“God judges men from the inside out; men judge men from the outside in.”
Criss Jami, Healology
Each of us has a particular perspective of how things “should” be and move through the world wearing that particular wardrobe contained in our personalized boxes. It goes kind of like this, “I am a Police officer; I have high social status and therefore people should interact with me in a respectful way that reflects my social status.” In my example I used an officer but literally you could insert any career, gender, income level or race and it still holds. Most don’t like to admit it, but we usually buy into the whole idea of social hierarchy. The CEO of a major corporation is handled a lot different than the cashier at Walmart. I know I know; we are all human and as an individual human no one should have no more value than another human. That sounds nice on memes and bumper stickers, but the reality is there is a difference and we all know it. People are walking around with personal internal rules for how others should interact with them. The way people Should show them respect and interact with them is usually based on an exaggerated sense of self triggered by any criterion they choose. Through these beliefs we fail to dwell in our humanity and become nothing more than an avatar of who we believe ourselves to be.
How did we get like this? We are social animals and sadly have always been this way. From the first family groups to tribes we have always needed some sort of hierarchy. Of course, the concepts of this structure grew exponentially as we became more technologically advanced. Moving from hunter gatherers to a more sedentary agrarian civilizations caused increases in population and required more structure. We needed more rules and regulations and social agreements for how people should and should not behave. Thusly, while technology has greatly improved our standard of living it came with a high cost. The development of large social structures inevitably creates power dynamics and systems of control. There is no way around it, name one industrialized nation where EVERYONE is treated equal and there are no differences made between the working class and the elites. The mere fact that there is and always will be a working class is the foundation for the social structure of shoulds and should nots.
The question then becomes what happens when someone goes rogue and does not do what they should? Usually the person who feels that they are the victim will go all Super Saiyan God1. When a persons shoulds are violated they will typically feel victimized no matter how insignificant the transgression. The intensity of their victimhood will often be amplified to Ultra Instinct2 if the transgressor is a member of the Them community. Sadly, this is not a one-sided situation every person believes in their own avatar and forms diminished ideals of others seeing them as only a symbol or icon of their group for example, the stereotypical black thug or white racist. This diminished version of a human is whittled down to the simplest possible form to make it easier to label them as evil, to assign blame, and to ensure they receive the proper punishment.
Creating the diminished (dehumanized ) versions of people is important, it makes identifying the evil/ bad people much easier. This is especially true if they have unique features such as skin color, unique eye shape, they are taller or a practice specific religion. Once the guilty have been identified it is so much easier to exact punishment for their transgressions.
Footnote:
- Super Saiyan God: is a Saiyan transformation that grants the user godly fighting powers used by Goku and Vegeta from the anime series Dragon Ball.
- Ultra-Instinct: is an ultimate fighting technique mastered by Goku that separates the consciousness from the body, allowing it to move and fight independent of a martial artist’s, thoughts, and emotions.
This article is a part of a series focused on the analysis and origins of hate:
| 1. What Is Hate? Published 01.14.2021 | 5. Social Darwinism Published 02.25.21 |
| 2. So, What’s The Plan? Published 01.21.2021 | 6. Selective Breeding Published 03.04.21 |
| 3. How to Make Mutant Published 01.28.2021 | 7. Us vs. Them Published 03.11.21 |
| 4. Don’t Take it Personal Published 02.04.21 | 8.Love Published 03.18.21 |
| 9. The exaggeration of SELF published 03.25.21 | 10. Respect Published 04.01.21 |
- Beck, A. T. (2000). Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence (1st ed.). Harper Perennial.
- Harari, Y. N. (2018). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Reprint ed.). Harper Perennial.
- Sapolsky, R. M. (2018). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Illustrated ed.). Penguin Books.
Deliberately dope 