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Ok point taken. But above you were mentioning examples of genocide…. I guess we could decompose something like racism (which I guess extends to other ways of ca

• trashtester 4y ago
  Unfortunately, not only do I belive that your (3) is HIGHLY natural, I believe it predates humans by 10s of millions of years, if not more. Now ask yourself. Do you consider any group of people to be evil, just because they they belong to that group? Maybe the MAGA crowd or Antifa crowd? Maybe just FOX employees or CNN employees? Maybe some group of rich people or maybe some group of poor people, such as immigrants from some specific country? Maybe Christian or Islamic fanatics? If there is any such group you tend to see as Evil just because of their group membership, you are already at risk of ending up with the us-vs-them mentality that is the prerequisite of (3). I freely admit that I'm (at an early stage) of such a state now, as we speak. In the Ukraine vs Russia conflict, I cheer for Ukraine. That means that I don't feel too much compassion for Russian soldiers that die. It is not important enough to me, that I really think that those Russian soldiers are Evil, but it is enough that I've lost most of my empathy for them, as long as they keep fighting. Whenever some group that you see as Other start to become a threat for some group or some goal that you attach high value to, there is a tendency to start to dehumanize that group of Others. If you think they are Evil, that means the process already came quite far. Right after evil, is to see them as not deserving the protection normally given to humans. Effectively, they become orcs, or virmin, to be exterminated. This may be hard to comprehend for someone raised in an affluent, peaceful environment. But once there is a really serious conflict of interests with another group, things change. There are a few factors that can massively expedite this process, such as: 1) People that experience hunger/famine seem to often become extremely hostile to competitor groups after. 2) People who experience (relative) powerty tend to have similar, but weaker reactions. (Think, living through the financial crisis in the west). 3) Real hostile actions perpetrated by members of the opposing group. (Ie George Floyd, the 2020 protests, January 6, 9/11, just to take some American ones). More serious ones are war crimes perpetrated by Germans in WW2 or Russians in Ukraine, if you identify with the victims. 4) Real or perceived threats from the opposing group. (Like Russia threatening to use nukes, or (from the Republican perspective) Democrats opening to borders to get more Democrat voters) 5) A subtle feeling of inferiority. The best example is how wealthy Jews were hated in Europe prior ot WW2, and especially in Germany. Especially when the Germans were living through hard times in the 20s and early 30s, the wealth of the Jews at a time when ethnic Germans were poor and starving, was a to the story that Germans told themselves about being a superior race. Only by defining the Jews as Evil, could the Germans retain their sense of dignity. Because the alternative was too painful. Maybe the Jews were in some way superior to the Germans? But more than anything, I believe the main cause of these kinds of unreconcilable conflicts, is when we think that we are the Good Guys. The only way to maintain that belief, is to always identify our competitors, adversaries or enemies as Evil. To think that we are willing to fight in a conflict vs some other group just to further our own interest can be too much of a challenge to our self-perception of the Good Guys. Much easier if the enemy is Evil, and not really human. There is an alternative, but it is a difficult one. Imagine that a lion is trying to kill your child or other loved one. You have a gun. What do you do? In principle, you may be an animal preservationist. But for YOU your loved one is (most likely) more valued than some random lion. You don't need to think of the Lion as Evil, and you may even feel sad as you pull the trigger. Such a loss! Maybe even if you miss, and the Lion kills your loved one, you still don't hate it. Maybe you even let the Lion escape with the dead body, as it is already too late to save your loved one. Imagine you are a soldier in the trenches of Ukraine (on either side) and you are loyal to your side. Instead of seeing the enemy as Evil, you still think of them as just as human as yourself, just with other values and interests. As you kill him, you are sadedned with empathy, but you still kill him, because the things you are fighting for are more important to you than his life. Maybe the guy next to you cheer, as if the person dying is a good thing, and maybe that makes you even more sad inside. You are not a pacifist, you may be the best soldier in the squad, but you are also not driven by hate. When the enemy surrenders, the guy next to you may want to shoot them, but you make sure they are taken prisoner instead. This approach is much harder than seeing the opponents as Evil. It requires a higher level of maturity. But after the conflict is over, not only do you not face war crime charges, you may be more likely to be able to live with what you have done. The guy next to you may have nightmares about his crimes until the end of his days.
  • iroh2727 4y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree that there are times that call for defending your in-group against an out-group. It could be fighting for scarce resources or when your lives are on the line. But do you also agree that there are times where it is out of place? The unabomber perhaps? I mean he was a bit of a one-off (a group by himself). But what about the early eugenicists, for example, was it called for or out of place?
    • trashtester 4y ago
      A lot of the time behavior is out of place, at least when measured by my personal set of values. The worst examples of this, in my opinion, tend to happen when some group start to think of themselves as fundamentally Good, and their competitor group as fundamentally Evil. Another factor that is almost as dangerous, is when some group (or a powerful individual) lose touch with reality. Lets say Putin really thought that most people in Ukraine want to "re-join" Russia, and that only a small group of "Nazis" prevent that. Then there are individual episodes, like Unabomber, where someone on the fringe (maybe with some mental disorder, a psychopath or crazy fundamentalist) does something that seems evil. First of all, these are usually relatively minor in their effect, but can be blown up a lot. I'm more worried about our reactions to such events than the events themselves, in that if we are too quick to place the responsibility of such events on some group those people are associated with, the act of an individual can make us hate the whole group. Finally, you keep coming back to eugenicists. There are certainly plenty of examples of "eugenicists" that did some things that we consider highly destructive today and others who did things we consider immoral today. Then there was some a large group of people that didn't actually do much, but that were worried about a dystopian future on the other end of a dysgenic development. Finally, there were plenty of scientists doing science in the field, ranging from pure pseudoscience to some of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. Some of these may have been hardline racists, others very liberal. Finally, we must consider that eugenics, in some moderate form, had very wide support in many western countries for almost a century, even into the 1970s in many places. Even if we don't share those values anymore, labelling whole generations of people as Evil because of this is like labelling large parts of the population in countries where racism is still tolerated, as Evil. And from a purely descriptive point of view, I would even say that the concern that caused the eugenics movement were not totally unfounded. At a time when most people lived on a farm, many people had a direct relation to the importance of which animals were allowed to reproduce and which ones were not, on the farm. In particular, this was relevant for those who wanted to build a welfare state where "natural selection" on humans would be eliminated (this could be a socialist or social democratic welfare state, but also a national socialist welfare state, as seen in Germany). The kinds of pure capitalist societies that were common during the 19th century did come with some kind of social Darwinist natural selection built in, so was not seen as likely to have to add explicit eugenic policies to compensate for the welfare state. As it turned out, it seems that a dysgenic drift in our DNA appears to be too small to be measurable. We've even had the Flynn effect, where it has appeared that mental ability has been going up generation after generation. Let's imagine that we'd seen the opposite, where countries with welfare states had a radical drop in mental ability over a few generations (as the eugenicists predicted). Lets say that led to those countries losing their ability to organize as advanced, liberal democracies and advanced economies. At that point, eugenics might return. So to sum it up, my view is as follows: 1) Try to avoid seeing people as Good and Evil. Know that if you do that, you are being illiberal, and you may make provoke needless conflict. 2) Understand your values and the values of other groups and individuals that you may have to deal with. 3) Figure out what differences you are willing to ignore (possibly only if they stay at some distance from you). Liberalism is precisely the willingness to ignore minor value differences. Illiberalism is to demand that the people around you have the same values as you. 4) Figure out what values you are willing to have a confrontation over, and whether you will only go into a confrontation defensively, as a response to an attack, and what values are so important that you need to actively try to impose them on others. Also, figure out the level of intensity you are willing to use in your confrontation, ranging form purely verbal, through imposition through the legal system all they way to the use of violent force. All these considerations need to include some cost/benefit considerations, the details of which are far beyond the scope here. 5) Know that even if you do end up in some confrontation with the opposing group, that doesn’t make them Evil, and it doesn’t make you Good. By giving up this excuse, you may discover something painful, namely that you are acting in ways that do not correspond according to a persona you have taken on as a pro-social, liberal and non-violent individual or group. You may end up doing things that you never thought you would do and may face cognitive dissonance and perhaps an existential crisis (often a cause of PTSD). Now, without resorting to the Good vs Evil narrative, you should figure out what it is about your values that cause you to be willing to fight the conflict. If you cannot justify your actions from your values, you are being irrational, and should consider resolving the conflict.