The Epistemology of Intimidation by Hatred

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The Epistemology of Intimidation by Hatred

This is going to be a short one on spiritual collectivism allied to tribal identification.

Hatred epistemology always becomes evident in public when there is a clash between two tribes. This happened recently with the demonstrations in Charlottesville. But it also happens with Jews versus Muslims, gays versus Christian fundamentalists, pro-life versus pro-choice people on abortion, etc. Hell, even open versus closed system factions within Objectivism.

Here's how the epistemological intimidation via hatred goes--and I will include violence in the clash between radicals to make the point clearer.

Tribe A has a minority of radical violent members who hate Tribe B. They really, really hate them. And Tribe B has a minority of radical violent members who hate Tribe A with just as much venom. Both tribes have a large majority of nonviolent sympathizers to varying degrees, or people with common ground on specific issues, or people who are curious, etc. These people might be partisan to varying degrees, but most do not hate, not deep in their hearts.

Tribe A and Tribe B clash in an event, the radicals get violent and people get hurt.

Person C looks on and says: "The violent radicals are evil. Both tribes. Otherwise there are many good people in both Tribe A and Tribe B among the ones who are not violent radicals. Both have a right to speak and assemble and we must banish violence from public events."

Tribe A propagandists scream that Person C is saying ALL Tribe B members are good people, including the violent radicals.

Tribe B propagandists scream that Person C is saying ALL Tribe A members are good people, including the violent radicals.

Both scream at Person C and bash him (or her) for "moral equivalency."

The end.

Not the end of the story--the intimidation and hatred will continue--but the end of rational thinking. You cannot reason someone out of a hatred they never reasoned themselves into. But you can reject hatred as a form of cognition.

And I do.

I reject hatred as a form of cognition, as a tool of cognition.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

.

I reject hatred as a form of cognition, as a tool of cognition.

Michael

What is your opinion of love (taken as a contrary to hatred).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

What is your opinion of love (taken as a contrary to hatred).

Bob,

Love is not a syllogism.

It is a lot better than hate at cementing productive cooperation bonds between humans, though.

Hate bonds people to destroy and scapegoat. Love bonds them to build dreams and reproduce.

Some hatred is necessary in human intercourse to keep society working. Ditto for love, except we need a lot more of it. A society built on a predominance of hatred crumbles before too long. Its own members take each other out.

In my way of thinking, when it's time for precise identification of something in reality, neither love or hatred work. Cognition does.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

37 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

In my way of thinking, when it's time for precise identification of something in reality, neither love or hatred work. Cognition does.

Michael

I concur. Facts Rule,  Feeling doesn't.

[Peter]

YUP. What we saw was tribalism. Chimps with branches, bashing each other. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let me publicly thank Merlin (merjet). 

He caught a mistake in my opening post and let me know about it backstage.

Then damned if he didn't catch another.

Thanks, Merlin...

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

I think the term "hate" as in "hate speech" etc is just a plain smear, except many blacks do genuinely resent whites.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

10 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

I think the term "hate" as in "hate speech" etc is just a plain smear, except many blacks do genuinely resent whites.

Wolf,

In my meaning, I am talking about the literal emotion of hatred and it's impact on a rational cognition process. Over time, using an emotion like hatred--staying on that emotional tone with intensity and constantly repeating bouts of it--sets up neural pathways in the brain along which the rational processes start to run run automatically. I believe most haters (in my emotional technical sense) don't even detect the process distortions in their rational cognition after this develops. All they know is that their way of thinking feels right, rational and good, and any other way feels wrong.

I believe Rand herself suffered from this near the end of her life. According to people who knew her, she often allowed hatred to run through her intensely. For example, when discussing something, she would sometimes beat on the arms of the chair she was sitting in while saying, "The bastards! The bastards!" Imagine the inner cortisol blasts from doing that constantly. And that, I believe, was the root of her pushing everyone away in her final years.

Otherwise, you are correct. "Hate speech" is used as a propaganda term all the time. (By haters, in fact.  )

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Wolf,

In my meaning, I am talking about the literal emotion of hatred and it's impact on a rational cognition process. Over time, using an emotion like hatred--staying on that emotional tone with intensity and constantly repeating bouts of it--sets up neural pathways in the brain along which the rational processes start to run run automatically. I believe most haters (in my emotional technical sense) don't even detect the process distortions in their rational cognition after this develops. All they know is that their way of thinking feels right, rational and good, and any other way feels wrong.

I believe Rand herself suffered from this near the end of her life. According to people who knew her, she often allowed hatred to run through her intensely. For example, when discussing something, she would sometimes beat on the arms of the chair she was sitting in while saying, "The bastards! The bastards!" Imagine the inner cortisol blasts from doing that constantly. And that, I believe, was the root of her pushing everyone away in her final years.

Otherwise, you are correct. "Hate speech" is used as a propaganda term all the time. (By haters, in fact.  )

Michael

In regard to cognition,  the only useful emotion I see is curiosity.  

[anthony]

20 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In regard to cognition,  the only useful emotion I see is curiosity.  

Why do you see curiosity to be an emotion?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

30 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In regard to cognition,  the only useful emotion I see is curiosity.  

Bob,

Heh.

In other words, if a raging bear is charging at you, but it's not particularly a bear that arouses curiosity, it's just a run-of-the-mill kind of bear, do you think it's not useful to feel fear and get the hell out of there?

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

29 minutes ago, anthony said:

Why do you see curiosity to be an emotion?

One "feels" that he must know or find out.  Beside the intellectual state we call curiosity actually motivates actions in people. 

Curiosity is an "itch"  that one wishes to "scratch"  

[BaalChatzaf]

19 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

Heh.

In other words, if a raging bear is charging at you, but it's not particularly a bear that arouses curiosity, it's just a run-of-the-mill kind of bear, do you think it's not useful to feel fear and get the hell out of there?

Michael

In a race between curiosity and fear (as in primordial terror and fear for one's life)  I will bet on fear.

[anthony]

An emotion is a consequence, at the end of a cognitive process: perception, identification, evaluation, then the emotion. Conversely, curiosity seems to be one causal initiator of identification, almost certainly it's proactive and the product of an enquiring mind. 

[anthony]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

One "feels" that he must know or find out.  

 

Such a powerful "feel" to know, so it must be an emotion? Not a cognitive motivator? Even animals need to "know", and so curiosity killed the cat. I think from such a quite understandable error (of curiosity 'a feeling') arises many misperceptions about men's emotions, eventually to the widely accepted belief : "your emotions know best" - judge things by them, act upon them. (And you must hate anyone who doesn't um, 'love' like you do ;))

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

An emotion is a consequence, at the end of a cognitive process: perception, identification, evaluation, then the emotion. Conversely, curiosity seems to be one causal initiator of identification, almost certainly it's proactive and the product of an enquiring mind. 

Some emotions are primordial  and come from glandular action, not cognition.

[BaalChatzaf]

2 minutes ago, anthony said:

Such a powerful "feel" to know, so it must be an emotion? Not a cognitive motivator? Even animals want to "know", and so curiosity killed the cat. I think from that understandable error (of 'a feeling') arises many misperceptions about men's emotions, eventually to the widely accepted belief : "your emotions know best" - judge things by them, act upon them. (And you must hate anyone who doesn't um, 'love' like you do ;))

My emotions "know" shit.  That is why I have to roll out the ponderous machinery of logic and observation.  It is emotion that sometimes moves us to use logic and reason, not the otherway around.

[anthony]

"Ponderous machinery of logic and observation"? How long does it take you to see and perceive the bear, identify it, evaluate its good or bad and have an automated emotion according to the value you have in life and staying alive? A split second. Entering from the perception, you are into the conceptual stages.

Emotion moving "us" to reason ("not the other way around") is precisely what is at fault. I wouldn't be so tolerant.

Who is this -us- white man?

 

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

"Ponderous machinery of logic and observation"? How long does it take you to see and perceive the bear, identify it, evaluate its good or bad and have an automated emotion according to the value you have in life and staying alive? A split second. Entering from the perception, you are into the conceptual stages.

Emotion moving "us" to reason ("not the other way around") is precisely what is at fault. I wouldn't be so tolerant.

Who is this -us- white man?

 

Us. 99 percent of the human race.  Man is the sometimes,  not not very often rational animal. 

[Wolf DeVoon]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

if a raging bear is charging at you, but it's not particularly a bear that arouses curiosity, it's just a run-of-the-mill kind of bear, do you think it's not useful to feel fear and get the hell out of there?

Michael

Trivia about bears. They are almost impossible to kill, skull impervious to anything shy of .44 magnum or .45 FMJ

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Trivia about bears. They are almost impossible to kill, skull impervious to anything shy of .44 magnum or .45 FMJ

My brother's best friend, Timothy Treadwell, and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by a bear in Alaska in 2003. Werner Herzog's movie Grizzly Man was about him and the incident.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

My emotions "know" shit.  That is why I have to roll out the ponderous machinery of logic and observation.  It is emotion that sometimes moves us to use logic and reason, not the otherway around.

Well, logic and reason can tell us to use (trust) emotions--that is, "Why do I feel that"? This, of course, is an aspect of introspection. Your emotions do indeed know something, but you have to mine it and refine it to put it into words.

I know, you don't/can't use introspection. You only denigrate it. Us "normals" do and should.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Well, logic and reason can tell us to use (trust) emotions--that is, "Why do I feel that"? This, of course, is an aspect of introspection. Your emotions do indeed know something, but you have to mine it and refine it to put it into words.

I know, you don't/can't use introspection. You only denigrate it. Us "normals" do and should.

--Brant

Actually I distrust emotion,  especially the passions  such as  hatred and anger.   I want to be like my Patron Saint   Spock Son of Sarek.

\\// Live long an prosper. 

[anthony]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Actually I distrust emotion,  especially the passions  such as  hatred and anger.   I want to be like my Patron Saint   Spock Son of Sarek.

\\// Live long an prosper. 

If you don't want to ~know~ your emotions, naturally you'll distrust them and then disown them, and what are you going to be without "the passions" - like joy? (hatred and anger too, are 'right' and have their place for a while). I don't believe one can cherry-pick, so suppressing 'bad' emotions limits the emotional mechanism, and one loses the 'good' ones. It seems to me that "Spock" - as the ideal intellect - has perpetrated a great fallacy. Either to live by apparently random emotions - or repress them all, that's the worst dichotomy of all time presented to men and women. People are frightened of the power of emotions, or what they reveal about their values i.e. themselves-- or most take them as some kind of mystical-intuitive insight, arriving from somewhere.

Each emotion has cause and identity, it's not complicated.

 

[anthony]

On 8/16/2017 at 7:39 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

What is your opinion of love (taken as a contrary to hatred).

You believe love to be an antidote and opposite to hate?

Nope. I think, in a majority of minds, they are closer than everyone realises.