Be Careful Who or What You Radicalize

 

Here's a radical idea: Treat others like you want to be treated especially if you despise or do not like the ideas or existence of another person. 

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There is a great gap in between what how we see the world and what we feel. We have been force fed paradigmatic narratives that narrow us into ideological frameworks with rigid binaries absent of conscious intellectual nuance. There's a red team or there is a blue team. Ones and zeros respectively. It's easy to pick a side especially when there is an opposite side that is bad or immoral. A classic good versus evil scenario that keeps us distracted, emotionally engaged and tacitly manipulated. 

The stench of moral superiority gives off an odor or smugness and pseudo-intellectualism. To think that one has all the answers especially within a rigid ideology can be very dangerous and most of the time rather poisonous. We can see this obtuse smugness present in the world of politics and many social spheres. The divide and conquer propaganda present in what one might call legacy media and alternative media has created different islands of tribal thought reliant on the dependency of an opposite. Oppressor and oppressed. Moral and immoral. Religious and Scientific. There are so many paradigms that we could get lost for days in how all of these have started to polarize seemingly normal people that use to only really care who was on their front lawn or what specials were on the dollar menu. 

Them Vs. Us is simply unjust. 

The proliferation of social media has given the illusion that people can be a part of something and feel like they are contributing some inkling of worth to a bigger cause. With the instant gratification of likes and shares, people get that warm and fuzzy emotional input to have them pedal faster on the hamster wheel of purpose and reward. People tend to get lost in the mass off the "greater good" and the group think tends to replace the critical thinking nature of the individual. This hive mind thinking tends to strengthen the radicalization of their behavior as well as the behavior of the group. When that happens, the other side that they are "resisting" or trying to stop tends to do the same thing. Nuance tends to die in the trenches and then the possibility of intellectual discourse tends to degrade. To be clear, not only does one side become more radical, but the other side does mostly with more severity.

It's easy to hide behind screens and attack someone you disagree with, but ask yourself "Would you behave like that towards a person in real life?" 

This calls in to discussion the idea of responsibility. A real "Who is Radicalizing Whom?" type of scenario. Well, its it two faces of the same coin. Feverishly flapping wings of the same bird. And the bird just becomes more irate the more the radicalization continues. It's a vicious cycle that tends to end in some type of breakdown. Communication breakdown is what can lead to more severe things such as ostracization, dehumanization and the rationalization to commit violence to the other "side". History really shows you how this works. It's a lose lose scenario for the most part even when one side thinks that they are winning. 

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You can always give people a reason to "fight". If people think they have a sense of purpose, especially in a group, they can feel ennobled to act on things that they would never do by themselves. Labels and opposing categories tend to create different levels of dehumanization. History has taught us where that can lead.

Responsibilities and rights go hand in hand. It's a marriage that brings about the character and principles of an individual. Pay attention to the people that deflect and reject. Pay attention to the people that like to project and not take responsibility for how they are acting. Are you one of these people? Without self awareness, then growth is not possible. This is a problem when people are so radicalized that they can't seem to take responsibility for their actions and behaviors. They can always get reassurance from the radicalized group that they are in and then that creates a cycle of not taking responsibility. It's much easier to use the Blamethrower and not look internally. Can you see how this relates to who gets radicalized?

At times people see other people as mirrors for their own insecurities. This makes people uncomfortable and tills fertile soil for defensiveness and projection. 

To think that you aren't responsible for radicalizing a side that you oppose is very fallacious. It is downright ignorant and strips away the root cause on what you think you are fighting for. If the opposing side is getting more aggravated, wouldn't you want to know why that is? Curiosity and patience can lead us down roads of understanding. The more you understand the motives and nature of the so called "opposing side" the more you will see how much you are contributing to the source of the problem. To put it bluntly, what you resist persists. 

Sometimes people will be too far gone to talk with. Is it really your job to convince someone that your world view is right especially when it is within the bounds of a volatile comments section? Sometimes the hooks of emotion blind us to what we are actually trying to do. The efficacious nature of Socratic dialogue has been tossed aside like a childhood ragdoll and replaced with a tribal allegiance to parasitic ideological framework. Try this. What if you really tried to make the case for the other side? If you can make a good argument for the something that you find distasteful or disagreeable then you will have  a more refined sense of where your opposition is coming from. In fact, there might be so much similarity to the side you are on that a sense of cohesion may rise above your emotionally agitated center. You might find yourself in a situation that leaves yourself asking "Where do we disagree?" 

Nuance is a beautiful thing. Reading in between the lines is where we see the connective tissue of thought and propaganda. Breaking from binary and linear thinking lets us be skeptical of our own motives and what we can CONTROL. There is only so much we can control already and when we are ignorant on how we affect people we disagree with then we can grow and radiate that growth to others struggling with fleeting rigid ideologies. Relationships are certainly two way streets and when the balance of power is thrown off or manipulated, then conflicts can breed. 

In terms of binaries, the left enables the right. The religious radical rallies up the atheist. The oppressors ignite the oppressed. And so on in many forms. People love their teams and tend to lose their individuality when the ideologies and imageries are taken to heart. Unique individuals can fade away in a haze of manipulative belonging. The "other side" is just as illusory as the side you think that you are on. At what point are you just giving yourself the pass to weaponize your own conditioning and traumas? At what point will you realize you have gone too far and alienated not only yourself from others, but who you are deep down as a critically thinking individual? 

DG