Hate - The New Enemy

By the miracle of Google, my once abandoned blogs are still around.  Finding them still on the internet was like receiving a forgotten Christmas present.  I will continue writing here with the magic that the previous post was 17 years ago.

My last post was about a mass shooting.  The prescription I recommended was not taken and mass shootings haven't subsided, they have increased.  My premise was that these events were caused by our own self-centeredness, that we only care about ourselves and everybody else be damned (and dead).

This may or may not still be the case, but a new enemy has emerged and that enemy is hate.  Americans have always had hate in our society and it has waxed and waned over the decades.  But something about hate changed.  I know it's more complicated than this, but I can trace a big part of it to the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign.  Two key people played a major role in changing society.  

Donald Trump took the opportunity to demonize every other candidate and literally everyone who disagreed with him.  Hillary Clinton used the campaign to designate half of the population as "deplorables."  These were the winners of their parties' nominations.  What happened was that, much different than in prior eras, hate was no longer an emotion that should be avoided and one that reflected negatively on the person hating.  Hate had become acceptable.  Hating was something to be proud of.

What started as "I Hate Trump," and "Crooked Hillary" has grown to almost completely encompass our society.  There is no longer a difference of opinion.  Nobody examines another person's actions and weighs the pros and cons and makes a judgment based on that analysis.  Now it's 100% good or 100% bad.  And real (honest) life isn't like that.

Think of all the 100% hate that we have today.  Trump, Biden, McConnell, Pelosi, Hamas, Israel, gays, homophobes, blacks, whites, climate change, abortion, immigration.  This list goes on and on.  But the one thing that's different now is that there is no middle ground.  (There might actually be a middle ground but the major media outlets won't share those views).  When is the last time you heard a discussion where someone says, "I agree with six of your points, but I disagree with four of them.  Let's move forward with the things we agree on."?  It never happens because, today, if you agree with anything your opponent says you are deemed to have conceded to their entire position and you are the loser of the debate.

With hate, you don't need a reason.  Hate is the reason.  I killed those people ... because they were gay, ... because they were Jews, ... because they were Christians, ... because of their skin color, ... because of their political affiliation.  You get the point.  I'm pretty sure you haven't killed anybody, looted any businesses, demonstrated in front of someone's private residence, but one hell of a lot of people have spewed their hate in writing, in person, and most often on the anonymous internet.  (Note that "I'm 100% right and you are 100% wrong" is just another version of intolerance which is not much different than hate).

When people believe their outright hatred is acceptable they sometimes do things that most people still believe are unacceptable.  And hatred is now acceptable because so many people do it and so many people tolerate it.

You might say that it's your business if you truly hate some person or some group and it's none of my business, but is that really true?  In his famous poem No Man Is An Island,  John Donne writes, "Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main." Stated differently, what you do affects other people.  We've all seen the domino arrays where dominos are stood on their narrow side in a long line and somebody topples the first domino and it knocks over the second one and the second one does the same to the third.  The dominoes go racing and usually end with a spectacular finish.

When you hate just for the sake of hating, it's like your are pushing over the first domino.  The spectacular ending could involve an AR-15.  Did you cause that?  Even in a little way?  Another amazing part of the domino array is that if you remove one single domino from the line the whole thing stops.  No more dominoes fall over and no spectacular ending.

So you have a choice.  You can continue with unprincipled hate, start the domino chain, and wait for the spectacular ending.  But you can also step out of the line and stop the whole thing in its tracks.  You might not be able to change the whole world, but you can change your part of it.

Amish Metal Detectors

We had a horrible tragedy recently. A selfish coward took ten Amish girls hostage, lined them up, and shot them execution-style before taking his own life. Similar situations have been repeated several times recently. It doesn’t take long for the various interest groups to propose solutions – more metal detectors, give guns to the teachers, increased vigilance by the students and staff.

Unfortunately, none of these approaches will solve the problem because the problem isn’t a man with a gun in a school. It’s something that goes much deeper than that. The problem with all of these cases is that the perpetrators can’t see anything past how the world affects only them. There is no consideration for anyone else. But why should we expect anything different? We had been bombarded for decades now about how the main goal of the world is make our own selves happy. “It’s all about me.” “If it feels good, do it.” “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Our whole society tells us that we need to look out for our own selfish interests. And then when a man with a gun does exactly that, we react with horror.

The microcosm of today’s story vividly makes the point. You have a man of “the world” troubled by something in his past. How does he resolve it? He kills innocent children (after apparently failing in his quest to first molest them). He leaves behind a wife and children to fend for themselves. He not only took away innocent lives, he ignored his own responsibilities in this world. But no matter, it was all about him.

Now look at the other side of the coin. A thirteen-year-old Amish girl pleaded to be shot first in the hope that she could save the others. The contrast of one selfish person who cares about no one but himself and a young girl who is willing to sacrifice her life to save others is stunning. We don’t have to look very far to see a huge difference. The Amish people have said a firm “no” to many of the evils of the world. I would bet that the Amish girls didn’t curse at home, had never watched Desperate Housewives, and had never looked at internet porn. I bet they respected their parents and grandparents and did their chores, and I’m sure that their religious grounding gave them a real sense of right and wrong. Many people will argue that the Amish people are backward with their horses and buggies and all. But in today’s world, being backward means that you have respect for other people, you can tell right from wrong, you know that there are real truths, and that there is a real Creator, which is something people don’t like to hear. So from that standpoint, I guess they are backward.
What does this mean for those of us who aren’t Amish? It means that we aren’t going to make schools safer by having more barricades. Our imposed barriers just seem to cause even worse behavior. If we really want to fix the problem, we need to fix ourselves. We need to get back to the time when there was more to life than our own little world. We need to get back to where right was right and wrong was wrong. We need to get back to where people did things for the greater good and recognized that there was a Greater Power out there. But the odds are against us. The “me” always seem to trump the “we.” Most societies don’t reinvent themselves. They just implode and get recreated as something totally different. If there is any hope, it has to start with each one of us. We all need to become a little less worldly and a little more Amish.

What Can I Do? – The Fast Track to Social Change

Most people would like to see social changes happen. It could be in terms of racial equality, religious tolerance, global warming, or whatever. A lot of people also know how to fix these problems and are very willing to tell you how it needs done. Take racial (black/white) equality, for example. There is a group of people that will tell you that the real problem is that black people have an extremely high rate of single parent families, a high dropout rate, and a large percentage of the male population has a criminal record. The solution, then, is for black people to stop having children out of wedlock, to graduate from high school instead of dropping out, and to stop committing crimes. Then the situation will get better.

Another group has a different take on the situation. They say that racism is still rampant in the country, schools in black dominated neighborhoods are substandard, black men are in prison because of racial profiling. The solution, then, is for America to stop being racist, for the government to stop underfunding schools in black neighborhoods, and for the police to stop racial profiling. Then the situation will get better.

Each of these positions suffers from the same problem – they want somebody else to take the action for solving the problem. Lay the blame on someone else and take no responsibility. And when nobody takes any responsibility, nothing gets done, and nothing gets better. Amazingly, this seems to be the preferred solution for making changes!! Many people agree that the war in Iraq is not going so well. Ask a Democrat about it and he is likely to say, “The Republican plan was flawed and Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction.” Ask a Republican and he’s liable to say, “The Democrats want to cut and run.” But nobody ever offers to actually do anything. Talk radio and cable news shows have perfected this. It’s all complaining and no action.

The real key to social change is not telling someone else what they should be doing, but asking the question, “What can I do?” Instead of complaining about the high minority dropout rate, offer to mentor and tutor a minority student. Don’t just complain about bad schools, start a program to help kids graduate on the idea that it’s better to graduate from a bad school than to not graduate from one.

Sometimes social change can only happen when a single person raises the consciousness of a large group. The problem is that everyone wants to be the next Dr. King. Unfortunately, these people only come along once in a generation. And guess what? You’re not the one!! Of course we can point out improvement areas outside of our area of influence, but if we would spend most of our time doing what we can do, we would get a lot more changes accomplished.

Test it on your own problems. Think back and see where you made the most impact – by letting other people know what they should be doing or by actually doing something yourself.

Integration - Value the Difference/Devalue the Difference

I am going to present a method that will greatly help the problem of integration in any group whether it’s a social club or society in general. The main points are 1) that you need to focus on the differences and not ignore them, and 2) it’s a two-way street – it doesn’t work if only half of the job gets done.

We can start with an example of a company that only hires married white men. Their philosophy is that this represents the best talent pool. Now somebody suggests that unmarried men might make better traveling salesmen because they don’t have as many family obligations. This suggestion could occur internally or from a prospective candidate. The company agrees that there might be some truth to this. This is where the company starts to “Value the Difference.” Note that it doesn’t work to say that there is no difference between married and single men. That part is obvious – one group is married and the other is single. The first step is for all parties to acknowledge that the difference exists, even if the impact of the difference is imaginary!

But it doesn’t end there. The company already has a philosophy of why married men are better than single men. They may be more reliable, less likely to change jobs, more dedicated, etc. And some of these items may be statistically correct. With this being the case, it’s up to the first single candidates to “Devalue the Difference.” They can show their past reliable behavior would predict a similar future result. They need to show why they are not like the suppositions (or prejudices) of the group that they want to be a part of. They need to “Devalue the Difference.” This may seem unfair that a person would have to prove that another group’s ideas are flawed, or that those general ideas don’t apply to him, but how else does the change in thinking occur? How often do you change a strongly held belief without some type of evidence that you can evaluate for yourself? Also, many times the differences are real. In an English speaking country, a person who speaks another language could be a real asset (Value the Difference). But if they don’t speak English or refuse to speak it, then they have neglected to Devalue the Difference (that the language difference will impede normal business communication). The scenario that doesn’t work is where an individual wants to “join” an existing group of 100 people and as part of being accepted, the one person wants the other 100 to change, while he makes no effort to integrate himself into the group. This just doesn’t make sense.

There are many examples of people integrating without really changing who they are. People moving to a foreign country make an effort to learn the language. I know of Asian people who adopt a different name (e.g. Jane instead of Hsaio) to make is easier communicate with them. They haven’t legally changed their name; it’s like a nickname to help them fit in better. I know of a man who had tattoos all the way down both arms. When working in a professional office, he simply wore long sleeved shirts. When they were having these mini-riots, torchings, whatever you want to call it, in France a few months back, a heard a quote from a young Muslim who said he didn’t want to be forced to conform by wearing a shirt and tie to work and therefore many jobs weren’t available to him. What he failed to realize is that there are many French people who don’t like to wear a shirt and tie either, but they do it to fit into the expectations of their own society. So you don’t have to sell your soul to be part of another group, but you do have to make some kind of effort to be part of that group. It can’t be all take and no give.

The good part of the story is that when groups open themselves up, they usually see that their concerns were misplaced. This company didn’t really want married men - they wanted responsible men. And when they realized that single men can be responsible too, they expanded their universe, in this case to all white men, and filtered people to make sure they were responsible, dedicated, etc. No one has to break the “single man” barrier again. And as this company evolves, we would expect their universe to include women, minorities, foreigners, and on and on. But the Value the Difference/Devalue the Difference process will still need to occur before any structural change can take place.

Now I’m sure you can find examples where you say this won’t work. Take the Augusta National Golf Club (the organization that hosts the Masters Golf Tournament). They don’t have any women members. This is a situation where a bunch of rich, old men want to do what rich, old men do. Whether the rule against women is actually written or not doesn’t matter. No woman has made a strong enough case that having her in their midst would improve whatever it is that they do. You may not like it, but that’s what has happened. And there are many other situations where people want to join a group, just because they are excluded. A person who wants to ban all types of guns wouldn’t be welcome in the National Rifle Association. But then again, this person doesn’t want the NRA to “Value the Difference,” they just want to disrupt the organization. The principles of Valuing and Devaluing the Difference don't exist in either case.

If you think back in your own experience, you can see that this cycle of VTD/DTD is where the real changes in integrating people have occurred. Laws can change external behavior, but they don’t change how a person thinks or feels. Blacks were integrated into pro sports long before the civil rights laws were put into place and pro sports is one of the most fair, in terms of value based on talent, societies that we have. It takes one person admitting that someone who seems a little bit different might be a good thing. And it also means having the other person demonstrate that he’s less different than you thought he was. If you will Value the Difference/Devalue the Difference, you can make real progress on the process of integration.

The Sterniform

Recently the NBA announced that it would be implementing a dress code that players must abide by when going to and from games. Immediately certain players objected that the dress code was directed specifically at them and their Hip Hop style. The players responded by increasing their bling-multiplier up to the deadline and then kowtowing the NBA doctrine.

I don’t know whose actions are the most disturbing in this case – the NBA or the players and their association. The NBA is certainly facing an image problem with players, but instituting a dress code on 30-year-old millionaires seems to be a feeble way to address it. You have NBA players that get into fistfights with paying customers. You have a league of participants that seem to have a penchant for smoking a certain herb. And dress code or not, when most of the players don their official work clothes, you can see more tattoos that a boatload of sailors. And the colorful language is even worse. But if your dog poops on the living room carpet, it doesn’t seem like the best solution would be to spray paint the pile the same color as the sofa and hope that nobody notices. This dress code is the NBA equivalent of “spray painting the turd.”

For the players and their union, when will they even get the correlation between their behavior and their future paychecks? The National Hockey League was so out of control that they cancelled the season. Are there any leaders among the players that can think beyond the terms of their current contract? But that’s not really the issue. What I’m concerned about is not the short sightedness of the players, but rather the weakness of and lack of creativity in their response.

If they were really concerned about this dress code, then they could have come up with their own special uniform. A pink or lime green leisure suit would probably fit the code, add to that cowboy boots (with pants tucked inside, of course) and top it off with black glasses (clear, not sunglasses) a la the Hanson brothers in the movie “Slapshot.” The players could certainly get together on this (they are both few and rich) and it would become a great spectacle. When asked why they are wearing such a ridiculous getup, they could reply it was the “Sterniform” mandated by the commissioner and they are, after all, just following the rules. It would be great to see twelve players on the bench in uniform and three more injured players wearing the Sterniform. This would be absurd! Newspapers, TV, etc. would pick up on how ridiculous this is. Commissioner Stern would probably have to issue revised guidelines (pants will not be tucked into boots!) and end up looking like Commander Queeg (“Ah, but the strawberries. That’s where I had them!”) in the Caine Mutiny. And wouldn’t that have been a lot more fun?
But at the end of the day, the players yielded, even though they didn’t make the connection between their appearance the league’s future. We rarely saw the players going from their car to the arena anyway so fan didn’t notice much (or care much). And David Stern was left holding his can of spray paint.