Hatred: The Poison You’re Being Fed
Would you take poison willingly? Crazy question right? Of course not. You wouldn’t willingly take poison and neither would I.
Or so I thought…
It’s a bizarre concept. Why on earth would any rational person without a death wish willingly take poison? It makes no sense, and goes against Humanity’s built in drive for self-preservation.
I think most folks have enough self-preservation instinct that they don’t do things that are obviously going to put their existence at risk, like walking in the middle of the highway, jumping out in front of a bus, making a cocktail with rat poison. While I’d like to say I think all folks have enough of that ‘keep me alive’ drive, sadly the Darwin Awards are a thing.
So we’re good at avoiding the obvious threats, and I’ve never seen a Darwin Award given out for knowingly drinking poison(Not saying it hasn’t happened, I’ve just never come across it). Okay, but what if the threat wasn’t as obvious as a smoking goblet ?
What if you couldn’t tell that it was poisonous to you or others? Like Chocolate for dogs and cats? Unless someone tells you that it’s toxic to them how would you know? Chocolate is awesome! How could it possibly be bad for my cats? Well it is, and it’s a matter of learning that fact.
What if the poison is one that can’t be felt right away? Or it is very slow acting? What if it’s something that science can’t define as a poison, and yet it is killing people little by little, day after day?
I for sure would want to know about it myself. Hell I would want some big-ass billboards being setup so that everyone could be informed! We’ve got Toxic people, they should go on the list, and there should be a billboard for them.
They are spewing poison with almost every interaction they have with others. Sure that threat is easily avoidable once you realise them for what they are, but you’ve got to experience them before you realise it. You have to expose yourself to the poison.
‘Well I’m not taking that poison willingly!’ You think to yourself, and right you are about that. So what poisons are people taking willingly?
What are we being fed without realizing the damage it’s doing to us and our environment?
The worst and most dangerous one of them all (for my money) is Hatred. It’s not being talked about that way of course, but in the end that’s what it is.
Intolerant, Polarized, Opposed are just a few of the words that are used instead of Hatred which to my mind is understandable. One could disagree with the views of another, but could still interact with them and still like them. At least that was the case in the past. But I see that becoming more and more rare.
Even though the quote attributed to Aristotle is incorrect I still feel it to be valid that “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about this, or any other thing, (except that Aristotle didn’t actually say that, though I wish he did) and I am not going to make it my mission to make someone agree with me… or else.
That’s what we’re seeing these days though. Lack of acceptance of differing views, and lack of compromise. There was a time, now long passed it seems, when the ability to compromise was considered a strength whereas now? It’s portrayed as a weakness.
If people want to know who they can blame for that dysfunction entering the ring of American politics it would be this guy:
That’s right the Great Big Giant Head himself Newt Gingrich.
He was the one figure in the Republican Party above all others that refused to allow compromise with the opposition party because he saw that as a path to restoring the Republicans in power.
He’s also accused, somewhat accurately of pioneering the degeneration of the American political discourse and decency. I understand that there are those who might feel the need to defend Mr. Giant Head from what they feel is an unfair attack on his character, but rest assured I am not attacking him.
I am simply stating facts. He himself has drawn a line that connects between his teaching the necessity of being nasty in politics back in June 1978, to the partisan clown-show that is evident today.
With his refusal to compromise, and preaching/practising that politics is “Fighting a war. It is a war for power” the course of descent into the dirt was set.
It is a curious thing about people, that regardless of where they come from or what their societal makeup is, they take their behavioural queues from their “leaders”.
Always have done from what we can tell.
In the ancient practice of ‘Monkey see monkey do’ people emulate the behaviour of their superiors. Children do it with their parents, then with their friends, and others as they grow older. It’s a primary source of our learned behaviour. It’s also where we get the idea of a Role Model from.
We expect our Role models to set an example to be followed. Whether they are our elders, which was the traditional source of role models, our leaders, also a traditional source, or more frequently these days(and unfortunately) our celebrities, a non-traditional source, but much more prevalent, they all do the same thing whether wittingly or not.
They tell us how to behave.
When our Elders behaved with care, dignity, respect for themselves and others, we learned to behave the same way. Those of us lucky enough had elders that taught us why to behave that way. I learned that employing good manners was a display of respect not only to the other people you are with but also respect of the self.
So what do we do when the behaviour we see in our ‘leaders’ is not what our elders espoused? How do you behave when you see, almost daily, whether in-person or on a TV screen these “role models” behaving badly? And not suffering any consequences for it?
Well unfortunately many people end up emulating the behaviour.
This has worked out well for the politicians. They have learned to exploit the divide and conquer tactic to their great benefits and the peoples’ great loss.
If folks are too busy being angry and shaking their fists at the “other side” they become distracted from the things that are going on in the background. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Indeed
They like to keep us distracted, and have done so effectively for decades. They just used to be more subtle about it than what we are seeing now.
Even more effective than distraction? Division.
That’s what we are seeing play out now. What began with the enforcement of the ‘no compromise’ mentality, and was amplified with the ‘us or them’ conversations has grown into the creation of the divided paradigm.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” was as true when Abraham Lincoln said it to the Republican State Convention in 1858 as it is now. The difference between then and now is that the cause of division that existed in 1858 was incidental in nature, brought about by acceptance or opposition to the pre-existing institution of slavery. Whereas the cause of division now is deliberate.
And is by no means sourced from any cause as worthy to fight against as slavery, No.
The source of this modern division amongst the people is nothing more than politics. Sleazy, no account, sell your soul to get to the top Politics.
They’ve cranked up the rhetoric, and poured vitriol over everything that they speak about to the citizenry. The Politicians for the most part have long left the act of governing behind, and instead focus solely on power and control; getting it, having it, and keeping it.
This is the most polarized that Western societies have been in the last 60 years, and the idea that these divisions have been created deliberately bothers me more than the divisions themselves. Not because I don’t care, but because the subjects of these divisions, for the most part lack any substance.
But whipping up the mob has nothing to do with facts. It is about manipulation of emotions, and of course the easiest emotion to manipulate is?
Fear
It touches to the core of our psyche, and is that primal trigger in the animal part of our brain where the calculation of input gives the response of Fight or Flight or Freeze. This is a hardwired stimulus/response and is ancient.
This is why emotional manipulation works so effectively. An emotional response is immediate, and unreasoning. There is no conscious thought process in the human mind when we’re having a fear response. The Brain doesn’t have time for that.
The Gazelle doesn’t question the Cheetah’s motivation. It doesn’t wonder whether that cat is hungry, or angry or just bored. The brain hits the big THREAT!! button, and it runs it’s little ass off if it wants to stay alive. Not even thinking about it. It just does it.
It’s a simple but extremely effective mechanism that has served animals since the first predator chowed down on their chosen prey while the rest of the herd watched their fallen comrade and thought to themselves ‘Whoa! Holy crap man, that could have been me! Glad I kept the cardio up!’
Humans all have the same system.
Buried under our newer, more advanced Neocortex is the Limbic system. This is an ancient part of the brain governing in part, our emotional responses such as fear, and it works much faster than the Neocortex where all the “thinking” is done.
Basically while our ‘higher brain’, that neocortex is trying to figure out “what this dude’s problem is?” our limbic system has already smashed the THREAT!! button and is pumping adrenaline into our bloodstream so our body has the energy available to either run like hell, or start pounding on him.
Science figured this out. Marketing learned from Science, and so did the Politicians…
The culture of fear is not incredibly new to human society. It has been used to manipulate societies for longer than people are comfortable admitting.
“The people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
That was the explanation from Hermann Göring during his interviews in Nuremburg, and his statement says it all really.
While looking up the quote I admit that, when reading it again for the first time in a probably a decade the hair stood up on the back of my neck as I realised how closely his statement from 74 years ago parallels the rhetoric being voiced by the current American president.
“All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
The whole nation is being carved up by fear. Right vs Left, Democrat vs Republican, Red vs Blue, Kale vs Enchiladas…
Okay, maybe I went too far with the Kale comment. (I would side with Echiladas personally) but the point is that people are being made to choose sides and everything is being added to the debate.
It seems like there is nothing that is not politicised in America these days. Get the people arguing with each other about everything under the sun and they can’t come together when they should. When it is for the common good.
They have a harder time agreeing what the common good is.
In the meantime the nefarious folks profiting off of the division either aren’t aware of how this is weakening their society, or they just don’t care. Ironically those foreign nations, being called the ‘Bad Actors’ are very aware though, and care more than we would like about this weakening.
They are very aware of the divisions being generated by the politicians, and are working to exploit them. Feed and foster those divisions by all means at their disposal. They are quite happily, and effectively working to undermine the nation by attacking the society at it’s core.
The people have been manipulated to do the dirty work for the politicians, and many are taking to it with a will. Spurred on by emotional invective absent of truth.
This Ladies and Gentlemen, is how you destroy a nation.
Slowly…
From the inside
