Fear of Difference
I came away writing this post after watching a documentary on the racist and sexist British political party known as the British National Party (their site and the Wikipedia entry). It was a startling insightful documentary about the irrational thoughts of fascism, racism and all its other closely-related cousins, but unfortunately, I have to say that there was a very sober hint that was not fully fleshed out in the film, and that is the fear of difference.
One doesn't have to watch this film to recognise the obvious point that at many times in history, great acts of violence, atrocity and hate have been accomplished through an informal vehicle, yet a very effective weapon, namely the fear of difference. Many people today are ready to denounce the representations of Nazism and Stalinism, but try reformating the question and ask if they are ready to accept mass immigration of foreigners who may have to compete with them for economic survival (i.e. jobs), or if they are ready to grant civil and human rights to groups of people whose culture are regarded as barbaric, uncivilised, or just downright unpleasant (i.e. you can take your pick from gays, ethnic minorities and indigenous people), and quite naturally they may even be as vocal as Hitler himself.
Much of philosophy and psychology (i.e. both originally being related disciplines) has shown that there is pointless talk about categories and dichotomes when it comes to discussing about human affairs. A common phrase is that "there is a thin line between love and hate" and much is true about other terms, such as patrioticism and xenophobia, or rational and irrational or kind and cruel. Irrational acts will continue to be defined as the "most rational course of action", such as how postmodernist intellectuals argue that Hitler took a decisive rational scientific ideology to exterminate the Jews and others; it is honourable to deprive refugees and immigrants of basic rights because we have to protect our nation or culture; or, in a most basic way, we got to press on our co-workers/employees hard, despite their personal circumstances, because that's the best way to "motivate" them. Anthropology and sociology has provided much evidence that no country, no matter how "modernized", is free from such primate instinctual callings.
It then comes across as perfectly natural that no matter how much how gifted humans are with reason, human consciousness and perhaps spirituality, deep down our human mind continues to be run no different from the average animal. There is an enormous disparity of difference, of course, but the problem, as far as these disgraceful acts actually illustrate, is that people aren't treasuring the one gift that is uniquely human: the ability to understand our fear. And as a secondary mechanism, to conquer it.
The first one is elementary to explain: all animals on this planet, asides from micro-organisms, have something called a "brain", meaning an organic central control system that intreprets data from the social world. Depending on the properties of that biological organ, we can perform a variety of functions, and how we choose to define them is a matter of judgment and moralising. Animals can judge, such as whether it is safe to take a drink from a lake full of alligators, but they can't moralise. They also can't understand that fear, apart from the basic "don't be eaten" instinct they possess. But that fear isn't so much about difference. They may hang around a vicious natural predator on the same plain fields or lake, and so long as they aren't threatened directly, they may stay around. Unlike humans, they won't be proclaiming national rights (i.e. which is partly a territorial instinct, but for us, also a moralizing act), or that cos you hump an animal of the same sex as yourself, you ought to be thrown in the gas chambers.
The problem relates to how that problem is being understood. That's the issue that ought to guide our moral dilemma. If tomorrow, a mass group of refugees from Aceh were to set foot in your country, it may come across as natural to feel fearful. How did you come about to feel that fear? What exactly constitutes the basis of that fear? And further, how are you going to come about understanding it?
Here's again the other crucial difference between animals and man. Animals only take a simplified choice of action to conquer that fear, namely to run away (literally) or to fight it. Docile animals naturally run, the agressive ones will snap their fangs and claw their intruder, but the human ones are left open with a variety of options. In fact, the options are almost countless ways, thanks to the creativity of the human mind. It doesn't take a genius to recognise that the excuse of "there is no alternative" is poorly formulated and usually whipped up in the same reaction time that an animal chooses to immediately run or fight. In other words, we become worse than animals, by saying "there is no excuse to difference".
It is very difficult to accept difference, make no doubt about that. For the average reader, I can assume you don't have a problem accepting people who are gay or are vegetarians, but you probably got a problem accepting people who wants a strong Christian state or wouldn't blink twice if an atomic bomb was set off tomorrow in a bid to "defend" ourselves. The irony is that we always are forced, and I may even say obligated, to confront that fear because it is an innate natural aspect of social living. The value of Difference can never be truly cherished, as everyone of us is ready to exercise sheer "lunacy" to oblierate the other to "save" ourselves, but nevertheless, we have a real gift, one that is ultimately more precious, to reconcile our animal "half" with our human "half". It makes truly no difference to engage in rhetoric debate about scientific evolution against creationism. It's much better to recognise we are all, one and the same too. Similar but yet different.
One doesn't have to watch this film to recognise the obvious point that at many times in history, great acts of violence, atrocity and hate have been accomplished through an informal vehicle, yet a very effective weapon, namely the fear of difference. Many people today are ready to denounce the representations of Nazism and Stalinism, but try reformating the question and ask if they are ready to accept mass immigration of foreigners who may have to compete with them for economic survival (i.e. jobs), or if they are ready to grant civil and human rights to groups of people whose culture are regarded as barbaric, uncivilised, or just downright unpleasant (i.e. you can take your pick from gays, ethnic minorities and indigenous people), and quite naturally they may even be as vocal as Hitler himself.
Much of philosophy and psychology (i.e. both originally being related disciplines) has shown that there is pointless talk about categories and dichotomes when it comes to discussing about human affairs. A common phrase is that "there is a thin line between love and hate" and much is true about other terms, such as patrioticism and xenophobia, or rational and irrational or kind and cruel. Irrational acts will continue to be defined as the "most rational course of action", such as how postmodernist intellectuals argue that Hitler took a decisive rational scientific ideology to exterminate the Jews and others; it is honourable to deprive refugees and immigrants of basic rights because we have to protect our nation or culture; or, in a most basic way, we got to press on our co-workers/employees hard, despite their personal circumstances, because that's the best way to "motivate" them. Anthropology and sociology has provided much evidence that no country, no matter how "modernized", is free from such primate instinctual callings.
It then comes across as perfectly natural that no matter how much how gifted humans are with reason, human consciousness and perhaps spirituality, deep down our human mind continues to be run no different from the average animal. There is an enormous disparity of difference, of course, but the problem, as far as these disgraceful acts actually illustrate, is that people aren't treasuring the one gift that is uniquely human: the ability to understand our fear. And as a secondary mechanism, to conquer it.
The first one is elementary to explain: all animals on this planet, asides from micro-organisms, have something called a "brain", meaning an organic central control system that intreprets data from the social world. Depending on the properties of that biological organ, we can perform a variety of functions, and how we choose to define them is a matter of judgment and moralising. Animals can judge, such as whether it is safe to take a drink from a lake full of alligators, but they can't moralise. They also can't understand that fear, apart from the basic "don't be eaten" instinct they possess. But that fear isn't so much about difference. They may hang around a vicious natural predator on the same plain fields or lake, and so long as they aren't threatened directly, they may stay around. Unlike humans, they won't be proclaiming national rights (i.e. which is partly a territorial instinct, but for us, also a moralizing act), or that cos you hump an animal of the same sex as yourself, you ought to be thrown in the gas chambers.
The problem relates to how that problem is being understood. That's the issue that ought to guide our moral dilemma. If tomorrow, a mass group of refugees from Aceh were to set foot in your country, it may come across as natural to feel fearful. How did you come about to feel that fear? What exactly constitutes the basis of that fear? And further, how are you going to come about understanding it?
Here's again the other crucial difference between animals and man. Animals only take a simplified choice of action to conquer that fear, namely to run away (literally) or to fight it. Docile animals naturally run, the agressive ones will snap their fangs and claw their intruder, but the human ones are left open with a variety of options. In fact, the options are almost countless ways, thanks to the creativity of the human mind. It doesn't take a genius to recognise that the excuse of "there is no alternative" is poorly formulated and usually whipped up in the same reaction time that an animal chooses to immediately run or fight. In other words, we become worse than animals, by saying "there is no excuse to difference".
It is very difficult to accept difference, make no doubt about that. For the average reader, I can assume you don't have a problem accepting people who are gay or are vegetarians, but you probably got a problem accepting people who wants a strong Christian state or wouldn't blink twice if an atomic bomb was set off tomorrow in a bid to "defend" ourselves. The irony is that we always are forced, and I may even say obligated, to confront that fear because it is an innate natural aspect of social living. The value of Difference can never be truly cherished, as everyone of us is ready to exercise sheer "lunacy" to oblierate the other to "save" ourselves, but nevertheless, we have a real gift, one that is ultimately more precious, to reconcile our animal "half" with our human "half". It makes truly no difference to engage in rhetoric debate about scientific evolution against creationism. It's much better to recognise we are all, one and the same too. Similar but yet different.
