Comments on: Hatred Close To Home http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2009/05/21/hatred-close-to-home/ Making Sense of Science Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:54:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Eliene http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2009/05/21/hatred-close-to-home/#comment-1919 Eliene Thu, 28 May 2009 19:54:02 +0000 http://www.sciencentral.com/video/?p=402#comment-1919 Interesting and thoughtful response - thanks! -Eliene Interesting and thoughtful response - thanks!

-Eliene

]]> By: ARobinson http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2009/05/21/hatred-close-to-home/#comment-1918 ARobinson Thu, 28 May 2009 19:47:14 +0000 http://www.sciencentral.com/video/?p=402#comment-1918 The solution is simple. If you want to eliminate hatred from the world, eliminate love from the world. Without love, hate cannot exist since it turns out that hatred shares neural circuitry with love, and that pretty much tells us love and hate are two sides of the same coin -- one cannot exist without the other. Psychological studies have come to the same conclusion a long time ago, my favorite being that of Carl Jung. The fact that we have such a hatred for hatred, that is by responding to hate with hate, on a psychological level only exposes ourselves as being one with those we hate. It's like using water to control a flood or gasoline to control a fire. It won't work for obvious reasons. Instead of hating hatred, we should learn to acknowledge and understand it. Hatred, like love or pain, is feedback about our condition and that means we need to learn to read the message it is sending us in order to deal with it effectively. Denying we are in love with someone is no different than denying we are in hate -- both lead to disaster in the end. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold told us why they hated and killed, but as Seung-Hui Cho demonstrated at Virginia Tech, nobody is listening to their message and history will keep repeating itself until we do. By claiming it is only certain individuals that commit such atrocities or that it is only a random aberration, is a case of being in denial of reality. Studies of social violence and hatred in chimpanzees (our closest genetic relatives in the animal kingdom) has upset that view point to some degree and we only make such claims otherwise because we are born instinctively classifying other people into "us versus them". But deep down inside we know it isn't true and merely only hope and wish that it were true. Part of the message so far is that we all have a latent Mr Cho or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold inside of us, and therefore we all have a latent domestic terrorist inside of us. So it is not beyond our imagining to understand what problem killing three year olds in the Bronx would solve in Afghanistan anymore than it is not beyond our imagining to understand what problem jilted lovers committing suicide would solve. If love isn't always logical or rational, why would hatred be any different, yet we claim to have no problem "understanding" love. Knowing and understanding violence and hatred in the world starts by knowing and understanding that same exact violence and hatred within ourselves, and that means to start by stop denying we are all Osama Bin Laden's with amnesia. The solution is simple. If you want to eliminate hatred from the world, eliminate love from the world. Without love, hate cannot exist since it turns out that hatred shares neural circuitry with love, and that pretty much tells us love and hate are two sides of the same coin — one cannot exist without the other. Psychological studies have come to the same conclusion a long time ago, my favorite being that of Carl Jung.

The fact that we have such a hatred for hatred, that is by responding to hate with hate, on a psychological level only exposes ourselves as being one with those we hate. It’s like using water to control a flood or gasoline to control a fire. It won’t work for obvious reasons. Instead of hating hatred, we should learn to acknowledge and understand it. Hatred, like love or pain, is feedback about our condition and that means we need to learn to read the message it is sending us in order to deal with it effectively. Denying we are in love with someone is no different than denying we are in hate — both lead to disaster in the end.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold told us why they hated and killed, but as Seung-Hui Cho demonstrated at Virginia Tech, nobody is listening to their message and history will keep repeating itself until we do. By claiming it is only certain individuals that commit such atrocities or that it is only a random aberration, is a case of being in denial of reality. Studies of social violence and hatred in chimpanzees (our closest genetic relatives in the animal kingdom) has upset that view point to some degree and we only make such claims otherwise because we are born instinctively classifying other people into “us versus them”. But deep down inside we know it isn’t true and merely only hope and wish that it were true.

Part of the message so far is that we all have a latent Mr Cho or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold inside of us, and therefore we all have a latent domestic terrorist inside of us. So it is not beyond our imagining to understand what problem killing three year olds in the Bronx would solve in Afghanistan anymore than it is not beyond our imagining to understand what problem jilted lovers committing suicide would solve. If love isn’t always logical or rational, why would hatred be any different, yet we claim to have no problem “understanding” love. Knowing and understanding violence and hatred in the world starts by knowing and understanding that same exact violence and hatred within ourselves, and that means to start by stop denying we are all Osama Bin Laden’s with amnesia.

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