. Set a Rationalization Trap. The rationalization trap is based on the premise: Get the person committed to the cause as soon as possible.
Once a commitment is made, the nature of thought changes. The committed heart is not so much interested in a careful evaluation of the merits of a course of action but in proving that he or she is right."
Katherine Oakley touched on a relevant point. She wrote in the WSJ that debating someone with fixed views frequently backfires, i.e. the person's belief is strengthened irrespective of arguments and/or facts that are inconsistent with the belief. https://archive.is/9niJB
It seems to me that presently the strong focus on hatred of some group is frequently accompanied by romanticizing another group, presenting that group as idyllic rather than realistic, however contradictory that might be to what the "haters" say they want. Again, an evolutionary quirk of the human mind with a selective advantage of millions of years of who-knows-what?
Excellent. One thing not mentioned: Hate is a lot of effort. It's not passive.
I'm not sure I agree with your empathy approach. It's not wrong, per se, but it's weak sauce. I can empathize with someone hateful, understanding the source of their hate and why they are hateful.
I can, at the same time, recognize that society would be better off without them on the streets, which does NOT necessarily mean "dead", although it can. Most relevantly for this topic, I can do that without hatred; it's simply a utilitarian calculation.
I believe that it is harmful to believe that everyone can be redeemed. It may be theoretically possible, but it's not practically possible. Simply ignoring their problems, which we are doing now, certainly isn't helpful. What does one do with the irredeemable? How does one decide what's "deemed" and what's not? Those are hard questions that empathy does not help with.
Totally agree that it is neither wise nor practical to imagine that all we have to do is empathize with everybody and everything will be fine. That's certainly not what I'm saying, even as I'm saying that we have a huge empathy and compassion deficit in our culture, and that we need to address it. That said, there are bad actors, always. There are people who are incapable of fellow human feeling, who thrive on exploitation, manipulation, violence, and harm. Ignoring this, or pretending that it will go away if we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, is naïve to the point of contributing to the problem..
I'm on the fence about whether or not the Internet, particularly social media, makes this worse or just revealed what was already there. I lean toward "worse", but it's also easy to find counter-examples (and I am one, but I'm anecdote not data).
Same – I think it might be a combination of both. The Internet unleashes tendencies deep within us because of the way that it is structured. When we can't see people face-to-face, there's no accountability, there's no fellow feeling, everything is anonymous, and it's very easy to devolve into behaviors that are instinctive and deeply embedded in our DNA. Civilization is supposed to help us keep those in check, but the Internet seems to be doing the opposite.
This is the best thing I've read in weeks.
Huge thanks for this.
Excellent!
Hate has always been with us, but why is it becoming unleashed now? Civilization is coming unglued—we don’t seem to value it anymore? Hatred is the cheapest way to experience a sense of purpose.
Nearly 100 House Democrats just refused to support a House Resolution condemning political violence. Why are people who believe this being elected to lead this country!
"Hatred is the cheapest way to experience a sense of purpose." Just. Wow.
Conformity, Cruelty, and Political Activism:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70696.html
Thanks David. Your post ties together some ideas I've had floating around what's left of my brain about conformity and etc.
This is a classic post.
"Hate is associated with pleasure: Yes. Jonathan Turley notes that "we live in an Age of Rage", and that rage is a narcotic. The same could be said of hate. Both rage and hate free people from normal societal constraints, and provide them with permission to act out their most primitive emotions. And, like narcotics it is pleasurable but also very destructive.
You're right about hate being hard-wired in: it's easily learned and hard to forget, like fear and learning to speak.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Anthony Pratkanis, an experimental psychologist who wrote on persuasion (he offered 8 steps) in his article How to Sell a Pseudosciece (1995) https://tinyurl.com/2b8q8q96
"2. Set a Rationalization Trap. The rationalization trap is based on the premise: Get the person committed to the cause as soon as possible.
Once a commitment is made, the nature of thought changes. The committed heart is not so much interested in a careful evaluation of the merits of a course of action but in proving that he or she is right."
Katherine Oakley touched on a relevant point. She wrote in the WSJ that debating someone with fixed views frequently backfires, i.e. the person's belief is strengthened irrespective of arguments and/or facts that are inconsistent with the belief. https://archive.is/9niJB
It seems to me that presently the strong focus on hatred of some group is frequently accompanied by romanticizing another group, presenting that group as idyllic rather than realistic, however contradictory that might be to what the "haters" say they want. Again, an evolutionary quirk of the human mind with a selective advantage of millions of years of who-knows-what?
Thanks for this. It's excellent.
Excellent. One thing not mentioned: Hate is a lot of effort. It's not passive.
I'm not sure I agree with your empathy approach. It's not wrong, per se, but it's weak sauce. I can empathize with someone hateful, understanding the source of their hate and why they are hateful.
I can, at the same time, recognize that society would be better off without them on the streets, which does NOT necessarily mean "dead", although it can. Most relevantly for this topic, I can do that without hatred; it's simply a utilitarian calculation.
I believe that it is harmful to believe that everyone can be redeemed. It may be theoretically possible, but it's not practically possible. Simply ignoring their problems, which we are doing now, certainly isn't helpful. What does one do with the irredeemable? How does one decide what's "deemed" and what's not? Those are hard questions that empathy does not help with.
Totally agree that it is neither wise nor practical to imagine that all we have to do is empathize with everybody and everything will be fine. That's certainly not what I'm saying, even as I'm saying that we have a huge empathy and compassion deficit in our culture, and that we need to address it. That said, there are bad actors, always. There are people who are incapable of fellow human feeling, who thrive on exploitation, manipulation, violence, and harm. Ignoring this, or pretending that it will go away if we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, is naïve to the point of contributing to the problem..
Wow, you're speedy!
I'm on the fence about whether or not the Internet, particularly social media, makes this worse or just revealed what was already there. I lean toward "worse", but it's also easy to find counter-examples (and I am one, but I'm anecdote not data).
Same – I think it might be a combination of both. The Internet unleashes tendencies deep within us because of the way that it is structured. When we can't see people face-to-face, there's no accountability, there's no fellow feeling, everything is anonymous, and it's very easy to devolve into behaviors that are instinctive and deeply embedded in our DNA. Civilization is supposed to help us keep those in check, but the Internet seems to be doing the opposite.