The Awful Power of Belief

Don't laugh (Mando).

Because yesterday I looked at a Yahoo article (a particularly lame one) and then even scrolled down far enough to see the first comment.

The comment basically was a long, single sentence rant of epic racism, telling 'ethnics' to wake up and start behaving like the good part of the world. It pointed out how in Africa and the Middle East its just kill, kill, kill, but here in the white west, we are peaceful, and our 'oppressiveness' is nothing compared to the oppression that 'ethnics' heap upon one another.

I don't want to talk about the comment itself. But it got me thinking. Why would a person go to the trouble of leaving such an unconvincing rant? Why do people have such strong beliefs about the superiority of their race that they actually write such things and even act upon them?

I thought for a moment, and the answer came to me that it is like Nietzsche said. We aren't in it to be happy; a search for happiness does not motivate us. We just want power. When I 'oppress' you for your color, or at the least, extol my own race, it is my own petty way of giving myself a power.

I pursued this train of thought, and I remembered how the night before a friend of mine, cornered by the majority opinion of my other friends, actually began to exhibit a 'fight or flight' response. I think we have all felt it. When our beliefs are attacked, we get a tightness in our chests, our breathing increases, our minds close. Sometimes we even react violently to hear our strong beliefs challenged.

It may be as simple as that we interpret such attacks somehow as physical attacks; certainly, having several people around you telling you you are wrong about something is not unlike being attacked or provoked; one can imagine monkeys in a forest hooting at each other before violence ensues.

When somebody challenges your beliefs, they are also challenging your identity. When we are talking about racial groups, and our place in them, we are also talking about identity. What is this thing about identity which is so touchy that merely questioning it can send us into a rage? From a behavioral anthropological point of view, I would guess it has something to do with group dynamics. You gain power through your associations, so naturally you wish to empower those same associations.

But we're talking about belief here, right?

Serendipitously, I stumbled upon this interesting RSA animation on empathy. According to this we are 'soft wired' not for selfish survival, but for empathic responses, for being sociable, friendly. We desire to preserve and support the group; when our beliefs are challenged, the belief in our group is therefore challenged, albeit indirectly. Could it be that through sub-conscious intellection we make that connection, and that this is what leads to such a visceral response?

As I was watching the video, I also could not help but think of flaws in his position. If we all have empathic responses, then how come we can joyously watch an execution? But, of course, we have learned not to, at least in some parts of the world. There is also the objectification of the person who has committed crimes; it is as though we remove them from our social group, and therefore feel no more empathy toward them. Thus, whatever we do to them, it is not as though we are doing it to a 'person'.

There is also the obvious divisiveness of religion and other broader social groups. Suddenly, though before I would have empathized with my family and neighbor, now I see those with the same religion as my kin at the exclusion of my blood relations and neighbors.

This is no doubt why politicians spend so much time talking about who they are, and what they purportedly represent rather than about real issues or the actual changes they intend to make. We trust them because they have the same beliefs as us, and therefore we see them as being in the same group as we are; so we give them unearned trust. What is this awful belief that is so mingled with the primitive parts of our brain that makes us act so irrationally? Why would we trust a stranger based, not on how he acts, but on what he believes? Why is belief and not the proper application of belief the measure by which we judge others? Its not enough to just say it is wrong, or that people who do so are dumb, we 'all' do it! It seems to be something deeply wired into us, and yet our intellect creates the beliefs, supposedly understands us, so what is the tie between the intellect and our bestial minds?

Even Jesus excoriated us for this sort of behavior and told us that we would be judged based on what we do. Remember the sheep and the goats? Remember the Samaritan? Its supposed to be all about how we act, how we empathize, not what we believe. But why does the other come so naturally, when it seems like the less natural thing to do?