Emotional responses

Unfortunately for ... everyone, I have my best blog-worthy thoughts during conversations that spawn from unpredictable sources.  Recently, one trope came up and kept coming up (mostly because the conversational counterpart just wouldn't consider it a real thing).  That was that it's "easier to hate and fear than it is to think and consider".   It's a bit wordy, needs work, but essentially it describes, in a sentence, much of the working-class western world and how they react and deal with the goings-on in the rest of the world.

Now, I don't claim to know what's going on in the rest of the world.  I admit that the war on ISIS, the chinese stock market, heck - the entirety of australia - could simply be a media fabrication.  Have I seen them personally?  No.  But I have seen them through the computer screen, through the internet, through others, through the news, etc. etc.

Mind you, I don't actually believe Australia doesn't exist.  Was meant to make a point.  That point is - there are a great many things that a great many people only have experience with through the lens of another - namely here the media, the internet, etc.

I'm going to do my best to stay politically-neutral because, truth be told, I'd be hard pressed to choose which political party wants to shit on America more.  On the one hand you have capitalism-fueled socialism, and on the other hand you have capitalism-fueled fascism. Let's table the notion that through the extremes comes balance, because we've quite clearly not seen that apparent, at least in enough ways that matter.

I've written the next few paragraphs over and over, ranging from pointing out media bias (and the ignorance of it), to disassembling terrorism (poorly).  Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that when you feel angry, when you feel fearful, when you watch the news, when you watch a movie, when you talk at the dinner table and you have a shot of adrenaline surge through your veins because uncle harold said something racist, when you get cut off in traffic, when you hear a politician say something untrue and everyone cheers, when you see someone litter, when you ponder the infinite and realize that humans are wasting our true potential because someone told us to hate someone we've never met or that my god is more real than yours.

Don't.

Don't let the hate in.  Don't let the fear in.  If someone wants you to be afraid, if someone wants you to be mad, if someone wants you to think something you didn't think a moment ago - understand.  Think.  What's their angle?  When a politician says something inflammatory and bloviates about baby murderers and some religion somewhere, what happens next?  You feel anger.  You feel rage.  You hate the people or the thing or the idea that the person in the screen told you to.  You leaned on your confirmation bias and holes in your knowledge because you've never met a person like they're talking about, and the one you have seen that one time gave you shifty eyes.  So they MUST be the way the man in the screen is telling you so.  Who are you to second-guess?  It's not legal to lie in the news...and politicians only tell the truth, because if they didn't - how would they get elected?

Right?

Stop and consider before you hate and fear.  What's the angle of the person in the screen?  What are they trying to get out of you?  Are they trying to inform?  Are they trying to teach?  Or do they want your vote...do they want your money?  Are they playing on your hopes and fears and lack of knowledge to try to get you to, rather than think rationally and logically, react emotionally and feed into the machine that they'll tell you helps you (but the other guy is doing it wrong, so vote for me!).

But by giving the people in the screen what they want - your rage, your fear, your lack of knowledge - they get more than you ever thought you'd be able to give.  They get your loyalty.  They allow your mind to be twisted away from logical, rational, intelligent thought and toward whatever narrative they want.  I'm not saying that everything the man in the screen is saying is untrue.  Merely that, when letting it into your head, it behooves the listener to truly understand what is being said - and what they are trying to get you to think and do.

Hate.  Fear.  Obey.  Buy.  Consume.  Breed.  Never question, never waver, AMERICA AMERICA AMERIKA.

I'm not saying don't fear, I'm not saying don't hate.  I'm not saying never get angry at those warranted of anger.  I am saying to think for yourself.  Don't let someone else dictate your emotional responses, for they can lead you astray.