No matter which way you cut it, we’re in a lot of trouble. One of the primary yet most overlooked root causes of this trouble is the fractured state of humanity, and one of the behaviours that sustains this fractured state is the tendency to blame the “other side” for causing it in the first place.
Many tricks of words are being employed to perpetuate this division, both in how we diagnose and discuss social problems, and in how we talk about the people we blame for causing them.
This is especially true in the religious and political arenas, where gatekeepers of truth stoke the fires of destabilisation and destruction in order to preserve their sphere of social influence, and where each perceived “group” continuously fall for the same kinds of rhetoric that has been imposed on people for centuries, allowing themselves to be used for grander nefarious purposes in a trade-off for small, illusory gains.
Here is a brief examination of four ways that language is being used and abused with the goal of keeping us divided, primarily amongst deluded lines of us and them, but also within ourselves as individuals as our perceptions and concepts clash with reality.
How many of them can you recognise around you, in your families, your peers, your politicians, your religious leaders, your media outlets? And how many of them can you recognise within yourself?
As prevalent as the tendency to blame others is, how often have you been guilty of contributing in real-time to the destabilisation we can now witness around us and within ourselves?
I’ll answer this question at the end of the piece.
Shifting Focus from Behaviour Itself to Classifications of Behaviour
“If any assent is to be reached in human affairs, it must be by the result of the whole common consciousness; that is, by the linguistic process, or it will not be reached at all” — Charles Ernest Merriam
When communication breaks down, the chance of violence skyrockets.
When five drunk men target a lone elderly woman at night, beat her to death and steal her purse, most people readily recognise this as corrupt, barbaric, inhumane behaviour which is truly unsustainable in any sincere attempt at forming civilised society. Yet, when five men sentence a young girl to twenty lashings for committing the crime of showing too much skin, or torture and stone her to death for having the audacity to be raped — or when five black men jump one white man, targeting him solely because of the colour of his skin — arguments erupt over what to call this behaviour.
Was it really a “racist” attack, seeing as the perpetrators were black?
Can black people even be racist?
Was it barbaric torture of a young girl? A brutal, nightmarish murder?
Or simply “cultural differences”?
When these debates and discussions start roaring, no matter which side of the argument you might fall on, we can already consider ourselves distracted, deluded and detached.
What we consider to be the important focus has been shifted away from the crucial fact that heinous violence has been committed, that a family has been torn apart, a community forever damaged and drenched in blood, and more pain and division has been inflicted on humanity as a whole.
Instead, a disturbingly common tendency is to get caught up in how to label, how to judge, how to classify these events. And at the most cynical end, the focus is on how to justify these behaviours and events, or how to use them for ideological gain.
Alongside this is a myopic focus on the definitions of words, where the substance and connection to reality of positions is uprooted because of the failure to provide or agree on definitions. While speaking with definitions that people agree on is crucial, leveraging disagreements about this as a way of talking over reality is often a counter-productive and dishonest way of engaging in communication.
This is all division and destabilisation in action.
Insincere individuals often stand on the deaths of their perceived allies or enemies with twists of logic and interpretation to either push certain agendas or to score points for their perceivable or ideological group identity. It is in their interest to keep these shallow debates raging, to keep our attentions locked on the words rather than the events and their root causes, and to keep us divided, disarmed and disconnected.
Instead of dealing with life, the public discourse is constantly being led to focus on how to classify life. Instead of dealing with human behaviour or with violence, far too much time is spent bickering over how to judge that behaviour. Instead of dealing with the most important fact of all; that a human being has just lost their life, far too many people are conditioned into dealing only with what they think of that human being.
Eventually it gets so that we can often not see what’s right in front of us, but only what we think of what’s right in front of us, and through years of being exposed to certain restrictive linguistic and conceptual tricks, it can get so that we no longer see each other, or ourselves, as primarily human, but instead as mouthpieces for, or representatives of, certain ideologies, group identities or concepts.
In a world where many are raised to perceive humanity as a splintered set of groups at constant conflict for power, instead of one species at a constant struggle for (and conditioned rejection of) peace, we are far more likely to fall in line with divisive tribalist mentalities, and to desensitise ourselves to it in order to contribute to the destabilisation in the name of some ideological cause or another.
“We don’t see things as they are — we see things as we are.”
And that brings me to the second abuse of language that furthers destabilisation;
Dehumanisation, or, Reducing a Complex Variety of People to Over-Simplified Group Identities
One of the most prevalent methods of destabilisation, especially in current times, is dehumanisation. Here, I use the word to refer to the act of reducing people to less than a living human being, to the products of certain ideologies or as mere representatives of a race, a religion, or any other perceived group identity.
I use the word “reduce” deliberately, as, personally, I’ve found people to be a great deal more intriguing, multi-faceted, and who often have much more depth of individual character than any of their perceivable or ideological group identities can imply.
Let’s take a simple example that is common to us all — old people.
To see “Old People” as a group with nothing more to them than what is stereotypically attributed to all old people in cartoonish depictions is, obviously, a mistake. Taking one or two shared characteristics of a large number of people and acting like it defines a whole group is one of the quickest ways towards dehumanisation, and is usually denounced outright when it comes to racist or otherwise discriminative stereotypes.
Similarly, if an individual thinks the most central thing about them is the colour of their skin, their sexuality, their dietary habits, their country of origin, etc., then it’s quite likely they’ve become so deeply indoctrinated by this destabilising tendency that they’ve now become a victim of their own dehumanisation.
Of course, these are quite basic, over-simplified examples.
The history of warfare is replete with examples of dehumanising language being used to refer to victims of attacks as a coping mechanism for those who carry out those attacks; a way to detach, so that they no longer see their “enemies” as human being, but as something less-than.
- In Vietnam, the U.S. military used terms like V.C. (short for Viet Cong) or “Gook” to refer to their victims.
- In the Middle East throughout the recent Global War on Terror, targets of many backgrounds were collectively summed up as “Raghead,” “Towelhead,” “Haaji,” and so on.
- In the Rwandan genocide, the dehumanising slur used against the Tutsis was “inyezi” — cockroaches. The secret military operation that was waged against the Tutsis was called “Operation Insecticide”.
- During the Sierra Leone Civil War, the Revolutionary United Front rebels dehumanised their victims as “sabas,” meaning “wild animals” in the Mende language.
- And one more for the War on Terror, military drone operators also used animalising language to dehumanise their victims, such as referring to them as “bugsplats.” In another sense, the victims were dehumanised through mathematical abstraction that was designed to reduce them from human beings to numerically codified units of biological life.
And when it comes to the dehumanisation we see on the street-level in the current day, when people find themselves lashing out against The Rich, Sheep, Immigrants, Christians, Muslims, Men, Nazis, SJWs, Black People, White People, The Far-Right, Lefties, Straight People, Gay People, The Jews, Conspiracy Theorists, etc., we might think we are taking healthy samples and classifying averages of people, or something along these lines.
In reality, aside from situations where an impressive level of totalitarian control which imposes a strict (and entirely successful) uniformity on any perceived group of people, there will be more variation among the individuals who make up these groups than our grand linguistic abstractions can give credit for. Recognition of that variation requires levels of insight and understanding that our tribalist, belief-oriented worldviews often discourage people from seeking.
And, when we start putting together these abstractions in our own minds, and through a process of shallow thinking and rage-baiting, start experiencing visceral emotional reactions to our own judgments and perspectives, we are using words to cement the detachment between ourselves and these perceived groups of people, and between one perceived group and another.
In a casual context, we might get lucky and get a pleasant surprise when we realise that “the other” is not as malicious, hate-filled, or evil as we might have once perceived them. In other, more tense conditions such as heated debate, we might be able to catch ourselves reacting to what we think of someone’s assumed group identity rather than responding to what the person has actually said, and entirely overlooking who they really are in favour of our own preconceptions.
In a social context, where a serious level of disconnection between our concepts and reality is mixed up with shallow judgment, rage-baiting, and the formation of ideological grudges, our dehumanisation quickly becomes a weapon.
Just like with violence, which many people think they can control but which often ends up controlling them, this weapon is turned on us and used as a tool of manipulation — so, while those who dehumanise often feel justified in their judgments and actions towards those they perceive as The Problem, they are simultaneously being dehumanised themselves, and are being desensitised to it in order to be used to further division and destabilisation.
It starts with a state of mind, and those states of mind are most often woven out of associations of words inside our heads.
Imposing the Limits and the Language of Thinking and Communication, or, Defining the Terms
By controlling the language, you control the narrative. By controlling the narrative, you control the people. — ?
Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about. — Benjamin Lee Whorf
Language is also at the core of a great deal of behavioural, intellectual and psychological influence/conditioning.
Just as we can influence each other to become stronger, more aware and insightful, to relate more effectively to everyone around us, etc., we can also influence each other into becoming hollowed-out versions of ourselves, where the things we place at the top of our priority lists are things like ego-reinforcement, instant gratification, personal validation, competitive group acceptance, and so on.
These tendencies are naturally oppressive as they are not only largely uninterested in others and the state of the world around us, but also give rise to the desire to impose our own views and perspectives over reality itself. This often inspires impatient, ill-tempered behaviours and attitudes, which, when people have gone far enough into becoming the hollowed-out version of themselves, seem only natural and worthwhile to cultivate.
This is especially true with communication, where use of certain words illicit snappy reactions and dismissive, controlling tendencies of some who are involved, who, not for purposes of education and understanding, but most often for personal validation and ego-gratification, seek to police the language of others and push it into conformity with their perspectives.
The personal clashes and disputes that flare up because of this kind of thing can, and often do, lead to violence. On a broader level, when the dominant social ideologies and concepts have become so far removed from the interest of furthering awareness and have descended so deeply into the the realm of popularity contests and cultish tribalism, violent destabilisation is only a stone’s throw away.
Communication can prevent violence, and is one of the best unifying methods we human beings have for bridging our differences. Some of the major problems we collectively wrestle with now are sourced in sets of rules that overshadow our thinking and communication, designed to prevent unification and the discovery of solutions and to preserve the divisive, separatist tendencies among us.
This is usually done to maintain power and influence over others, as the desire to be in control is part of a prehistorical game that nobody has figured out how to actually win, and that humanity as a whole has not yet been able to overcome.
The political establishment, with all its hierarchies and competitive practices, has institutionalised these behaviours, and, being one of the most dominant systems of today, is a great example of this.
It’s important to point out that, most often, politics is little more than a way of framing subjects and conversation for certain purposes, and when conversations are reduced to political positions, we immediately find ourselves having to deal with an ideological split between people.
The same is true with personal and group identity, as when these aspects of our lives are co-opted by political language, we discover an “us against them” square-off between ourselves and anyone who does not agree with who we think we are. This can lead to the breakdown of friendships, families, communities, an on to entire societies, and it often seems to the individual that they can do nothing to help the situation as it’s much larger than themselves.
Their thoughts on that are partly true, but they often buckle, pick a team and go on to throw fuel onto the fire, no longer interested in holistic problem-solving, but only in securing minor victories for their new group.
As mentioned earlier, politics is only one way to frame conversations, issues, and so on, but it begins with instant fracturing of the species into multiple groups vying for popularity and power. Simply taking a different approach, such as a philosophical approach or even a scientific one, could have not only increased awareness and understanding, but resulted in far less destabilisation both within the individual and in society as a whole.
Similarly, religions still often perpetuate the age-old tendency to filter current events through ancient metaphysical frameworks of interpretation. This goes on to set the language people’s thinking, and places the limits and restrictions on the scope of their thinking and their communication with others.
This isn’t to say anything of the “moral worth” or social value of the world’s religions. Many of them have much to offer in the way of wisdom and insight into how to live great lives, and I’ve personally taken a great deal from many faiths spanning West to East.
This is an attempt to highlight the aspects they often share with the political establishment; the belief-oriented tribalism that comes with them that humanity has struggled with since before recorded history. And we have a philosophical responsibility not to kid ourselves that that isn’t responsible for a great deal of stagnation to our growth as a species, and the destabilisation and destruction that manifests in our world as a consequence.
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. — Philip K. Dick
Forbidden Words and Discussions, or, Thought-Crimes and Crimes of Speech
One of the most self-empowering abilities of human beings is that we can use critical thinking and education to overcome certain problems and states of mind. On an interpersonal level, it’s the act of communication in the name of furthering awareness and reaching mutual understanding that bridges differences between people and provides the framework on which true social strength and growth can be developed.
Personal destabilisation can occur when a problem is imposed on someone or they are conditioned into troublesome states of mind while at the same time being disallowed the critical thought necessary to reach a solution.
“Troublesome states of mind,” like those that are often associated with anxiety, depression, paranoia, loneliness, etc., can often be effectively managed or entirely overcome by insights into a new perspective, or adaption to a new intellectual structure that connects the thinker with some unutilised or unrecognised personal strength.
On an interpersonal, societal level, if a problem is encountered by large numbers of people to which they do not have the tools or intellectual frameworks to begin to solve, shared states of mind will develop that push towards destabilisation.
“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” — Ralph G Nichols
When people seek to confide in each other to help deal with certain concepts or states of mind, serious free-flowing discussions need to be had. This presents an opportunity to not only further awareness, but to strengthen personal bonds and social cohesion in a way that is often resistant to institutional and ideological interference.
Repression and censorship have been two of the primary methods of dealing with the more uncomfortable, critical or controversial subjects of experience, and if you want to get an idea of the cumulative consequences of centuries of sweeping the dirt under the rug, just take a good, unfiltered look at the world around you.
People from all walks of life have been raised not to say certain words or to have certain discussions for fear of the social consequences. Usually, those social consequences are little more than the emotional reactions of those commanding that the words continue to go unspoken.
At the same time, the command that these words and discussions go unspoken also reaches into the minds of individual people — that not only should the words go unspoken, but also not even quietly considered.
Fear of failing to meet false standards is usually the device used to enforce this, where people are both shamed for being “bad people” over experiencing natural inclinations, and censored for being insensitive, ignorant or prejudiced for wanting to have important personal and social discussions.
Eventually, when conditioned over long enough periods of time, the likelihood is that people “learn their lesson” to self-censor and repress automatically, to silence their curiosities and just tow the line in order not to meet the moral outrage of their peers.
Obviously, this is a joke.
Not only does this put a cap on people’s ability to think, to communicate and to learn, but it also leaves them wide open to having their curiosities manipulated and redirected for all sorts of malicious purposes. On top of that, it keeps them dependent on people, ideologies and institutions that they’d be better off not depending on; those that generally offer nothing, but will take everything they possibly can in order to turn lost and troubled people into extensions of themselves.
If people are ever going to become that stronger, wiser version of themselves — if society is ever going to stabilise in the midst of a barrage of divisive, destabilising tendencies and ideologies — if human beings are ever going to unify in the face of centuries of brutal, bloody, fracturing history — then it will have to be done by peacefully and strategically confronting and overcoming not only the parts of ourselves that contribute to the whole mess, but also that which we have been raised not to notice, not to address, and to self-censor and repress.
A quick message to despairing people, and a personal note
“The old appeals to racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist fervour are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism… and recognises that an organism at war with itself is doomed.” — Carl Sagan
The dying optimist in me wants to keep a focus on the fact that, due to the opening-up of the world through technology alongside other factors, the divisive tactics that gatekeepers of truth rely on are beginning to lose their efficacy.
If it seems like their influence is massive, far-reaching and backed up by centuries of tradition and much more than any one person can ever deal with alone, that’s because it is. But that fact doesn’t need to serve as the basis for a “we’re already doomed” mindset.
It might be true that there are 7+ billion people in this world, but you and I don’t exist in a vacuum. What we do can and does make a difference, even if it only amounts to living differently and contrary to how others would have us live. That difference can then become a force unto itself when we utilise the extraordinary power of communication.
One of the questions I asked in the introduction to this piece was “As prevalent as the tendency to blame others is, how often have you been guilty of contributing in real-time to the destabilisation we can now witness around us and within ourselves?”
My answer to that is: a hell of a lot.
Just like the history of humanity as a whole is full of mistakes, delusion, deliberate attempts to obscure concepts and to evade the truth for the sake of preserving outdated ideas and beliefs, so is my own.
The amount of tricks I would pull in belief-oriented debates with others, the logical fallacies I would spin in order to “win arguments” or to convince people of something or other, and the amount of delusion I may have given rise to in people’s heads… really is a mark on my past.
What’s worse, a lot of this took place long before the rise of social media and before the notion of doing your own research became somewhat popular. This means that a lot of the psychological, conceptual distortion I might have caused in people could have ran deep and lasted for many years, and, for all I know, still causes problems today.
Before discovering and dedicating myself to what I call the “Believe and Disbelieve Nothing” philosophical discipline, somewhere between 8 to 12 years ago, I bounced between many interconnected belief systems, towed the line and was passionately determined with my own divisive tribalistic tendencies.
Being a largely uninfluential person — or, rather, somewhat influential but not a public figure in any way — I doubt I’ve contributed much to widescale social destabilisation and delusion, but I remain conscious of that which I caused within individuals over many years throughout my own ideological delusion.
Thankfully, I’ve been able to figure a way out of the old habitual, shallow pseudo-intellectual tendencies (or, at least, it seems so) and have become determined to contribute something very different going forward.
Thanks for reading.
