12 Ways We Teach Each Other to Hate

 

We humans have always been a contentious sort. But now it seems we are devolving collective hate. Hate can be triggered or taught. From personal, corporate, or political agendas, we observe a widespread effort to challenge and denigrate others, and they in turn resent it.

Courtesy Uriel-Soberanes, Unsplash

Linguistics professor Deborah Tanner at Georgetown University has written a disturbing book, The Argument Culture. The thrust of her analysis of our culture is that people divide into competing camps and develop a compulsion to win arguments by criticizing and diminishing those in other camps. In discussing issues, people with differing views become considered as enemies that must be defeated.

In such wars, many tactics are used to bolster our own positions and defeat the enemy. Here are  12 ways we teach each other to hate:

 

1.    Egotism. We are egotistic and self-absorbed. What we think is more important than what others think. If others don’t agree with us, we need to let them know they are wrong, which of course they similarly respond.

2.     Absolutism. Our own views are seen as absolute and irreconcilable principles continually at war with alternative views of others, who we imagine as our enemies.

3.     Categorizing People. We assign identities to people and place them in categories. Thus, we make it more convenient to attack many people at once as members of an identity group. Divide and conquer.

4.     Polarization. We habitually think of issues of having just two sides of an argument. This inevitably polarizes the issues and creates two camps of competing enemies.

5.     Exaggeration. To justify one’s position, it helps to magnify the flaws in the positions of others, and even to denigrate their character for holding such unacceptable positions.

6.     Threatening body language. We use threatening body language in advancing our arguments with others. These include scowled faces, loud voice, punching the hand toward others (often with an object in hand), and pounding the arm up and down. We “get in their face.”

7.     Character assassination. The accuser assumes a false mantle of virtue signaling, which in turn is not appreciated by those accused of being morally deficient.

8.     Assuming victimhood.  Claiming unfair treatment allows us to accuse others of oppression and thus assign to them guilt and shame. Name calling is the linguistic first choice of weaponry. Another weapon is to recall past abuse, even when such abuse no longer occurs. Next, current examples of presumed abuse are magnified and harped upon. In that way, opponents become irredeemable. Those accused of creating victims in turn come to hate their attackers.

9.     Excuse making. A basic reason for assuming victim status is that it provides excuses. We don’t have to take responsibility for any of our own missteps that contributed to our misfortune. We save face by blaming others, and thereby create another reason to hate them. I explore all this in my book, Blame Game, How to Win It.

10.  Demanding equity. We expect equity, not just the equal opportunity of a level playing field. We assume everyone is equally entitled, irrespective of effort, education, or ability. Thus, when others deny us equity, we hate them for being unfair.

11.  Revenge. Sometimes, we create enemies out of jealousy or desire for revenge over perceived imposed inequity.

12.  Cancel culture. We censor or otherwise “cancel” others, which of course generates reciprocal hate.

 

All this shreds the fabric of social harmony. It creates resentment and anger that otherwise would not occur. It becomes self-perpetuating. I fear our current situation will only feed upon itself and make things worse. Is this the price are willing to pay to win arguments?

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