Recently, a white male with an anti-Muslim agenda took the lives of more than 90 people in Norway. His belief system dictated these horrific killings, in that he believed killing would somehow make a statement. He believed that his acts would be a cleansing of the abhorred.
But what compels an individual or a group of individuals to carry out acts of hatred, big and small?
Such fanatical individuals suffer from pathological authoritarianism. They are socially dominant, highly prejudiced and ethnocentric and tend to be highly driven to dominate others. They also gravitate toward leadership positions.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in authoritarianism and its relationship to aggression and hostility.
Authoritarianism has been studied scientifically and measured in terms of human and individual aggressiveness. Such individuals feel the need to always dictate, bully and prove themselves right. They enjoy bringing harm to the object of their hate in order to validate themselves. This validation is short-lived, however, in that they must continually find more and more objects to dominate.
Such authoritarianism has been associated with fanaticism and hatred, such as displayed by white supremacy groups, terrorist groups, etc.
Recent research in this area has demonstrated that although in-group bias occurs easily, out-group hostility is more likely to occur under specific conditions. For example, in the workplace, people will often become allies based on a common hatred of a coworker and bond together under a common objective. Many groups bond by collectively making another an object or target for hatred.
Then, they will go on to find the next target, which can come from within that very group.
Those who hate must find objects to satisfy their desire to bring others down. Once this desire has been satiated via one target, another target must be sought to keep repeating the cycle of hate.
The underpinnings of human aggression, however, are present in all individuals. The act of striking a woman or child, or harming a colleague, or hating others based on their religion or sexual preference, are all acts of hate.
Though not to be mixed up with mass murders, we must always tune in on the daily existence of hate and aggression, and we must try to conquer, analyze and correct it.
An aggressor will often come to public notice for the extent of the notoriety of his acts. However, even in daily life we will be exposed to aggression, hostility and hatred. Unless we begin to look within to change the origin of where hate emanates from, we are unlikely to achieve higher social change.
The study of hate and change must begin with the individual soul in order to be transferred to larger cultural and moral change. We must all look within to change that which we condemn.
• Samina Masood has lived in Tracy since 2004 and is among a select group of local Town Crier columnists in the Tracy Press.
What is hate?
and a follow-up:
Is hate in itself evil? Or is it good/right to hate what is wrong? what is evil?
Is hate a necessarily evil thing?
Instead of even the most rudimentary attempt at thinking about this, you looked it up in the dictionary, gave me a non answer, and then called me an idiot. If I asked you "what is justice?" You would consider it an answer if you read me an answer from a dictionary? These kinds of answers are an ineffective masking of ignorance. Fortunately, ignorance can be remedied, but not by reading dictionaries.
We are a nation of uneducated louts, and therefore it is no surprise that we are in the fix that we are in.
what a bunch of uneducated louts we are.
Oh mighty america is full of haight, yeah right.
I mean, for Pete's sake, we cannot put the Middle East on Rittlan, and call it a day.
The author has to look at reality outside the world of DrOprahPhil show. He sounds good on TV, but it doesn't solve the problem for world peace.
In the end, it's just the ability to point the finger, while standing behind a PHD. Blame the mind of those we hate.
Sadly, this form of psychological blame game led to validate hatred during world war two. And that's exactly what psychologists did in Nazi Germany.
They even used Hail Darwin (their supreme psychologist) to support their hypothesis and carried out the biggest inhumane, social, psychological, experiment this world has ever seen.
Do you live in Tracy or not? and as I recall, you hate Tracy, no?
to paraphrase a simpleton, "thanks for demonstrating what's wrong with the world, people like you."
Still waiting for you to post your research on your "democratic America's undemocratic allies" statement and please, do come back when you learn to tell the truth. Truth... that won't happen will it.
You gotta be kidding, right?
Maybe this guy hated Muslims because they are infiltrating and populating every country on the planet with their Sharia agenda. Maybe because the Muslims move to these countries and start wars. Just a wild guess, I dunno.
"They are democratic America's undemocratic allies.
They may rise to power through bloody ClA-backed coups and rule by terror and torture. Unwavering "anti-communism" and a willingness to provide unhampered access for American business interests to exploit their countries' natural resources and cheap labor are the excuses for their repression, and the primary reason the US government supports them."
"Rarely are they called to account for their crimes. And rarely still, is the US government held responsible"
Deaths:
Cambodia- Pol Pot, Communist (1963-1978) 2,500,000
North Korea- Kim Jong Ill, Communist (1948-present) 3,000,000
Viet Nam-Ho Chi Minh, Communist (1960-1975) 4,200,000
Russian Civil War, Communist (1917-1922) 9,000,000
Hitler, Fascist socialist- 42,000,000
Stalin, Communist (1924-1953) 20,000,000 note: est high of 50,000,000 excluding WWII
China- Mao, Communist (1948-1970's) 65,000,000
Could you post your research?
How's Obama's Arab Spring going?
http://necrometrics.com
Hitler was not opposed to and, in fact, made use of calling on references to traditional symbols of Christianity."
__
Operation Infinate Justice, the stamping of vengeant bible verses on our weaponry......
I fail ta see why ya feel it necessary ta defend yer position when I agreed with ya.
Let er go mark, yer on th right track. I tried ta put an end ta our conversation twice now by statin th only problem I had was th way ya phrased thangs, not that I was in disagreement with yer ideology.
But ya, fer some reason, feel it necessary ta continue ta defend yerself when no defense is really necessary.
Maybe you should have also referred to almost 3,000 innocent mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers were cruely slaughtered on 9/11/01. ?
I simply asserted that idealogy, not religion, was behind the motivation that killed millions of Jews during WWII.
Oh, and thanks for the invite. Yes, I have studied history. I have books too. Fact is, history is full of symbols and archetypes. People frequently sprinkle Christian references into secular literature and discourse. The idea of a white male in Norway doing the same is really nothing new.
And since, the concept of borrowing "symbols" (including Christian symbols), is nothing new, in history. Let's examine a prominent figure in WWII history.
"In Mein Kampf Hitler writes that Jesus "made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross." By 1940, however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity.[37]
Hitler was not opposed to and, in fact, made use of calling on references to traditional symbols of Christianity."
again Symbols.
"...once again Tracy would make the headlines for what defines us to the world..........small minded petty jealous hating idiots"
kerryrog wrote on Monday, Aug 08 at 10:10 AM »
"...I am so glad not be a tracyite, you guys are sicker than i thought!"
One of your statements is not true and posted only 50 minutes apart. However, I do believe you about your being a member of the "...small minded petty jealous hating idiots" faction.
FWI... self-loathing is not an admired trait and neither is lying... excepting Obama's point-of-view.
So glad ya posted again. We agree. Ya got th message I was tryin ta get across. It's OK ta be blunt an I do it myself at times. But ya gotta be careful ya don't drag innocent people under th bus with yer bluntness.
All too often we, a collective we, are guilty of castin aspersions on entire groups of innocent people by lumpin em inta th same category as th person we have th complaint about.
It's a reason why I try ta write impersonally ta groups an focus on individuals an what they are sayin.
In this case I agree Saminia needs ta work on th way she writes so as not ta suck in all th innocent bystanders with all inclusive labels. Her article on hate was good, some of th examples she used could have been depersonalized so as not ta accidentally denigrate groups of people.
Ya got it. Not all Christians, Republicans, Muslims, Tea-baggers, Democrats are bad people or have bad ideas. Some? Yes. Many? I hope not. All, no way. If it's some or many, say so with facts behind it. But ya will never be able ta substantiate ALL. An if ya ain't got solid facts ta back it up, ya probably should rephrase yer comment/article ta avoid hurtin people. It's that simple.