I feel like I've fallen into a bizzare alternate reality. Maybe the poles have in fact flipped and I should go over to "Free Republic" - maybe the true examplars of Liberalism are over there now.
Or maybe not.
All I know is that I turned on the computer, went to look at the Daily Kos, and saw that one of the top, most heavily recommended dairies said that 23% of humanity was basically evil.
The story mentioned alleged "research" never actually cited, allegedly from a book not yet read to leap to a startling conclusion :
"23 of us are just fucked"
Come again ? I wish the word didn't mean this because I don't think the human sex act is a bad thing, and some may dispute this, but doesn't "fucked" mean "bad" or "evil" ?
23% of humanity is just bad ? - Things like that were said in Rwanda, you know.
In fact, research shows that most humans are capable of acts of great evil, not just some select, demonized "23%", and hate speech, including the demonization of large societal groups, helps create cultural climates that can give rise to acts of mass political violence.
[ see below, blockquote ]
More from this top recommended diary:
"There is always the patsy, the scapegoat - the one true source of all of societies ills. In those societies it was the jews or those greedy imperialist Americans."
Or the "23%", eh ?
HOW is this sort of rhetoric fundamentally different from the sort of garbage used to incite hatred against Jews in prewar Germany or the Tutsis in Rwanda ? If those "23%" are just "fucked" - that is to say constitutionally evil, well then - they're demons, they're devils, they're scum they're....
Daily Kos members recommended this message
Try swapping "the jews" in for 23% and see how you feel about this narrative. Do you still LIKE it ? Have second thoughts ?
It continues :
There is always the patsy, the scapegoat - the one true source of all of societies ills. In those societies it was the jews or those greedy imperialist Americans.
Now, it's the Liberals.
Liberals and all the other societal hangers-on and scum they try to protect. Gays who insist on the "special" right of marrying the consenting adult of their choice. Uppity Women in the workplace, who won't remember their place in the kitchen and bedroom. Blacks....
Guess what ? - That demonization has been ongoing for decades now and - what's more - large numbers of people on the Daily Kos are really getting the hang of it.
Feel demonized ? - Well, why not demonize right back ?
Well, I'll tell you : it doesn't help. In fact, it feeds the beast.
Is there hate speech on the right too ? Indeed there is : see Enough hate speech to stun an ox
Are some humans more prone to follow authority and less prone to reflection while doing so ? Sure. However, research has actually shown that most human beings - not just some select "mindless" or "criminal" sub-opulation - are capable of acts a great evil, of mass violence. [ link - review of "How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing" (Oxford University Press) ]
We don't have a "23% problem". We have a "100% problem" and hate speech is a part of it
We all are capable of great evil, and hate speech - from all quarters, all political persuasions - paves the way.
Please, for the reputation of the Daily Kos - unrecommend the diary I'm talking about. The diarist will learn or not. I'm not going to attack her or his character. But the diary is HATE SPEECH and I do not believe HATE SPEECH should be encouraged anywhere.
Hatred feeds hatred feeds hatred feeds hatred feeds hatred...
Please don't feed the beast.
I'm no expert on hate speech. But, I've written quite a bit on the subject and I think I can recognize it. Further, I feel the responsibility to call it out when and where I see it although that may not be a popular thing to do.
Let me suggest a book too :
BECOMING EVIL by James Waller:
James Waller's original perspective on the psychological processes involved in the transformation of ordinary people into perpetrators of evil deeds."
Written for both scholars and laypeople and drawing on eyewitness accounts from perpetrators, victims and bystanders, Waller's Becoming Evil refutes many of the standard explanations for antisocial behavior and presents four ingredients that lead ordinary people to commit acts of extraordinary evil. Waller contends that being aware of our own capacity for inhumane cruelty, and knowing how to cultivate the moral sensibilities that curb that capacity, are the best safeguards we can have against future genocide and mass killing.
"To offer a psychological explanation for the atrocities committed by perpetrators is not to forgive, justify or condone their behavior," Waller states in his preface. "Instead, the explanation simply allows us to understand the conditions under which many of us could be transformed into killing machines. When we understand the ordinariness of extraordinary evil, we will be less surprised by evil, less likely to be unwitting contributors to evil, and perhaps better equipped to forestall evil."