Bias. Outright hatred. Dehumanization. These are not just the ills of our times; they have been the ills and bane of every time. And because of their endurance, every generation has attempted, if only briefly and by only a few individuals, to wipe them off the face of the Earth and to replace them with tolerance, love, and respect.
Without success.
The lack of success can be traced to the origins of the ills. Sometimes the ills seem to derive from motiveless malignity, the best examples of which lie in the characters Iago in Shakespeare's Othello and John Claggart in Melville's Billy Budd. In both characters an underlying hate appears to emerge from deep within their personalities. They do not hate in reaction to offenses perpetrated upon them. At other times, the ills appear as reactions to both intentional and unintentional treatment by others, the latter manifesting itself in many instances of road rage. When bias, hatred and dehumanization derive from reactions, they can lead to revenge that in turn can initiate a cycle that runs through generations. Such is the circumstance we see today in the Middle East, where the three ills have been a constant for at least three thousand years.
The Perennial Approaches
We humans have tried it all: Religion, secular organizations, art, didactic literature and poetry, communes, and drugs, each ostensibly purposed to bring peace and harmony. Sad to say, nothing has worked beyond short term, and even then in places and people separated by culture, history, and belief.
We are as steeped in bias, hatred, and dehumanization as ever. And in our times, social media, which held a promise of uniting us as one large family, have become Instruments of those ills, exacerbating rather than quashing them. Driven in part by anonymity, the cyber world has intensified the three ills and made them largely invulnerable to widespread diminution.
The most promising approach through the ages has been some form of education, as well as it should be. The word education derives from Latin for to lead out. Because ignorance is one root of the three ills, specific knowledge can mitigate feelings; cognitive approaches can reduce the effects of generalizations that lump people into categories. Specific knowledge can lead to understanding that leads to tolerance. Education "leads one out" of ignorance through familiarization with the previously unknown.
However, in the context of public education, a particular problem arises, the problem of the teacher. The word teacher derives from Anglo-Saxon tacn, which means “sign” or “guide post.” Because every teacher is a human, every teacher has a potential to guide students subtly or overtly toward a personal bias. Nothing illustrates this more than the recent campus protests led by some professors for the terror group called Hamas and against Jews who were the victims of a 2023 massacre and World War II's Holocaust. Educators have so far failed to eliminate the three ills and have often infused them with new energy. Thus the current wave of antisemitism pervading college campuses.
Religion, too, has failed in its mission to quash the three ills. Yes, it has motivated individuals to become peaceful and tolerant, but past and ongoing conflicts between Sunni and Shia, Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and non-Muslims, orthodox and reformed in several religions offer little hope that religion is a viable approach to eliminating the three hills. What of New Age movements? At best, these are temporary and usually dissolve into distant memories even within the generation that produced them.
The Stoic Solution
Self deprecation might be the only solution to the problem of the three ills. This ancient Greek and Roman philosophical approach to the three ills, associated with, for example, the Stoic philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, would have us all take ourselves “less seriously.” It encourages humility that fosters tolerance. It preaches moderation that reduces extreme responses to “environmental”—including social—stresses. In terms of our own times, it accepts realties over political correctness and group-thinking. Finally, in supporting individualism, it elevates others to equal levels of respect without the burden of imposed equity that so many in the political and media worlds keep promulgating ironically to the detriment of individuality and individual responsibility.
But self deprecation runs up against the barrier of pride, one of the most difficult to penetrate.
But What of Humanism and Liberal Ideals?
Am I the most depressing pessimist and misanthropist in suggesting that humans are destined to live in generational loops of the three ills? What of liberal ideals manifest in entities like sanctuary cities and government agencies devoted to uplifting the destitute through generous handouts supported by taxes. Surely, the liberal world will free humanity from the three ills. Surely, when everyone is equal, there will be no reason for bias, hatred, and dehumanization.
Not so, of course. In fact, attempts to impose liberal ideals to eliminate those ills have exacerbated them. Liberal hypocrisy reveals itself in the common attitude associated with the practice of “ideals” and the implied “Do as I say, and not as I do.” How many liberals have opened their homes to further peace, love and harmony among migrants or between migrants and citizens they claim to welcome with open arms and for whom they seek public accommodations? How many liberals have made personal sacrifices, refrained from personal attacks via social and mainstream media, and joined hands with ideological opponents in the name of peace and harmony? No. Liberals are fond of talking, fond of philosophizing.
Just as Voltaire argues through the ending of Candide, such endless philosophizing amounts to little moral progress regardless that it’s being done by Progressives.
All Solutions Are Local
Voltaire leaves his readers with a rather simple thought, basically, “Tend your garden.” Cultivate what is in front of you in the moment. If everyone adopted this approach to life, bias, hatred, and dehumanization might one day dissipate into the fog of human history, that amorphous past of harm and neglect, power struggles and war, and petty rivalries.
Without success.
The lack of success can be traced to the origins of the ills. Sometimes the ills seem to derive from motiveless malignity, the best examples of which lie in the characters Iago in Shakespeare's Othello and John Claggart in Melville's Billy Budd. In both characters an underlying hate appears to emerge from deep within their personalities. They do not hate in reaction to offenses perpetrated upon them. At other times, the ills appear as reactions to both intentional and unintentional treatment by others, the latter manifesting itself in many instances of road rage. When bias, hatred and dehumanization derive from reactions, they can lead to revenge that in turn can initiate a cycle that runs through generations. Such is the circumstance we see today in the Middle East, where the three ills have been a constant for at least three thousand years.
The Perennial Approaches
We humans have tried it all: Religion, secular organizations, art, didactic literature and poetry, communes, and drugs, each ostensibly purposed to bring peace and harmony. Sad to say, nothing has worked beyond short term, and even then in places and people separated by culture, history, and belief.
We are as steeped in bias, hatred, and dehumanization as ever. And in our times, social media, which held a promise of uniting us as one large family, have become Instruments of those ills, exacerbating rather than quashing them. Driven in part by anonymity, the cyber world has intensified the three ills and made them largely invulnerable to widespread diminution.
The most promising approach through the ages has been some form of education, as well as it should be. The word education derives from Latin for to lead out. Because ignorance is one root of the three ills, specific knowledge can mitigate feelings; cognitive approaches can reduce the effects of generalizations that lump people into categories. Specific knowledge can lead to understanding that leads to tolerance. Education "leads one out" of ignorance through familiarization with the previously unknown.
However, in the context of public education, a particular problem arises, the problem of the teacher. The word teacher derives from Anglo-Saxon tacn, which means “sign” or “guide post.” Because every teacher is a human, every teacher has a potential to guide students subtly or overtly toward a personal bias. Nothing illustrates this more than the recent campus protests led by some professors for the terror group called Hamas and against Jews who were the victims of a 2023 massacre and World War II's Holocaust. Educators have so far failed to eliminate the three ills and have often infused them with new energy. Thus the current wave of antisemitism pervading college campuses.
Religion, too, has failed in its mission to quash the three ills. Yes, it has motivated individuals to become peaceful and tolerant, but past and ongoing conflicts between Sunni and Shia, Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and non-Muslims, orthodox and reformed in several religions offer little hope that religion is a viable approach to eliminating the three hills. What of New Age movements? At best, these are temporary and usually dissolve into distant memories even within the generation that produced them.
The Stoic Solution
Self deprecation might be the only solution to the problem of the three ills. This ancient Greek and Roman philosophical approach to the three ills, associated with, for example, the Stoic philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, would have us all take ourselves “less seriously.” It encourages humility that fosters tolerance. It preaches moderation that reduces extreme responses to “environmental”—including social—stresses. In terms of our own times, it accepts realties over political correctness and group-thinking. Finally, in supporting individualism, it elevates others to equal levels of respect without the burden of imposed equity that so many in the political and media worlds keep promulgating ironically to the detriment of individuality and individual responsibility.
But self deprecation runs up against the barrier of pride, one of the most difficult to penetrate.
But What of Humanism and Liberal Ideals?
Am I the most depressing pessimist and misanthropist in suggesting that humans are destined to live in generational loops of the three ills? What of liberal ideals manifest in entities like sanctuary cities and government agencies devoted to uplifting the destitute through generous handouts supported by taxes. Surely, the liberal world will free humanity from the three ills. Surely, when everyone is equal, there will be no reason for bias, hatred, and dehumanization.
Not so, of course. In fact, attempts to impose liberal ideals to eliminate those ills have exacerbated them. Liberal hypocrisy reveals itself in the common attitude associated with the practice of “ideals” and the implied “Do as I say, and not as I do.” How many liberals have opened their homes to further peace, love and harmony among migrants or between migrants and citizens they claim to welcome with open arms and for whom they seek public accommodations? How many liberals have made personal sacrifices, refrained from personal attacks via social and mainstream media, and joined hands with ideological opponents in the name of peace and harmony? No. Liberals are fond of talking, fond of philosophizing.
Just as Voltaire argues through the ending of Candide, such endless philosophizing amounts to little moral progress regardless that it’s being done by Progressives.
All Solutions Are Local
Voltaire leaves his readers with a rather simple thought, basically, “Tend your garden.” Cultivate what is in front of you in the moment. If everyone adopted this approach to life, bias, hatred, and dehumanization might one day dissipate into the fog of human history, that amorphous past of harm and neglect, power struggles and war, and petty rivalries.
RSS Feed