Happy Monday fellow FRians! As always, this Monday’s post is by Stephen Hall.
This has been, to say the least, an interesting week. Remember the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Because, history records conflict and turmoil, those interesting times of war, strife, famine, plague, and other assorted entertainments for history.
Rather than dwell upon the singularity of the events of the week, let us look at them from a more abstract perspective to learn something truly valuable, and as a result we can prove that all of those paranoid conspiracy theories which you laugh about are actually true. Well, some of them anyway, they really are out to get you.
Nothing brings a group of people together quite as strongly and effectively as having a common enemy. This week saw people taking to the streets literally fighting neo-nazis, racists, and anyone even seen to be standing with them. On the internet, the vitriol was just as bad advocating violence and denouncing Freedom of Speech.
All of this they tried to justify as fighting the Nazis, even though the actual Nazis, the NSDAP, died out as a political party in 1945, long before any of these people were ever born, before most of their parents were even born. Also these displays were against groups so fringe and marginal that they barely register as a group, e.g. the KKK which only has an estimated 5,000 members nationwide.
So, while a bunch of idiots run around trying to destroy ideas and other metaphysical concepts of which they disapprove, I would rather look at the nature of the incestuous relationship between two of these abstract concepts.
An enemy unites a group, but what exactly is an enemy? Hillary Clinton said that Republicans were her enemy. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an enemy is “a person who hates or opposes another person and tries to harm that person.” While Republicans certainly opposed Hillary, they did not seek to harm her, so her designation of them as her enemy was either overblown rhetoric, or a delusional persecution complex.
However, that definition is key, than your enemy is one who not only hates you but tries to harm you. If someone is seeking to harm you, then it is only right and just to defend yourself from that harm.
It is upon this premise that wars are fought. Upon a state declaring war upon another, they have announced not only their desire but their intent to inflict harm upon the other state and all the people of that state. Thus, in war, violence does not need to be provoked, it was provoked by that declaration of intent. Only in war is the initiation of violence justified because the intent of the other has already been officially established.
Short of war, decorum and civility demand that a person exhibit some behavior which places a person in immediate apprehension of another’s violence before they may respond with violence. It is the basic principle of self defense that you cannot just attack someone you think might have hostile intent towards you.
However, whether individuals, ethnicities, or states, groups will band together to defend themselves from a perceived threat. If people believe that there are others out there who seek to harm them because of who or what they are, those people will cling together in common defense against those whom they perceive hate them.
Humans are thus tribal animals whose social interactions often break down into group divisions of us versus them. It has been this way throughout recorded history, and there is no reason to believe that it was not the way long before history began to be recorded.
What often gets left out is the emotional of the group towards those believed to hate them, which is simply to hate them in return. If you believe one group is out to get your group, then it can only be because that group is fundamentally evil. Your group is being persecuted by them! We will show them!
So whether the enemy actually hates you or not, you will hate them. Hatred leads to actions, and your group will act to harm that other group, whether overtly or covertly. You will defend your fellow group you see as being persecuted by those people.
Leaders of a people can use this outside threat to bring their people closer together, to be more cooperative the larger and more dangerous the out group is perceived. The in-group become martyrs, suffering the systemic persecution of that hated out-group.
By bringing a people together under the banner of martyrdom, the leaders create a very cohesive group, but more importantly a group willing to act for the benefit of the group above their own individual needs or preferences.
So this week, as in the 30s, Antifa fearing a fascist power seeing fascists everywhere, decided to preserve the peace through violence. Thus confirming for the neo-nazis that the communists running the media are seeking to destroy them.
Those Jewish groups held close together through 2000 years in Europe because of their constant perception that they were persecuted by the Christians, who did periodically expel them from virtually every European country. Meanwhile, those European Christians were convinced that those Jews were out to swindle and cheat them every chance they got and undermine their nations, which the Talmud does actually tend to advocate.
Black leaders preach that the white man is oppressing them, keeping them from succeeding, so that these young black people grow up hating white people for “oppressing” them and strike out violently. White people are continually reminded of the disparity of violence perpetrated by those young black people so they try to avoid and limit as much contact as they can, confirming the black people’s perception of oppression.
A hundred other examples can be had of one group or another which actually act out their own hatred against those whom they are already convinced are acting out against them. Almost invariably there is some truth to the claims of both sides.
It is a dynamic interaction which feeds upon one another, each side feeling slighted by the other and slighting the other in exchange. Each side of all of these conflicts feels, believes, and promotes the idea that their group is being innocently martyred while destroying any hope of that image of innocence from ever getting out of their own little group.
Every group views themselves as the victims, the martyrs, being oppressed by the hatred of the other group, and making the other group’s perception real through their actions. Those conspiracy theories that certain groups acted together to harm other groups are very likely accurate, but one must understand the context of why.
I am reminded of the Hatfield-McCoy feud played out on a global scale. When someone says that killing that person, vandalizing that property, or stealing that money is wrong, they point to their victims and say “But they did this other thing first.” And, they are not wrong.
However, being correct about other people’s bad behavior never justifies your own bad behavior. Past injustices can never justify the commission of present violence or injustice. You were not injured because your people were injured; even if people are out to get you it does not justify your going out to get them.
Regardless of religion, there is a fundamental philosophical aspects to Christianity that past sins of others should be forgiven and that change first begins with repenting one’s own actions rather than seeking justice for the wrongs of another against you.
I can think of no other way for groups to get past their hatred of other groups than that they first let go of their identity as martyrs, as oppressed, and simultaneously admit to their own past misdeeds.
Do I hold out hope that people will do that? No, I don’t. Perhaps just recognizing the reasoning of the martyr/hatred dynamic would let people break free from the perpetual cycle. All the world appears to be in a dysfunctional relationship with the rest of the world.
