I regret to inform you most humans are bad, having succumbed to our inner bad selves. All of us nurture evil inside, having learned it through what we see and hear all around us day in and day out as we grow.
"A Devastating, Overdue National Memorial to Lynching Victims"
By Alexis Okeowo April 26, 2018
"The list of petty transgressions used to justify the lynching of African-Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was cruelly and exhaustingly long. Caleb Gadly was lynched in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1894, for [Black while walking . . . Still today a black man or boy can be killed for walking in the white man's space.] walking behind the wife of his white employer. David Walker was accused of using inappropriate language with a white woman [Black while talking . . . 2018 too.] in Hickman, Kentucky, in 1908; he, his wife, and their four children were lynched. [OMG!! Lynching kids?!] Ballie Crutchfield, a woman, was lynched in Rome, Tennessee, in 1901, by a mob searching for her brother. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of white spectators would show up to watch. They wore their Sunday best, posed for photos with their children, ate snacks, and drank soda and lemonade. Afterward, the body might be dragged through the streets of black neighborhoods. Often, body parts were cut off and collected as souvenirs. [Sick, sick, sick!]
This week, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opens in Montgomery, Alabama. Designed and built by the legal-advocacy group the Equal Justice Initiative, or E.J.I., it is an outdoor exhibit devoted to victims of lynching. Eight hundred and five [805! That is 805! Probably 10% of the real number of lynchings because why bother documenting killing blacks?] rusting steel columns are geometrically arranged on a grassy hill. Each column is inscribed with the names of lynching victims and the county in which they were murdered. The columns are suspended from the ceiling above them, starting at eye level and then rising as the wooden floor slopes downward, evoking lifeless bodies hanging from trees. The accompanying Legacy Museum describes the history of American racial injustice, from enslavement to mass incarceration, and illustrates lesser-known aspects of that narrative, like the domestic slave trade."
Racism is extremism, it is soulless hate. And that racism was passed on to the kids.
How can this evil exist. Power. Money. Look at the religions and governments of the world and judge how they create anger and hate. Wars? Crime? Prisons?
Power and money destroy empathy and compassion. Capitalism and self-interests make us evil far beyond or wildest imagination.
In my opinion, humans are insatiably cruel and invent reasons to hate and ways to kill other humans.
"Why humans are cruel"
A psychologist explains why humans are so terrible to each other.
By Sean Illing Updated Feb 26, 2018
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/14/16687388/violence-psychology-human-nature-cruelty
"The conventional explanation is that people are able to do terrible things to other people only after having dehumanized them. In the case of the Holocaust, for example, Germans were willing to exterminate millions of Jews in part because Nazi ideology taught them to think of Jews as subhuman, as objects without the right to freedom, dignity, or even life itself.
Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale, thinks this explanation of human cruelty is, at best, incomplete. I spoke to him about why he thinks its wrong to assume cruelty comes from dehumanization — and about his grim conclusion that almost anyone is capable of committing staggering atrocities under the right circumstances."
I think Paul is absolutely correct. We restrain or evil selves, mostly, otherwise mankind would be gone and animals would roam the earth unfettered. That scenario is not to far fetched for our future given nuclear weapons. t is too bad we humans may kill all the animals as we kill of what we call "civilization."
Paul is more optimistic than I am. I think humans lack compassion and empathy, the only two traits that can save us.
"Sean Illing
If your thesis is right, then it’s foolish to think we can get rid of cruelty if only we got rid of those noxious ideologies that justify it. In the end, it’s about us, not our ideas.
Paul Bloom
I think there are all sorts of ways we can become better people, and I think we are becoming better people. But if I’m right, there’s nothing simple about this. Acknowledging other people’s humanity won’t solve our problems.
Ultimately, we need better ideas, better ideologies. We need a culture less obsessed with power and honor and more concerned with mindfulness and dignity. That’s the best we can do to quell our appetites for dominance and punishment. Am I optimistic that we can do this? Yeah, I am. But it won’t be easy."
"'Less Than Human': The Psychology Of Cruelty"
David Livingstone Smith was interviewed March 29, 2011 on Talk of the Nation
https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human
"During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. In Less Than Human, David Livingstone Smith argues that it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide."
More in the dehumanization vein.
"So "sub-Saharan Africans and Native Americans were denizens of the bottom of the human category," when they were even granted human status. Mostly, they were seen as "soulless animals." And that dramatic dehumanization made it possible for great atrocities to take place."
"Why Are Humans So Cruel?"
By Michael Shammas July 2013, then Updated Sep 07, 2013
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-shammas/why-are-we-humans-so-crue_b_3558261.html
"Admit it or not, we’ve all felt it: Something bad happens to someone else, yet as a result we feel good. This psychological phenomenon is so widespread that it has even been given a name — schadenfreude — which roughly translates from German into English as “damage-joy” or “fail-joy.” "
"Why are we, in short, so incredibly bitter?
Recent science is shedding light on this question, and the main culprit at work seems to be envy. The more we envy someone, the more pleasure we derive when that person meets some horrid end.
Envy?
" . . . we feel schadenfreude because our self-worth does not exist in a bubble; it is relative. As such, the worse off others are, the better off we are (or at least think we are). Others’ failings help us brush our own failings under the rug. Perhaps we aren’t perfect, but “did you hear about Lindsay Lohan’s drug charges? Man, I sure am better than her!”"
Hmmm. Maybe envy is part of our hate for other humans. The author talks of ways to counter envy. Forget it my friend, you cannot get rid of envy, any way or shape or form.
