Hostility, the Impossibility of Discussion, and How We Can Reverse It
Overcoming hostility in our culture and relationships should be our main societal goal, yes, above viruses, economy, or climate. The alternative is collapse, and a collapsed society can do nothing.
We are in the midst of an unweaving.
Hostility. Endless protests and violent counter-protests. Crimes committed on camera with no police response.
But it’s not just a bunch of crazies in the streets.
Friends are turning on friends. Family members find themselves unable to talk to one other. Even husbands and wives.
A movement for Unity2020 was yanked from Twitter and its website banned, despite (and perhaps because of) massive support.
We don’t converse anymore. What we do is label and attack one another for even attempting a discussion, or asking a question, or setting oneself apart from the cultural narrative in any way.
This ends badly, folks.
Persecution. Civil war. Some people have made the comparison to Germany in the 1930s, but I think the more apt comparison is China during the Cultural Revolution, when neighbors turned on neighbors, kids informed on their parents, and before long, everyone was afraid or unable to question the regime or the cultural norms they were living under. The rule of might makes right.
Don’t think it can’t happen here. It is happening.
How did we get here?
1. A cultural embrace of identity groups (rather than individuals) as the ultimate social unit.
This idea has been growing in our culture for decades. An individual mind is complex and nuanced. We have to talk with it to understand it, and it might not fit neatly into any categories. But we like categories. They simplify things so we don’t have to go through the effort of understanding someone. We can simply boil them down to their skin color, gender, political affiliation and be done with “understanding” them. With one stroke of a label, we can eliminate nuance and complexity, and dismiss them entirely.
2. Us versus Them thinking.
As soon as you create an “Us” you conjure into existence a “Them”. The Not-Us become the target of your ire, to be blamed, vilified, and hated. Historically, when humans create a “not you” they see them as inhuman or unworthy of life.
The other day a congressional candidate in California casually Tweeted “shoot them” referring to people who make observations about mortality in opposition to the administration’s COVID measures. Let’s say one hundred thousand people read this Tweet. Some percentage of that one hundred thousand will likely take this message to heart. They will not question their own hostility. They will not think: “Hmm, if my premises lead me to casually disregard and dispose of human lives, maybe I should examine my premises.” No. They will feel justified and virtuous in casually disposing of human life, believing they are helping the world by doing so.
This is exactly the mechanism that leads to slaughter, genocide, wars of ethnicity or religion, and tractors pushing bodies into mass graves: when you identify an enemy Them, you’re able to turn off the horror of what you are doing in the belief that you are behaving righteously.
3. Powerful institutions encouraging division.
Divide and conquer. Convince the various identity groups they are at war with each other. Scapegoating, blame, and hatred become the order of the day. This makes the people more likely to flock behind the banner of someone who appears to be on their side. (But also increases resistance by those who are effectively displaced and/or persecuted).
4. Social media is the greatest tool ever invented for not understanding people.
The thing that was supposed to connect us all has divided us like no other technological tool ever could. If our future AI overlords wanted to take us down, they wouldn’t need nukes or T-1000s… just give the humans social media.
Social media encourages label-and-dismiss cognition, the precise opposite of conversation and connection. This is an ideal medium to see those you disagree with as inhuman or not worthy of life. You literally do not perceive their humanity or their meaning, but symbols and hashtags which your brain supplies with whatever meaning it wants. This is not a meeting of minds. More like a mirror maze where one only sees one’s own definitions reflected back at them in a thousand different ways.
5. The use of fearmongering to make people afraid of one another.
Fear is a more powerful motivator than love, and always will be. This is a well-known phenomenon in behavioral psychology: people will do more to avoid perceived pain than they will to gain a pleasure. This includes relationships. If they are made to be afraid of something, people will turn even on loved ones.
That we live in a culture dominated by fear is about as obvious as a kick in the crotch. But maybe not so obvious is the direct connection between this ever-present, gnawing fear and a growing hostility between strangers, neighbors, friends, and family. Remember the woman who pepper-sprayed the couple in the San Diego dog park for not wearing masks? Maybe that woman never had a violent impulse in her life up until 2020. Maybe she loved strangers and had a general feeling of goodwill for others. But fear, specifically fear of pain and loss, drove her to violence. In her mind, her fear justified her hostility.
6. The use of silencing tactics.
“Cancel culture” is far too pallid a term for what is going on. There are a whole host of people in our society who believe “unity” is to be achieved by the complete elimination of multiple perspectives. “Unity”, they believe, will consist of a single voice remaining (theirs, presumably). Powerful media and social media forces have been used to drive out and censor dissenting voices. This is not a path to unity, but a great way to drive people into resistance and conflict.
Listen, you will never eliminate all the voices that disagree with you. It just won’t happen.
Even if you’re successful in eliminating a lot of them, the voice-eliminating institutions you will have erected to accomplish this task will eventually turn their attention to you. This is directly analogous to what happens every time someone attempts to set up a totalitarian regime — the so-called revolutionaries are always shocked when the regime turns on them. But how could it not? We are all graced with an individual perspective; no two humans see things exactly the same.
The attempt to silence all other voices is thus a foolishly suicidal fantasy: it must result, eventually, in the elimination of your own perspective, too.
No wonder we are unweaving.
But the good news is a growing number of people are becoming aware of this.
(On the Dark Horse podcast the other day, Heather Heying discussed how even vaccinated people are starting to express skepticism over how the unvaccinated are being demonized and portrayed in media — and by the President — and how it is tearing the country apart, whipping people into more zealotry and hatred, and how they are appropriately horrified.)
A number of people are waking up to the fact that maybe their “side” winning is less important than maintaining unity.
(A hint to the politicos: the candidate who runs on a “Unity” ticket in 2024 will probably capture a groundswell of populace tired of all the division. Assuming the country is still here in 2024, of course…)
So, is there any hope? How can we reverse the trend toward hostility, persecution, and non-communication?
1. The conscious pursuit of unity as the goal of an argument, and of society.
Remember when we had friendly disagreements, lively debates with loved ones or neighbors… and we walked away still loving and respecting one another at the end? Ah, bygone halcyon days…
We have to get back to this.
If you find yourself in an online disagreement with someone, check the urge to go into “social media warrior” mode. Instead, listen; try to arrange talking to the person, in person, if possible. Ask questions. Above all, get them to ask questions. This is how you engage another mind. Attacking someone through argument doesn’t work — it just raises the other person’s defenses. Make sure you let them know that, above all, you want the relationship to continue and you think it’s important that people who disagree should talk. And if you disagree, do so respectfully. Don’t let the ego drive you into having to be “right”. Focus on connection and overcoming differences.
Don’t argue with loved ones, which only increases resistance/division. Instead engage their minds. Try to get them to question/think the way you do.
Instead of winning, connecting.
It’s a different focus. But it’s the one that leaves us with a relationship at the end of the conversation. And possibly even an unexpected new understanding of someone.
In my view, it is precisely friends and loved ones who must share their viewpoints with one another, and disagree on things. Strangers dismiss one another; that is normal. But when friends and loved ones start dismissing each other, our social fabric is coming apart. These are precisely the relationships we have to try to preserve, because doing so preserves the whole kit and caboodle.
2. The appreciation and welcoming of a diversity of viewpoints
The reason this whole thing called society goes, I think, is because of a diversity of views. We are inherently social creatures. When one viewpoint dominates and dictates everything, we defy our nature and invite the darkest chapters of history. We tried that, for centuries — it was called monarchy (the rule of one). We rejected it in favor of polity (the rule of many).
The pluralistic way of life has led to an explosion of prosperity and innovation in the world. But it has also made some entities extremely powerful, and unsurprisingly, they wish to re-impose the rule of one. They will not call it “monarchy” because that would be too obvious and no one who has lived in a pluralistic society would go for it — we would revolt. So instead they couch it in inviting, pleasing, promising language like “great reset” or “new world order”, as if we won’t understand what they really mean is the rule of the powerful over the many.
3. The spreading of “live and let live” as a social philosophy.
The pluralistic view of society means we all may choose to conduct our lives differently, and that is okay (and even desirable).
It is not for me to say that my way is superior to your way, or to impose my way upon you. This is your time on the planet; you spend it how you please. You do you, as the saying goes. As long as your living does not prevent me from my living, we have no conflict. But as soon as you say “you must”, you introduce hostility.
The history of conflict is a history of people trying to free themselves from another group imposing their “musts” upon them. This will happen again. The way to avoid it is to be conscious when “live and let live” comes under attack.
4. The individual embrace of courage (fidelity to truth over belonging).
Listen, I’m not naïve. I don’t ever expect courage to become a society-wide trait — we are too hardwired for fear and belonging for this to ever happen.
But all that’s required, I think, is a tipping point. If enough people embrace boldness and fierce authenticity as a virtue, it will be enough to proliferate a cultural embrace for freethinking people. In that kind of culture, individuation (standing apart from the herd) will be valued more highly than conformity, obedience, and belonging. In such a culture, fearmongering would exist, sure, but it would be met with suspicion and derision, and be effectively powerless.
This may already be happening. I believe more people are wakening to the fact that formerly-trusted institutions such as government, corporations, and media, have a dodgy relationship with truth, and perhaps do not have the best interests of the people at heart.
One podcaster put it like this: “I believe there’s a lot of evil in the world now. I think that it’s great that its happening. I don’t think this is new evil… it’s just not being hidden anymore. They are the ones waking more people up than anyone else. They’re playing poker with their cards facing outward.”
And speaking of podcasts…
5. The embrace of long form conversation.
Podcasts, I believe, are immense sign of hope. Every podcast is an example of people engaging in unity-promoting behavior.
This is probably why podcasts have become an immensely popular medium and everyone and their pet gerbil has a podcast now: people understand that they need to be having long, complex conversations. We need to talk.
In terms of sheer value of information and the kind of thinking that most people need to be doing I would put two minutes of a podcast up against an entire day of mainstream news.
And this is why the censoring of podcasts is particularly egregious, anti-societal, pro-collapse behavior.
Embrace podcasts. Listen to podcasts you don’t necessarily agree with. Listen to podcasts whose hosts have guests on that they don’t necessarily agree with.
We’re being taught to hate one another. The way to resist it is simple: talk to and understand each other.
This is life-affirming, society-saving stuff.
Speaking of which, let’s talk.
Are you concerned about society unweaving and certain people being portrayed and demonized, and the general atmosphere of lies and fearmongering going on?
That comment button below is step one on the path to reversing it…
Oh God, yes, I'm concerned about society unraveling, about certain people being demonized, and the general atmosphere of lies and fearmongering going on!
James, I agree with everything you wrote in this piece. But reading it makes me feel despair and nausea. I'm the sole covid "unbeliever" in my family. They believe every last lie they've been fed, and have if anything become even more psychotically terrified over the past two-plus years than they were at the beginning of the "pandemic." They are fanatic, Kool-Aid-drinking, true believers of the Covid Cult. As I contemplate trying to communicate with them, all I can think of is how desperately sick they make me, and how much they hate me for not adopting their worldview. That's bad enough, but I also live in an area evidently dominated by people just like them: the San Francisco Bay Area. These people are not reachable for discussion or rational human interaction. I consider them my enemies, because they are my enemies.