"Hatred and the Curse of Identity Politics"

 Today is President’s Day. In 1971, as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, we ceased celebrating February 12 as Lincoln’s birthday and the 22^nd as Washington’s birthday. Instead, the holiday was moved to the third Monday of the month. While working, I admit to liking three-day weekends, but I feel we have lost something when we don’t celebrate the actual days of Washington’s and Lincoln’s birth. Of course, there are forty-four other Presidents, and forty-two of them were not born during this month. (The two others that were born in February are William Henry Harrison on February 9,  1773, and Ronald Reagan on February 6, 1911.)

 

Enough complaining. Enjoy the day, and, I hope, the essay.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Hatred and the Curse of Identity Politics”

February 20, 2023

 

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements

can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in the devil.”

                                                                                 Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

                                                                                 American author and social philosopher

                                                                                 The True Believer: Thoughts of the Nature of Mass Movements

 

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s rebellious daughter, is supposed to have quipped: “If you haven’t anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Regardless of the quote’s validity, most of us were taught that “speech is silver, but silence is golden” and that “love conquers hate.” However, Vanessa Van Edwards, the behavioral scientist and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, says her research suggests that Alice may have been on to something. People form stronger bonds when they talk about someone they hate rather than someone with whom they have positive feelings. 

 

Hatred, often coupled with tribalism, has been prominent throughout history and has led to millions being killed. Hatred of Native Americans, as well as desire for more land, was a motivating factor in opening North America to European settlers. Hatred for blacks in southern U.S. states led to an estimated 4,400 of them being lynched between Reconstruction and World War II.

 

Hatred is universal and has killed millions. Estimates are that up to 20 million people were killed by Stalin in the Soviet Union, most in the 1930s, including five million Ukrainians who were deliberately starved between 1931 and 1934. Hatred of Jews by the Nazis led to their genocide in Europe, with an estimated six million killed. Nobody knows for sure, but probably 30 million Chinese were killed or starved during the Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1976. Communist guerillas killed somewhere between two and three million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Islamic terrorists, driven by hate for the West, killed more than 3,000 people in the U.S. on 9/11. In the last fourteen years, an estimated 75,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria. Tens of thousands of Uyghurs have been detained and/or killed in China’s northwest. There are hundreds of other examples. 

 

Hatred, though, can rally a nation against its enemies, as it has in time of war: American colonists against the British in 1775; the South versus the North in 1861; the Spanish in 1898, after the explosion of the USS Maine; the “Hun” in 1917; Nazis and Japanese in 1941; Communists in Korea and later in Vietnam, and Islamic extremists following 9/11. All were called derogatory names. 

 

Paul Eckman, the American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, has said that we have six basic emotions, two of which, anger and disgust, can lead to hatred. Our government once emphasized what we have in common – E pluribus unum (out of many, one). It appealed to our patriotism, to our exceptionalism as a sovereign nation, to what binds us as a people. We are a country of immigrants, and new immigrants tend to stick together, so the emphasis was to enfold them into the fabric that comprises America. And, over time – one, two, or three generations – that is what happened. Immigrants were no longer Italian Americans, Polish Americans, German Americans, or Irish Americans. They were Americans, living in “the land of opportunity,” a meritocracy where aspiration, diligence, and talent could lead one out of poverty and into the middle class. 

 

The Left, however, has determined that identity politics is a legitimate means of achieving and maintaining political power, so they have reverted to a new form of tribal segregation: dividing us by ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds – all of which provide fertile ground for hatred to germinate. We are divided into victims and oppressors, with the implication that the only way to restore equity is for government to mandate equal outcomes. Institutionalized by the Left, identity politics has legitimized what Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa has called “the inextinguishable call of the tribe.”

 

Traditional values like diligence and strong family ties are seen as qualities of the oppressor class, thus not encouraged. In their efforts, the Left has been aided by the media, cultural icons, and technology, the latter which can be manipulated to achieve preferred goals that create further divisiveness. Technology has made us more knowledgeable, but not wiser, and has done little to ameliorate natural differences between people. In his book, Leadership, Henry Kissinger wrote: “Architects of the internet thought of their invention as an ingenious means of connecting the world; in reality, it has also yielded a new way to divide humanity into warring tribes.”

 

Some may think my concerns exaggerated – that we have been more divided in the past, with hatred more ubiquitous. We probably were in 1861, but still I worry. A case in point: The reaction to Donald Trump’s candidacy and Presidency by his political enemies was not based on reason. It was unadulterated hate. Some may have felt it was deserved, as Mr. Trump could be nasty to those who crossed him. Nevertheless, that does not absolve those who fought him. The 2016 Russian collusion story was fabricated by the Clinton campaign, with assists from the intelligence community and mainstream media. It resulted in the $30 million Mueller investigation, which hampered his Presidency for three years and came to naught. The same thing happened in 2020 with Hunter Biden’s laptop. Fifty existing and former intelligence officers, urged on by the media, claimed it was Russian disinformation. It was not. That hatred for Trump was not unique. Governor Ron DeSantis is now a target, as can be seen in Molly Jong-Fast’s recent article in Vanity Fair. Some may argue that, regarding Trump, ends justified means, that getting rid of him was worth any price. But that is a slippery slope, which adds to polarization and, thus, to hatred. Our democracy only works if the press, in reporting the news, remains politically agnostic, and if the intelligence community does not take sides. With the exception of opinion pages, the media and the intelligence communities should remain neutral when it comes to political candidates. Let politicians debate, then let the people decide.

 

Tribalism is natural. Based on emotion, it ignores reason. It can be a positive force: loyalty to one’s school, allegiance to one’s teammates, faithfulness to one’s comrades, public-spiritedness within one’s community, and patriotism to one’s country.  Apart from the recluse or hermit, most people want to be with others who are like-minded. Man is a social animal. It is why we have fraternities and sororities, social clubs and eating clubs. But in a diverse, multi-cultured country, like the United States, we must learn to live with those whose ideas and beliefs differ from ours. Identity politics, however, pushed by the Left, serves to keep us apart. This is where tribalism becomes a negative force. Diversity is demanded by the Left, but not in ideas. In protecting students from “hateful” words, colleges keep students intellectually isolated. Is that wise? In a recent essay for Geopolitical Futures, George Friedman wrote: “Simply put, you will learn little from someone with whom you agree. You will learn the most from someone with whom you disagree.” That means one must engage with and listen to those whose opinions differ from one’s own.

 

Man is perhaps the only species that kills and destroys its own kind out of pure hatred. The President, as leader of the federal government and responsible to all the people, should work to unite a fractured people, not pursue identity politics that deepen division and fuel hatred. More important, we, individually and responsible to and for ourselves, should let our better angels prevail.