Never Change or Always Changing

People still kill each other because a small subsection of humans believe this is justifiable. The rubric for this justification changes by person or culture, but the conclusion always has the same elements. Namely, poor thinking around the value of others, ego and dehumanization.

And this is as true at the level of the personal as it is as the level of the group. One leads to murder, the other leads to war - which is a misleading term that just means mass murder. And while on paper there may be a "victor" in either case, truthfully no one wins. A trite saying, but often the tritest sayings are true.

Some people might read the above sentences and feel disheartened, or conclude themselves that people are bad, our nature is bad, or that nothing changes. But I believe, and this is bore out statistically, that as a species, as an intelligent animal over time, that we have gotten better.

However, the plague of old, bad ideas holds us back from mitigating further harm. Our inability to decouple ourselves from the past, our inability to forgive or to consider another's circumstances is the lynchpin in moving forward as a people, as a united, human, civilization.

That doesn't imply that we should excuse people from poor actions, but only seek for ourselves to understand the circumstances that could or would allow for a person to commit such harm. This isn't a cry to empathize with those with no empathy, but to understand how a person could come to a place where the only mental conclusion, and therefore action to take, is the harm of another.

This is about stepping back from immediate judgement. It's about being able to see an action or actions within their context. This sounds non-specific. Basic even. But if we don't get the basics of thinking right, we will never move forward.

Most of the people I know, or have spoken to, would not want to harm another person, or creature for that matter (despite the wanton killing of billions of animals for their consumption). And yet would surely defend themselves if put in an untenable situation. There is a fine line here, as with all moral matters.

But it seems most killing and warfare is just a game of "what-aboutism", a common refrain in politics - and yet politics is but a reflection of our collective values and understandings in society. The mass shooter goes: "well what about how I was treated, therefore...", and so do the leaders of countries with bombs in their arsenal. So does the person who was cheated on. The true psychopath, and they are rare, can still be understood at the level of their interior experience, not to be justified, but to be known. Human nature is vast, and accepting that people exist who would inflict harm on others is a part of maturing, of understanding the gross (total) freedom that exists in this universe.

But let's be clear about something. Most justifications of harm, whether mental or physical, are enacted by stubborn beliefs, in a commitment to the value of being "right", versus valuing getting closer to the truth. The key phrase in all heinous acts is "vindication", the feeling that you are justified in violating another person's autonomy. This is also true of most strident conversations where people are not listening to each other, words flowing past the ears of a perceived adversary, never seeking to understand the other, never giving ground.

Rigid, fixed - in their minds they are "right" - and therefore dead. For you see, life is change. Everything evolves, from our outer world to our inner lives. There's a reason many writers have similar quotes around people essentially being zombies, being dead, at the age of thirty or forty - because as observers of the world, they see most people become rigid, inflexible in their beliefs. Most of this is self-protecting, but the outcome self-immolating. And when our sense of vindication reaches inappropriate heights, on some occasions this rigidity in thought effects others.

We do not live in a vacuum, we live in a world shared by other beings, each with an inherently unique perspective and experience. We all exist in this inter-subjective experience together.

The term ego comes to mind, but most people misunderstand the concept. Many claim other people are egoistic, without realizing that the "ego" as a concept is the idea that everyone has a default state, a sense of self. The ego is the manifestation of that sense of self, and everyone is capable of acting "egoistically", or self-ishly. I think it's important for us to understand that we are all capable of this vein of thought, to essentially see ourselves as the main character.

This is delusion, and a healthy ego is about balance. This doesn't mean that individual people are not important, because we are important within the context of our own lives. This isn't about devaluing yourself, in fact it's the opposite. Because when you realize that most people believe themselves to be the protagonist, you understand the rich and complicated nature of self-realization, of consciousness - the power of its spell. It can enable us and blind us. It is a tool to be utilized with care. Just as you watch your fingers when swinging a hammer, what you focus on as a person can greatly benefit or harm you. Or others for that matter.

We humans, individually and collectively, are capable. We can take ideas and manifest them into life, a process utterly taken for granted, and one to me that comes off almost like magic. Real magic. Our ideas about ourselves, our relationship to the world and others, are the driving force of all human affairs, have real consequences for good or for ill.

With ego comes identity, and most people identify with the past in some way. A specific heritage, a trauma. And yet if you stopped reading this and looked behind you, could you show me where the past is? It's not that events didn't occur, or that you didn't suffer, but that it's no longer there - and yet the idea that it is, resting in your memory, controls what you think about yourself and others.

We cannot "let go" of the past, which we were never holding onto in the first place. We get stuck. We think that past grievances define us in the present, whether these grievances are applied to our personal lives, or groups of people. Not a single person who committed heinous acts in wars past is alive today to answer for the crime, yet many would hold a modern people accountable who didn't even exist when that act was committed.

This is wrong, and is one of the reasons why cycles of abuse and dehumanization continue. Because we fail to see the person behind the labels we apply. People say that "history repeats itself", but that would imply "history" is a conscious thing.

History is a concept - it's people that repeat themselves. Over and over again. And in order to stop collective violence, to mitigate individual acts of cruelty, we need individual people to wake up to the delusion that they're justified, vindicated, in their beliefs and actions. Vindicated in holding the innocent to account. Vindicated in abusing others, in seeing people as lesser. If you see yourself as unrelated to the crimes of people within your own group, if you think the crimes of one individual do not reflect on you, then give that same grace to those you point fingers at. The end result otherwise is becoming the thing you pretend to hate, vindicated in your judgement, and the cycle continues.

Maybe we should point fingers at ourselves, and live accordingly. Not with malice or shame, but with grace and patience. And extend that grace and patience to others.

This is about what we're all capable of, for good or for ill. This isn't about excusing people from heinous acts, but understanding how heinous acts can come to fruition. It's about understanding that all such acts are born out of selfishness, of vindication, of being "right". A self-aggrandizement at the expense of other beings.

In my experience, most people are simply wrong when they conclude that they're “right”. To be less sure is to be more curious. To take to heart the idea that wisdom is born out of understanding what we do not understand.

Another trite saying, but a powerful one, and a better spell to cast in all of our affairs.