Recently I've been thinking about why people believe in things, why they act or think in one way or the other. I am now leaning towards "people believe in X or Y to justify killing people".
I really hate to be a doomer or use my fee-fees for opinions but all the drama on twitter, all the bullshit i see on the internet or irl is getting to me
I spent a bit reading up on people's opinions, on some historical massacres, the genocides in sudan, palestine, the cultural revolution and the blood spilled there, the horrible crimes committed in the name of capital or communism or liberation or fascism and I think I understand a bit more about people now.
My dad and I often argue about one thing or another - and i love the man, but he is stubborn and old - and one of those arguments was about empathy. I argued that it is intrinsic, and not just a learned behavior. He argued against it, and now I think he was right
People dont *really* care about achieving a political goal (tho some do). What they care about is justifying their behavior. And most people are crude, violent apes, who behave accordingly. In every age people thought they were the enlightened Modern Man - free of the barbarity of the past. They thought that as they murdered their neighbours, raped children and whatever. So many people just want a group they can hate - whether its brown people, trans people, jews, women, atheists, muslims. Anyone who isnt you, basically.
Doesnt matter which political belief, doesnt matter who or what you are, doesnt matter where or when you live. Most people just want an US and a THEM, and the more of THEM that are subject to violence the better.
How can i begin believing in humanity again when hate mobs kill transhumanists like me, when soldiers murder, steal and rape all over the globe, when people all around the world justify the deaths of innocent people because of how or where they were born?
Why is it so hard for people to see others as people?
>>2928470>empathy. I argued that it is intrinsic, and not just a learned behaviorwe have literal toddler study showing empathy is intrinsic, as well as a sense of justice and sharing (meaning naturally, humans feel everyone should have the same share of something obtained without effort)
>And most people are crude, violent apes, who behave accordinglyour social advancement outpaced our biological one, but I feel thats still a very reductive view
>Most people just want an US and a THEM, and the more of THEM that are subject to violence the better. thats quite simply not true. Hence the need for intensive propaganda to do shit like that. Vast majority of people are naturally quite chill.
>How can i begin believing in humanity again you dont have to "believe", humans are capable of both awesome and awful shit, and this is all mostly dependent on their circumstances
>>2928470I feel the same, I think this is a form of traumatic knowledge in the psychoanalytic sense, which a lot of people deny or disavow. But if humanity were as good as we hoped, then you would not need to believe in it, you would simply know it; belief is a choice, and if you have free will then you also have a responsibility to act ethically, and you should choose to believe, if that's really the code you live by. To sit back and speak of the way things ought to be and how people ought to live is a perverse pleasure, and the pleasure we experience from merely speaking these things subsumes our drive to actually act ethically.
>>2928470> I really hate to be a doomer or use my fee-fees for opinions but all the drama on twitternone of it's real go the fuck outside
>>2940535
Art, music, social hangouts. Boredom creates ideas if given time to think about them, it would force us humans to think smarter and a more logical basis.
>>2940535>>2940539double-posting, but holy i do want to emphasize that boredom is something we should actually feel, nobody is "bored" under capitalism because we are fed things by everything and everyone every single fucking time to the point we cant exactly leave room and space for us to really think about the stuff that actually matters.
communism abolishes a lot of that, it reduces the dopamine-kicks you get from capitalism but also contributes to long-term dopamine, or you can just drink and mow the field for 2 hours, life well lived nonetheless.
A lot of it comes from insecurity not imo lack of empathy itself. There's something misanthropic and anti-social about what passes for the "right" these days beyond all the racism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism itself.
You have these (mostly) men hurting because they're failing (in their eyes) in some way (sexually, career wise, status) or imagine themselves as being threatened. (plenty of it ingrained through mass media, peer pressure, etc) And they can't cope the way some do by practicing some self-reflection, and focusing on other goals or appreciating what they have. So they bond over their shared hatreds. Live vicariously through people doing heinous shit. Feel empowered through cruelty, and so on.
There's also the element of apocalypticism (you also see this here) and wanting the world to end (because then their suffering ends or they'll at least get an attempt to thrive and rub it in the faces of everyone who has ever slighted them) instead of things improving a little.
It's grim realizing it's not all down to "class" and some people really are fucking bitter and spiteful regardless of how objectively "successful" they are.
[cont]
Think of how need is recognized as the basis of not just human behavior but behavior in general, and is a staple in biology, sociology, psychology, economics and other fields (including "Marxism"). But people seem to lose the plot when discussing isms, phobias and sexual pathologies. And you'll instead have them argue it's down to mysterious forces imposing this stuff from the 'outside'.