Look at the world through the eyes of a skeptic and you would think that it is two twigs short of a bonfire.
There is a large-scale backsliding of democracy across the globe promoted by politically-motivated radicals and further amplified by the misguided media.
In the US, right-wing lawmakers are blatantly rolling back the country’s progress in terms of reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, gun control, and environment while siding with the whims of extremists masquerading as conservatives. Countries like Russia, China, and Hungary are openly touting authoritarian rule for a geopolitical upper hand. In India, religious nationalism is being used as a thinly-veiled excuse to strongarm democracy and disrupt a secular system.
Observe all of this from a distance and you’ll see that the key strategy these politicians use to pull off their toxic stunts is divisiveness – the deliberate contamination of human minds with stories of “us-versus-them”. They consciously polarize, alienate, and discriminate against certain groups with their twisted language and hurtful rhetoric. They rely on contrived facts and cultish narratives to appeal to human emotions rather than reason. They encourage us to hate.
But the greater question is – Why do we bite? Why do we choose to believe the stories and succumb to divisiveness and hate?
The default place for this introspection has to begin with evolution’s wondrous blob that is both sophisticated and unreliable all at once – the brain.
The Brain’s Default Design and Unfortunate Effects
As far as the brain is concerned, discrimination is not a bad thing. It’s a simple cognitive tool the brain wields to enable humans to process the world by categorizing information into familiar groups. But the functional tool used for efficient processing gets manipulated by useless mind-stories that create prejudice and stereotyping.
We, the social creatures, gravitate toward people and communities that are similar to how we see ourselves and, by extension, the world. But this social need to belong somewhere leads to egoic loyalty, blind allegiance, and a sense of supremacy.
And lastly, the brain runs the human story on a range of emotions baked into our biological framework, which also includes primitive emotions like fear and anger. But rational emotions that were meant for “fight/flight” survival situations get irrationally influenced when our individuality is threatened by concepts that are different from our own.
Can We Learn to Think Differently?
Now that we know about the brain’s deeply-ingrained propensities, is it possible for us to overcome its shortcomings by making a conscious choice to not be prejudiced jerks? Could world education and exposure to other cultures help us foster empathy and learn to appreciate unique perspectives, experiences, and differences? Does a grand fix-all like “mindful meditation” and “self-reflection” make us more aware of our bigotry?
A global, mass-scale enlightenment that spontaneously triggers everyone to realize their true nature could be a convenient solution. Imagine if a magical wave of hand moves us into the space of awareness where all illusions of separateness dissolve and we realize that we are not the limited concept of an individual self but the boundless, infinite consciousness interconnected to all lifeforms. Imagine all of us abiding in the awareness of unity with barriers of separation naturally fading away, love and compassion flowing from our hearts effortlessly, and humanity dancing its way into eternity to the sounds of birdsongs, babbling brooks, and children’s laughter.
Fat chance that would ever come to pass, but ridding the world of hate and divisiveness is not as simple as having happy thoughts, smiling at everyone, or nurturing overall positivity in our lives. We cannot suddenly become all love and compassion with just self-help tips and meditation because the problem lies not in the world or even in how we see it. It lies in what we hold within us several layers deep and how we unconsciously dip into that abyss every time we project ourselves onto the world.
The Dark Underbelly of our Psyche
We are such a complex, messed-up, rough assemblage of all who have walked ahead of us and everything that has happened before our time. We, as a civilization, have inherent, incalculable pain deep inside our psyche. We sit on a minefield of evolutionary heritage filled with survival challenges, emotional trauma, and anxiety.
In some weird way, this pain gets repackaged and passed down generation after generation, both individually and socially. Pull on any of our emotional issues and that thread will invariably lead us to some childhood trauma, direct or indirect.
These hand-me-down memories and experiences, which exist as an undercurrent of resentment, fear, and sadness within us and manifest as hate and judgment, are not going to magically disappear unless we consciously and intentionally level with them.
The Bare Truth
Put simply, only those who are capable of loving themselves will be able to express these qualities toward others. We cannot hate another, but love ourselves. We cannot truly love another unless we recognize the pain, forgive our trauma, and learn to love ourselves. This is not some spiritual highbrow philosophy but basic human design. This is how we are wired.
Hatred, in the context of unresolved wounds, is a defensive response or an attempt to protect oneself from further harm. We hate because we are hurting. This is one concept I had a very hard time wrapping my head around over the years because this means I have to see Hitler in a whole new light. But as much as I resist it, this seems to be the truth.
Ask Why Do We Hurt
So the right question to ask is not why we hate others, but rather turn the spotlight around and ask what is hurting us from within.
The next time we hear a call to hate, we need to inquire, “What deep pain am I suppressing inside me for it to manifest as anger and resentment toward others?” Our reaction to divisive rhetoric needs to be, “Why is it easier for me to project my suffering as hate and intolerance onto others than face my deeply-wedged fear and pain head-on?”
From there we can graduate to the disorienting school of nonduality with “Who is the one hurting”, “If I’m the one seeing the one who is hurting, who is really the ‘I’”, and so on. But asking why we are hurting is a good place to begin.
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness.”
Mahatma Gandhi
