Hatred, disdain and reflection
07
Sep
It is not by chance that the brain region of structures such as the
medial frontal cortex, whose capacity to argue and therefore to dialogue is there, has as its core the putamen, the pre-motor cortex and the insular cortex, whose structures also participate in the perception of disdain and disgust, that is, the activation of hatred is physically in the brain close to those associated with judgment and reasoning, so you can both activate one as the other, there are both options.
Those who want to justify hate are full of arguments, are capable of even deep reasoning to act against the hated, but if the premise is dialogue, the same reasoning can be used to understand, care for and divert the violence of the other, as some martial arts teach, bypassing the “body”.
Hate will not disappear in the hope that external circumstances change, in general it does not happen, it is not a magic, to cure it, it is necessary to recognize diversity, its problems, as Gadamer would have to be aware of preconceptions, that is, of the fundamentals that start a disagreement or a type of credit, to recognize the Other in its bubble and to recognize ours, both as having preconceptions.
If we actually activate the reasoning, thinking part and put the disagreements on this level, we mitigate the hate part a little, but it is essential to ask and a part of our hatred would come down to reflecting in this way: “Why do I hate? What do I intend to achieve with this? What do I gain and lose from my hatred? ”.
I do not know of a situation that has been resolved in this case, in general it has led to a greater conflict, to a greater mutual hatred, if the objective is war we will probably get there, but I believe that for most people it is not, so what remains is to reflect , analyze the origins of such “evil” in its deepest bases.
Hate must be combated with the understanding and mainly that it leads to a new type of action, which implies to recognize in the first place that it exists and it is fostering on two sides and not by only one, in the manifestations of people and in their advertisements, denunciations are recurrent to say the whole truth is on this side and on the other just a lie, it is necessary to explain the consequences and that in fact those who benefit are those whose reason for existing and thinking is really “hatred”.
Wise people of various shades such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa of Calcutta with wisdom and intelligence in the face of enormous and absurd conflicts have been able to show that kindness and generosity, creativity and respect for others can lead to seeking a larger collective good and although a little longer will have more lasting fruits, with less violence and deaths, but because even in serious groups hatred persists, the answer is very simple. Encouraged by leaders and groups that live in political, ideological or religious bubbles, the main resource is the demonization of the adversary, identified with some disgusting aspect of evil: death, corruption, sexual, racial or gender violence, weakening of values or something of the like.
And once united in a group the fear disappears and this reduces the inhibition of those who hate to act in other ways not that of argumentation and exposure of facts, but violence against violence.
The leaders who incite this hatred, say they can no longer control it, but deep down they wanted it, develop this part of the reasoning that we say at the beginning near the part of the brain of the putamen, and released the hatred will be executed by the people who use the other part with less reasoning and more visceral, so the hate “explodes”.
What we should think about in face of unworthy facts, and at this moment there should be none greater than the pandemic, is that the feeling of fear and exhaustion by confinement is exploited not in achieving ways of relaxation and anti-stress, but in releasing it in violent ways, what are the consequences? and who are they favoring?
I think of the hateful ones, and not the loving ones who in fact have love for humanity and the most fragile appreciation. It seems like a path of no return, in the midst of a pandemic and with two tense elections approaching, the United States national and municipal elections in Brazil, I see little or no discussion about the pandemic and about those who die every day, bereaved families and compassion for them, neither on one side nor on the other. Fortunately, mortality levels have decreased, but the long weekend promises crowds, the village of cars to the beach was huge, and the pandemic?
