Hate Is A Complete And Total Surrender Of Personal Power

 By ScottCDunn

https://medium.com/swlh/hate-is-a-complete-and-total-surrender-of-personal-power-8621a1d61a73

There was a time in my much younger life when I hated one or more persons. I think at one point, it was a sort of searing, visceral hate. There were things that I dreamed about doing to the other person, but could never bring myself to do him or her. I couldn’t do those things because I kept thinking through what would happen to me.

I’d be embarrassed. I’d feel bad for the other person. I’d go to jail. I’d be ostracised by everyone who knew me. I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

Yet, those things that I thought of, that I fantasized about, they were obsessions. They took up space in my brain, time in my day and life away from me. Hate made me tired, so tired. And my hate required other people to change. But at that time in my life, I was not willing to change. My unwillingness to change made me tired. I ran in circles in my brain, trying to enjoy the hate and make the other person change more to my liking at the same time.

All along the way, people I knew and who knew me could see that I was suffering and they kept telling me the same things:

“You can’t change people.”

“Those people are never going to change.”

“You are filled with resentment. Resentment is like drinking poison, waiting for the other person to die.”

But no one ever told me that hate is a surrender of personal power to someone else. I had to figure that one out for myself. I had known this intuitively for a long, long time, yet had never articulated it. Now I see that I live in a culture that is filled with hate, with mass shootings being a major symptom of that hate, and I know what hate means to me now.

When I look at racism, I see people who hate other people for the color of their skin. That skin color is never, ever, going to change. There is no therapy, no cure, no magic available to change the color of the skin. Yet, day after day, I see headlines for mass shootings, hate crimes, threats, and protests against people of color. For the racists, I have to wonder, why hate people with brown skin when you know that the color of their skin is never going to change?

Then there are the Trump haters. I understand their pain, their sense of urgency, and their motivation. But Trump is never going to change. His job is not to make you happy. He is only interested in making his base happy, and if you’re not in that set, forget it. Move on. Focus on something that makes you happy.

I don’t actually hate Trump myself. I know the trap of hate well. The problem I have with hating Trump is that I don’t actually know who Trump is as a person. I’ve read reports of Trump visiting people in a hospital and they said he was warm and friendly, even personable in private. That is in complete contrast to the reports I read of his rallies. So I really don’t know who Trump is. And if I don’t know him, then it’s reasonable for me not to hate him.

And not hating Trump != supporting Trump. I don’t support his policies, and I don’t support him as president. But I don’t hate him. I don’t have enough knowledge about him to hate him, nor do I have the time or patience to hate him. I’m not sure, but perhaps I’m apathetic about him. I don’t really care what he does.

What matters then, is what I choose to do in response to the people in my life who may be irritating, high maintenance, or that lack the skills or capacity to do better.

When I hate someone, the focus is on them, not me. When I hate someone, since the focus is on them, that means the object of my hate is required to change in order for me to be happy. If they changed more to my liking, would my hate decrease or stop? Would I stop hating someone who changed in response to my hate? I don’t think so.

There is a region in the brain called the amygdala. That is the part of the brain that is responsible for identifying associations between objects in our environment and pain and pleasure. Most people have trained themselves to see someone like Trump and respond with pain, anxiety or displeasure, even hate. Hate is a learned behavior. Babies are not born with hate. Even racists learned to hate from someone, and they train themselves, their amygdala, to feel hate when they see someone with a skin color different from their own.

There was a time in my life when I hated mustard on my food. Instead of spending my time obsessing on how I hated mustard, I stopped putting it on my food. I did something else. I changed. The mustard was agnostic, so to speak. Mustard doesn’t have to change for me. Whether or not it has any consciousness is debatable, but for sure, I can say that it’s not the job of mustard to make me happy. The mustard didn’t change, I did. Much later in life, I developed a taste for mustard, but either way, I made the change. I exercised my own power.

When we hate something or someone, we are giving up our power. When we hate someone, we surrender our personal power completely and totally. That is because, when we hate someone, we are not considering our part in the hate. We may not have considered the possibility that hate is a choice.

When we hate someone, we are completely focused on the other person, our hate is dependent on the other person changing, in order for us to be happy. And I can tell you from personal experience, it is not possible to be happy and hateful at the same time. Try it sometime. You will find that hate and happiness cannot exist in the same room at the same time.

I have seen firsthand, the power of hate and how it disabled me. I guess then, that hate is a disability. Hate is a disability to love. Hate is a disability to do anything about my circumstances. Consider this in the context of racism. A white person hates a black person. A white person goes to public gatherings to express his hate for black people. Is the white person making anyone’s life any better by expressing his hate? He’s not working to make money, he’s not being of service to anyone, even the god that he purports to love. Hate doesn’t satisfy any human need that I can think of.

Therefore, hate as a verb is a complete and total surrender of personal power. Hate satisfies no human needs, it displaces one from a state of peace, it displaces self-awareness, and it’s addictive. Addiction is the pathological pursuit of reward. The reward in hate is the endorphins released when one is engaged in hateful behavior. Shouting epithets, marauding in groups or packs around the target of hate, protesting, writing hateful things, posting hateful pictures, memes, violence, and threats of violence, they all cause the brain to release endorphins. Those endorphins get us high, like the runner’s high.

When people start recovery from addiction, the first step is to admit complete and total powerlessness over the addiction. Most people who hate are loathed to admit powerlessness. Hate assumes the power to make other people change when that power doesn’t actually exist. The only purpose of hate then is to feel those endorphins, to feel the rage, to displace oneself from one’s own pain, and one’s own power.

So I avoid hate. I notice when the temptation to hate presents itself and I do something else. I write. I use the phone. I interrupt the thought pattern and think about something else. I think about what I could do differently. I think about the other as a person, with feelings like I have feelings. I think about the other person with needs like I have needs. I make the other person human. I assume that it’s not the job of the other person to make me happy. And I figure out how to make myself happy without any help from the other person. Those are habits, and I have done those habits for so long, that I don’t actually hate anyone now. Hate is not a part of my life anymore.

When I really want to grow, I figure out a way to be of service to the person that caused pain, irritation or inconvenience, however briefly. This doesn’t mean that I have to support the other person for their counterproductive behavior. I can be of service to that person in a very general sense by promoting peace. By meditating, by writing, by considering the other person as someone with unmet needs, without hate. Or maybe I can find a way to help that other person with his or her own pain. People who hate are usually in pain. People who cause pain to other people are usually in pain, retelling, recreating their own painful experience and imposing their fate upon another.

But whatever I do, I don’t take what others do personally, and I make it my job to find my own happiness. I make it my job to love others exactly as they are. I make it my job to be the change I want to see.

I do not surrender my power to hate. I retain my power to love, for love is the antidote to hate.

QUESTION:  What do YOU ALL think about the above essay? Too rosy or right on the button?

The fall of democracy and the rule of law fall to authoritarianism: An example

A number of things reassure some Americans that democracy and the rule of law will not fall to some form of authoritarianism or autocracy. They see little to modest cause for concern. Reassurances come from things like a long democratic history, ethics rules and laws, democratic norms and institutions, e.g., courts, a free press and a vigorous political opposition. 

However, recent poll data indicates that most Americans are now seriously concerned. NPR commented yesterday: “One year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future of democracy. A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is ‘in crisis and at risk of failing.’ Overall, 70% of poll respondents agree that the country is in crisis and at risk of failing.” 

A striking thing about those concerns is that they are mostly partisan. Republicans generally believe that Democrats are hell bent on establishing a brutal, atheist, socialist or communist tyranny. Democrats generally fear Republican authoritarianism and right wing autocracy. One question that raises, is the threat from each side about equal? Is there equivalence, more or less?

Some (most?) experts agree and are now warning of an imminent, serious threat to American democracy. At least one expert now sees the US as an anocracy, neither democracy nor autocracy. Most experts appear to see right wing autocratic tyranny as the main threat, not socialist or communist tyranny. 

The example of Hungary and the rise of radical right authoritarianism

The New York Times writes:

After years of complacency and wishful thinking, Brussels is finally trying to rein in the country’s pugnacious leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

After long indulging him, leaders in the European Union now widely consider Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary an existential threat to a bloc that holds itself up as a model of human rights and the rule of law.

Mr. Orban has spent the past decade steadily building his “illiberal state,” as he proudly calls Hungary, with the help of lavish E.U. funding. Even as his project widened fissures in the bloc, which Hungary joined in 2004, his fellow national leaders mostly looked the other way, committed to staying out of one another’s affairs.

But now Mr. Orban’s defiance and intransigence has had an important, if unintended, effect: serving as a catalyst for an often-sluggish European Union system to act to safeguard the democratic principles that are the foundation of the bloc.

Early this year, the European Court of Justice will issue a landmark decision on whether the union has the authority to make its funds to member states conditional on meeting the bloc’s core values. Doing so would allow Brussels to deny billions of euros to countries that violate those values.

The bloc has consistently worked on political consensus among national leaders. But Mr. Orban has pushed Brussels toward a threshold it had long avoided: making membership subject to financial punishments, not merely political ones.

The new frontier could help solve an old problem — what to do about bad actors in its ranks — while creating new ones. Not least, it could invite the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, to exercise a new level of interference in the affairs of member states.

How Mr. Orban has forced the European Union to such a juncture, and why it seemed helpless to stop him for so long, says much about the bloc’s founding assumptions and why it has stumbled in the face of populist and nationalist challenges.  

Mr. Orban’s party adopted the new Constitution and a new media law that curbed press freedom. It overhauled the country’s justice system, removed the head of its Supreme Court and created an office to oversee the courts led by the wife of a prominent member of the governing party, Fidesz. Election laws were changed to favor the party. 

Does any of that sound familiar, e.g., changing election laws to favor the party?

The NYT article points out that EU leaders did not confront Orban about the rule of law, corruption or authoritarianism. EU leaders, being politicians, did not want to confront him because he won an election. That is what politicians respected. Their professed core democratic values were subjugated to their core political values. That gave Orban the political room he needed to usurp democracy in Hungary without significant EU opposition.

One can ask, in what way is this relevant to US politics? The NYT article comments that on Monday, the ex-president endorsed Orban for re-election. Trump even pledged his “complete support.” On the other hand, Orban was an early supporter of Trump. He endorsing him in the summer of 2016 and again in 2020. Tellingly, Orban commented about Trump: “probably, like me, a little bit controversial, but that’s OK.”

A little bit controversial? Maybe that is how right wing authoritarians see themselves. Just a little bit controversial, nothing more. Maybe that is how left wing extremists see themselves too.

Recently Fox News, the flagship propaganda arm of the Republican Party, broadcast from Hungary and lavished praise on Orban for doing such a good job. While in Hungary, the self-professed professional liar, Tucker Carlson, commented on the differences between Biden and Orban: 

“Because the lessons are so obvious, and such a clear refutation to the policies we currently have, and the people who instituted those policies, Hungary and its government have been ruthlessly attacked and unfairly attacked: 'It's authoritarian, they're fascists…' There are many lies being told right now, that may be the greatest of all. .... The elite [Democrats and Biden] has turned against its own people, and that's not healthy. Simply put, the leadership of the country hates the American people. .... He [Orban] is defending democracy against the unaccountable billionaires, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and certain western governments. He is fighting for democracy against those forces which would like to bury it.”

So there you have it. One of the top Republican Party propagandists calls Democrats and Biden authoritarian fascists who want to bury democracy. No wonder most Republicans see a deadly threat from Democrats. Carlson and most Republicans see Orban and themselves as fighting for democracy against billionaires and other bad groups and people. By analogy with Republican thinking, EU political leaders must also be authoritarian fascists for criticizing Orban.

Questions: 

1. Is the threat to American democracy and the rule of law about the same from Democrats and Republicans?

2. Is Hungary now authoritarian, or even fascist?

Fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy, often tinged with racial or ethnic bigotry and hostility to a free press

Human civilization: Is war unavoidable?

DISCLAIMER: Comments below that criticize this program and my interpretation of it have are convincing. I non longer stand by this blog post. I will not delete it so that what I wrote and the criticisms stay available online. I apologize. I want the combination ignorance and errors (on my part) and irresponsible reporting by PBS to stand intact so people can see for themselves how mistakes and misunderstandings can so easily arise.  

PBS is airing an excellent four-part series called First Civilizations. The first episode is War. The other three are Religion, Cities and Trade. They are behind a paywall, so I can't link to anything one can play online without a PBS membership. I've listened to War and Religion so far.

The history of war is relevant to modern civilization and politics. The experts argue that all of the evidence, technology and analysis available so far point to the following narrative as (i) a likely path to modern civilization, and (ii) a basis to predict future events:

Before civilizations started, groups of nomadic humans competed with each other. They were hunter-gatherers. They sometimes fought and killed each other for food and other resources. Civilization started when agriculture started about 12,000 years ago. People settled down and stay put as long as the land and climate could support agriculture. 

Evidence from early settlements that grew to significant size indicates that the most powerful tribes or clans took control of increasing areas of land. Those mini-civilizations (mini-civs) had their own customs and beliefs that tied them together. Sometimes terrain constrained a mini-civ, while others kept getting bigger. Eventually the bigger mini-civs attacked and either obliterated the smaller ones or subjugated them. These wars were to pro-actively protect what the mini-civ had and/or to expand the attacker's power and land mass.

Sometimes the winning mini-civ would adopt one or more of the customs, beliefs or technology of a defeated mini-civ. The War episode referred to this process of assimilating things from others as creative destruction on the path to modernity. The creative destruction was usually (always?) bloody and cruel. Assimilation was a necessary step. The experts then step back and look at archaeology and history from the time of mini-civs to today. They see the same pattern over and over. War leads to creative destruction and civilization often takes another step forward, or at least sideways. 

In this context civilization refers to both advances in technology, including (i) advances in weapons and tactics of war, and (ii) changes in cultural customs and norms. The changes in customs and norms included creation of and advances in social institutions, governance and religion. In essence, the customs and norms were the social glue necessary for civilization to advance. The Religion episode argues that religion was a necessary component for social glue and thus for civilization to advance.

Why bring this up?

Multiple reasons. One is that human history is riddled with war. War is now seen by at least some experts as possibly unavoidable for civilization to advance. The problem with that is that humans can now obliterate modern civilization with nuclear weapons and maybe also with unrestrained climate change and/or overpopulation. If nothing else, complacency about the possibility of humans obliterating modernity and having to do a restart should not be taken as a remote possibility if past human history is a guide.

Another is that some comments here in the last week or two strenuously argued that the founding of America and its history was a tale of an evil, blood soaked death machine that inflicted vast death and misery on far too much of humanity. There is enough evidence to reasonably argue that. From that point of view, the Funding Fathers actually were Founding Genocidists or Founding Terrorists, none of whom should be venerated or respected. According to that line of reasoning, all US presidents were murdering war mongers or, at least in the case of indigenous American Indians, all were argued to literally be genocidists. In the context of the advance of civilization, it is arguable that whatever American was and did, it was an inevitable aspect of humans and just what they do. 

In a post here yesterday, I mentioned Thomas Paine's argument for a democratic Republic in his 1776 Common Sense essay. There, he advocated for war against England to throw off the tyranny of monarchy and the British Crown. To a significant extent, his writings were seminal in the vision and articulation of what American eventually turned out to be. But once again, war led to an advance in governance and society, but this time there seemed to be less assimilation by a winning, less powerful civ and more spontaneous creation. Regardless, war probably was a necessary component. But in some ways America arguably was an anomaly.

A question all this raises is whether humans can progress without war. After listening to the War and Religion episodes, it just isn't clear. Are we destined to self-annihilate and restart if we don't go extinct, or can we do it without most or all of the blood and misery? Are what we seeing in increasingly bitter US politics two mini-civs, left and right, at an intractable impasse that will lead to either civil war or the dissolution of the Union as increasing numbers of conservatives say they want? 

Signs that the media is awakening to the authoritarian threat

It feels like the dam has broken. Expressions of deep concern for the fate of democracy and the rule of law seem to be flooding out now. The Washington Post reports on calls for the media to give the radical right Republican Party threat more focus and urgency. The WaPo writes: 

Much of this work [on reporting the threat] has been impressive. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.

“We are losing our democracy day by day, and journalists are individually aware of this, but media outlets are not centering this as the story it should be,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of autocracy and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”

That American democracy is teetering is unquestionable. Jan. 6 is every day now, in the words of a recent New York Times editorial that noted the growing evidence: election officials harassed by conspiracy theory addicts, death threats issued to politicians who vote their conscience, GOP lawmakers pushing measures to make it harder for citizens to vote and easier for partisans to overturn legitimate voting results.

“The reactionary counter-mobilization against democracy has accelerated,” wrote historian Thomas Zimmer, a visiting professor at Georgetown. “It’s happening on so many fronts simultaneously that it’s easy to lose sight of how things are connected.”  

To be sure, even some of the most studiously neutral of news organizations are doing important journalism on this subject.

“ ‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power,” read the headline of an Associated Press news story last week. It detailed the ways in which Republicans aligned with former president Donald Trump, after the near-miss of last year’s coup attempt, “have worked to clear the path for next time.”  

Similarly, NPR recently ran a seven-minute segment on what it called “the clear and present danger of Trump’s enduring ‘Big Lie.’ ” As NYU’s Jay Rosen noted, the piece was admirably direct in its language: “No dilution via 'both sides,” no ‘critics say,’ Just a straight-up warning.” And on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend, moderator Chuck Todd — who has deservedly drawn criticism in recent months for too often allowing GOP talking points to go unchallenged — stepped up in a significant way to detail the “big lie” spread by Trump allies this past year to evoke the specter of a supposedly stolen presidential election.  

But, in general, this pro-democracy coverage is not being “centered” by the media writ large. It’s occasional, not regular; it doesn’t appear to be part of an overall editorial plan that fully recognizes just how much trouble we’re in.

That must change. It’s not merely that there needs to be more of this work. It also needs to be different. For example, it should include a new emphasis on those who are fighting to preserve voting rights and defend democratic norms.

That is some solid good news for a change. It is unfortunate that this is prompted by something sinister and immoral, evil IMO. We will see how the Republican Party assault on democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties will play out. The 2022 and 2024 elections are likely to shed some light on whether the US will go from the anocracy it is now to a fascist autocracy or whether it will move toward democracy.

The stunning power of propaganda

A new poll indicates that a majority of Americans now believe that American democracy is in serious danger of falling. But as the poll indicates, the two sides see each other as the threat. NPR writes:

One year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future of democracy. 

A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." That sentiment is felt most acutely by Republicans: Two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that "voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election" — a key pillar of the "Big Lie" that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Fewer than half of Republicans say they are willing to accept the results of the 2020 election — a number that has remained virtually unchanged since we asked the same question last January.

"There is really a sort of dual reality through which partisans are approaching not only what happened a year ago on Jan. 6, but also generally with our presidential election and our democracy," said Mallory Newall, a vice president at Ipsos, which conducted the poll.

"It is Republicans that are driving this belief that there was major fraudulent voting and it changed the results in the election," Newall said.

Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents agree that U.S. democracy is "more at risk" now than it was a year ago. Among Republicans, that number climbs to 4 in 5.

Overall, 70% of poll respondents agree that the country is in crisis and at risk of failing.

The country can't even decide what to call the assault on the Capitol. Only 6% of poll respondents say it was "a reasonable protest" — but there is little agreement on a better description. More than half of Democrats say the Jan. 6 assault was an "attempted coup or insurrection," while Republicans are more likely to describe it as a "riot that got out of control."

Americans are bitterly divided over the events that led to Jan. 6, as well.

"I think the Democrats rigged the election," said Stephen Weber, a Republican from Woonsocket, R.I. "And who the hell would vote for Biden?"

More than 81 million people voted for Biden, compared with more than 74 million for Trump. Biden won with 306 electoral votes to 232 for Trump.

But Weber is skeptical. In a follow-up interview, Weber said he doesn't trust mail-in voting and doesn't believe that Democratic lawmakers have the country's best interests at heart.

"They want to change it to something else. We don't want it changed," he said.

Democrats also expressed dismay about the state of democracy — but for very different reasons. In follow-up interviews, they voiced concern about voting restrictions passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures in the wake of the 2020 election. And they struggled to make sense of the persistent belief in the fiction that Trump won.

"When Trump first came out with his 'big lie,' it just never occurred to me that so many Republicans would jump on board," said Susan Leonard of Lyme, N.H.

"It's like a group mental illness has hit these people," said Leonard. "I cannot believe this is happening in our country. I'm scared, I really am."  

The poll found that support for false claims about election fraud and the Jan. 6 attack have been remarkably stable over time.

For example, one-third of Trump voters say the attack on the Capitol was actually carried out by "opponents of Donald Trump, including antifa and government agents" — a baseless conspiracy theory that has been promoted by conservative media since the attack, even though it has been debunked.

If that isn't evidence of how powerful and persuasive even debunked, crackpot propaganda and lies can be and is, then what is it evidence of? 

For Republicans, it is compelling evidence that the Democrats rigged the election so they can change the country. Changing it from what to what is never made very clear. Neither is the Republican vision of what it is. Some republicans say they don't want what American is now and want something from the past, but how that past would differ from what there is now isn't specified. 

One reassuring point is that a majority of Republicans and Democrats still reject political violence according to the poll. At least we still have that.

Question: On a scale of 1-7, 1 = no danger, 7 = grave danger, how much danger is the US in regarding losing democracy and civil liberties to (i) the Republicans and their supporters, and (ii) the Democrats and their supporters?

Thomas Paine: A historian's oral biography

C-Span broadcast an excellent oral biography of Thomas Paine (born in England and migrated to the US) and some Q&A after the talk. The broadcast time is 1 hour 24 minutes. 

One example of Paine’s radical influence was published in the ~46 page pamphlet Common Sense (1776). The historian, Richard Bell, argues that Common Sense was necessary for the American revolution. American colonist’s grievances were serious but not focused on revolution until Paine published the pamphlet. That alone was a history-changing event. 

Common Sense was a masterpiece of propaganda that fomented a necessary American desire for revolution based on crackpot reasoning, but supported by a brilliant sleight of hand. The key rhetorical trick, among a few others, was to not provide a rationale for American revolution. Instead, Paine shifted the burden of proof for the English to justify their rule over the colonies. Paine make crackpottery seem logical and incontrovertibly self-evident. 

In addition, Paine published other works and essays including the highly influential The Rights of Man (1791) and The Age of Reason (1795). He also wrote the now-obscure work Agrarian Justice (1797), which is the first modern articulation of what is now called the welfare state and how to pay for it.

Paine was brutally blunt in his writings, and it cost him dearly. He was no diplomat. By the end of his life had offended most or nearly all major politicians in America, England and France. He viciously attacked George Washington in a letter, which went a long way to making him hated among most Americans. He went from patriotic hero to a hated outcast in the US. Since he had already fled to France, the English Crown tried him in absentia for treason and exiled him for life for writing and publishing The Rights of Man while he was in London. Eventually the French arrested him and put him in jail for the crime of suggesting that the French king’s life be spared after the French Revolution. Before the French executed him, the US Ambassador to France got Paine released to US custody.

Incredible propaganda

What is remarkably striking about Paine was the power of his political propaganda. The enemies that Paine made as he dropped his bombs onto the status quo responded with outrageous lies and viciousness that makes modern American radical right propaganda seem almost civil and rational. Almost. This guy knew how to make powerful people very angry. The subtle power of Paine’s prose arguably at least matched the most sophisticated propaganda any time after his death in 1809. That is remarkable, especially since he was self-taught. He was not an elite and became known only after he came into his own based on his political writings.

If you have the time and don't know much about Paine, this is well worth it. It sheds light on the psychological and propaganda origins of the Revolutionary War. It also helps reveal and put the tactics of political propaganda in a different context and time.