Hate Summary
Here is a summary of the four conversations we’ve had with professionals delving into the current environment of hate and outrage and polarization.
I know this has been a difficult process to get through. But it was important to me to try to find some answers. Hopefully there are some breadcrumbs here for you too.
Let’s try to synthesize what we’ve learned and what we can do.
Why? Why are we at this point of hate and outrage and polarization?
First, our brains weren’t really designed for the constant onslaught of stimuli they are being forced to absorb in the modern world. You are being assaulted by triggering messages 24 X 7. These messages are designed to move you out of your big brain – your thinking, intellectual brain – and into your dinosaur brain – the amygdala, fight or flight fear brain.
These triggering assaults are then capturing immediate response in a positive feedback loop that is designed to amplify your outrage and move you further down that path.
Our ill-adapted mental equipment that was pretty good at avoiding lions in the jungle is a liability when it comes to responding to these constant, mostly manufactured, seemingly dire threats.
Technology as a tool for delivering outrageous content is very good at triggering us. The connectedness of the global internet enables this to be done at scale. Now you can herd people from Kansas, Oregon and Rhode Island, who would otherwise never have shared a concern, into an outraged group.
Why has this been designed this way?
This technology was originally designed to get you to buy something. Because once you are moved out of your rational brain and into your dinosaur brain, you’re much easier to influence. It’s like shopping drunk.
But it works so well on influencing people that organizations and special interest groups started using it to get you to ‘buy’ other things. Like candidates and ideologies.
Because it works the same way. The mechanics are the same. Feed you content that moves you out of your rational brain into your fear-based dinosaur brain, this puts you into a state where you are very susceptible to influence and direction. It’s easier to make you take action.
Whip you into such a frothing, angry, discombobulated state, that facts don’t matter, and you’ll do anything to get a feeling of control back.
But, what’s in it for us? Why do we participate?
Once you’re afraid and feeling like you have no control, there is a mental and physical reward from the act of lashing out, in whatever form that takes, to you it feels like you are ‘fighting back’, unfortunately you may be just following someone else’s script.
It’s like someone coming up to you in a bar, tossing a beer on you and calling your date an ugly whore. How great does it feel to throw that first punch! And what kind of loser doesn’t stick up for their date?
That lashing out gives you a physical reward of happy chemicals and makes you feel like you’re back in control, like you’ve done something. But are you? Does the negative stimulus stop? No, it reads your response and escalates.
This positive feedback from your negative behavior becomes an addiction. You need more of that. And you need bigger doses. And you need them more often. Now you’re down the rabbit hole of addiction.
How does that participation affect us?
You get a rush of dopamine by lashing out, by taking action. Remember – fight or flight. But this action doesn’t resolve the conflict. It escalates it. You are stuck in a constant high-stress state.
Living in a state of fight or flight is harmful to your long-term health. It impacts your happiness. It bathes you in anxiety and fear. It effects your sleep and your attitude. It pumps your brain and body full of stress hormones like cortisol. You become a physically sick, mentally ill zombie.
Why are some people really driven to attack and hate and go off the deep end more than others?
Different people are wired differently. Whether through nature or nurture some people are more sensitive to fear, conflict and anxiety. Some people may have childhood or other traumas or built in anxiety that makes them easier to influence into a neagtive state.
The modern world has isolated individuals and made them feel powerless. People are searching for significance and connection, whether it is positive or negative. That connection or an unhealthy ghost of it can be found in our current polarization. Throwing hand grenades is a way to have significance in an otherwise insignificant existence.
Why do these hate conversations lump people into groups and create ‘us versus them’?
Creating an ‘us versus them’ and an outgroup is an effective way to control people. The goal is to keep you in a fearful state. An effective way to do this is to create an enemy. An enemy that is trying to take your things away or harm your family. This way you can create the ‘other’.
The most effective others are a different race or religion or culture where there are real-world differences that can then be twisted into otherness. Other divisions can be used, like where you live, or your opinion on a dog-whistle issue.
‘Our team versus your team’ is a timeless cultural attribute of human society. It has always existed. In this sense it is very normal and a positive way to bring local communities together.
This normal human cultural response can be, and is, being perverted to amplify fear. This perversion progresses to dehumanizing the other group. And if you’re looking for something to be genuinely afraid of it is what happens when you dehumanize the other group.
That road ends in the loss of our collective humanity, and, potentially taking of lives. “I was just following orders” is not a viable excuse. Please, if you find yourself participating in dehumanization, check yourself.
What if was your mother? Your brother? Your son or your daughter?
These are not new things. These are all known tools of influence, manipulation and control.
Having a scary other also enables the framing of decision as a binary choice. Either or. Binary choices strip away your power. A binary choice allows the creation of a majority opinion where there is none.
They don’t need you to be in favor of anything in particular, they just need you to be against the tother and each other.
Why can’t we just make an intellectual choice? Why can’t people say ‘this may not be true?’ Why don’t they recognize the absurdity of the narratives? Why can’t we just show them the facts so they’ll choose the right way?
It’s not that easy. You are asking these questions from your intellectual brain. Once you have been moved into a fear state your rational thinking ability is deceased. You are essentially acting like an addict, or someone under the influence, incapable of thoughtful decisions.
People who are stuck in fear state or stuck in this escalation loop of hate and outrage, like an addict, can’t just decide to say ‘no’. They need to get out of that state before they can access rational decision making.
Not only that, this state, these fears, and the resulting beliefs that they cling to become internalized. They are not opinions. They become part of the individual’s identity. It becomes who they are.
The result is when you challenge a belief, you re challenging their identity. It is no longer a conversation; it is a personal attack. This dynamic reinforces the intensity of the response and deepens the ‘us versus them’.
Like an addiction the individual needs to be weened off of the stimulus before they can think rationally.
If what we need is more critical thinking, then why are intellectuals and intellectualism in general being attacked?
It would be healthier for us and our society to be able to think more clearly, to stop name-calling and having ill-informed, kneejerk, responses based on polarized group opinions.
Why doesn’t that happen? Why don’t we see the problem and lean into critical thinking? Why don’t we seek out experts and educated resources that think deeply about these challenges as their life’s work?
Why, in fact, does the opposite happen?
Simply put, this is not in the best interest of the forces using these tools of influence.
Because if you start thinking in a rational way you’ll see the absurdities. You’ll consider alternatives. You’ll understand common ground. You’ll consider that most choices are not binary.
You might even lose your hate.
You’ might even exit the fear state and become less influenceable.
Less controllable.
So part of the playbook is to vilify intellectuals as false prophets, or biased sources, or members of the conspiracy. To ban books without reading them. To exclude any thought that does not align 100%.
Control, absolute control, is when ‘faith’ replaces thought. Arguing or persecuting from a position of belief or faith is a convenient way to not have to think for yourself. Especially if that ‘faith’ means you unquestionably follow a leader of a group without thinking.
When you abdicate your power, you no longer have a choice.
It’s easier, it’s comfortable, to not include alternative thoughts, but it does not solve the problem, it amplifies the problem.
Is it really as bad as it feels?
No, well, maybe. Our current state feels bad. It feels like we’re waiting for something awful to happen. Some precipitous event that will be a violent lurch in awfulness.
Take a breath.
Realize that there is nothing new about where we are today. The way we are acting is normal human behavior. We’ve engaged in this behavior for tens of thousands of years.
Remember the goal of the forces bombarding you with hate, fear, outrage and negative input is to make you afraid. You can choose not to play in that game, regardless of how bad it seems is any of it under your control?
Even, if we assume the universe is on fire, is you living in a state of fear or hate adding any value to anything?
Take a step back. Look down on it from 30,000 feet.
There is your town. Somewhere people are eating dinner. Teenagers are doing homework. Parents are giving baths to toddlers and reading bedtime stories. The world has not ended. Maybe things are not ‘terrible’, ‘awful’ and ‘horrible’.
Remember, the system of influence wants you to think that way, to feel that way, to push you into fear mode.
Is your situation that bad? How much of what you are feeling is manufactured?
Resist fear mode. Move the observing self into the big brain and appreciate all the goodness in the world.
If you make a point of looking for the positive things, hate and fear shrivel.
How do we get out of the hate cycle?
Let’s move on to potential solutions.
First, if you feel like you are out of control seek out a professional. It’s ok. It is a strength to ask for help.
The recurring theme in all these conversations is that, like any addiction, you need to start by mitigating the influence. Disconnect from the input. Remove yourself from the triggering environment. Stick your phone in a drawer. Delete the apps. Stop watching the news. Allow your body and brain a few days to go through the withdrawal.
Stop repeating the really-good-mostly-made-up narratives. Stop participating in the catastrophizing of life.
As part of this process, once you are out from under the influence of the drug, you can thoughtfully create replacement habits to rebuild your operating system in the context of sanity and health.
Build the boundaries you need to be healthy. Whether that is with technology, habits or people.
Work on being your best healthy self first. Become a healthy island in the sea of hate. If you choose to engage, do it from the strength and power of self-control and self-realization.
Finding and bringing your best self is how you make the world better and it is 100% under your control.
And, at the end of the day, there is no mythical world where everything is peaceful, everyone agrees and there is no conflict. The world and human existence is chaotic. It has always been chaotic.
You can control yourself, how you react and how you feel. The system of influence aims to take that way from you. Disengage. Reimagine and take back your power.
Finally, stop worrying about things that are out of your control. Stop worrying about things that might happen in the future. Stop worrying about events in the past. Let it all go and be with your power in the now.
If I am a healthy individual and choose to engage, how do I engage in a positive way?
You can have conversations with anyone. But learn how to have conversations that obey the rules of decorum.
Learn how to listen. Be empathetic. Seek to understand. Seek to help. Look for common ground from which you can work together to achieve mutual goals.
Be open to ideas. Ask questions.
Protect yourself. Know when to walk away from unhealthy conversations. Respect yourself and your boundaries.
Stop dehumanizing the others. Stop personal attacks. Stop name calling. Debate policies, not people.
Engage as your best self with your rational brain and your personal power. Only support leaders or representatives that do the same. Strive to be an island of rationality and positivity in this sea of hate.
We are all influencers.
Be a beacon of hope.
How do we move forward now?
I hope these have been useful conversations. I hope they cause you to stop and think. I hope they give you some options on regaining a healthy relationship with the world and some ideas on how to engage and how not to.
Seek out the good in the world.
You can’t be angry and grateful at the same time.