Some seem to have trouble grasping that enemies can be imaginary.  I primarily think about individuals believing loads of others to be out to them.  Once it might have been normal to believe that very many of one’s fellow beings are evil.  In don’t know how common it is today to believe in this myth.  My educated guess it is being differently common in different countries.  This is about what one has got the chance to learn about one’s fellow beings.  Learning about their points of view one realises the very most lack reason to harm one.  Individuals still believing in the myth presumably insist they have.  But they take it for granted they already know.  Which in turn indicates thoughtlessness rather than real insight.

Such individuals can feel threatened just by seeing members of certain groups on the street.  Same applies to the symbols they themselves associate with the group.  What is one afraid of actually?  Does one believe members of the group would throw insults at oneself?  Or is one rather afraid of becoming physically attacked?  What would members of that group earn from oneself being physically attacked?  I have never got an explanation for that.

Maybe one is rather afraid of them forcing oneself to behave as them?  Why would the members of this group believe everyone has to do as they themselves?  That idea is far from universal.  Why would each single person not be allowed to do as he or she wants?  Neither do behaviours spread just because they are unwanted.  People only adopt a behaviour if they themselves see a benefit from this.  Many deviant human behaviours most lack motivation for.

One example is fearing homosexuality would take over the entire society.  One can’t make people into homosexuals by showing them depictions of such.  Human sexuality is not malleable in that way.  True, there are individuals who have had sexual relationships with both men and women.  They have neither been enticed to homosexuality nor outgrown it.  Instead these individuals are bisexual.  This means willingness to have sex with both men and women.  However, their existence does not mean everybody would be.  At least 86% of all adults don’t want to have sex with anyone of the same gender.  Homosexuality will not take over just because it becomes more visible.  Which some apparently misunderstand as homosexual behaviour spreading.  I don’t think it does.  At least not to the large extent individuals fearing this seem to believe.

Regardless of group there is the idea of rights being a zero sum game.  If a minority is given rights the majority is supposed to lose from this.  I think they confuse general rights with their own group’s privileges.  For example own monopoly on certain social institutions.  Or treating members of other groups as lesser creatures.  I don’t think people want to be treated so if they can see a possibility to escape that.  Certainly people don’t want to be pushed around, degraded or treated as crap.  Giving rights to minorities is about protecting them from such.  Individuals claiming they have a right to in practice subject others to such likely don’t know how they are perceived.  Alternatively, they don’t care.

In addition there is the belief that a style of music would cause all kinds of problems.  For generation every new music style has been talked about as if it was evil.  At worst it is supposed to be designed to deliberately cause what one sees as problems.  I don’t think the style of music has any such effect on people.  Instead this is about guilt by association.  Individuals one knows like the music style tend to have bad habits too.  This does not mean the style of music would cause the bad habits.  Maybe it is the bad habits causing people to apprehend the music?  Or is there a common factor in the background which is the cause of both?  Anyway bad habits don’t have to be life-long.  A teenager with bad habits may very well outgrow them at some point between 20 and 30.  If the person don’t one has to consider how bad they are.  What we need is ethics and not an earlier society’s values.

I would want to point out that “conservatism” is not a meaningful concept any more.  The ones calling themselves “conservatives” differ too much from each other in their views and attitudes towards their fellow beings.  Moreover, the more allowing are labelled traitors by those hating everyone different from themselves.  To depict entire groups as evil I consider destructive.  What happens when such an attitude is made into official policy?  The consequence is the group’s members being stuck in a viscous circle of punishment.  If not the punishment literally kills them they are punished and punished throughout their entire lives.  No-one of those punishments improves on them as people but just worsens their situation.  In other words their lives are destroyed in the belief they would deserve it.

Less condemning individuals claim the punishment would work exemplary.  This presupposes there is a choice to belong to the group or not.  In many cases there is no-one because the members of the group are statistical outliers.  If they are not people may still lack methods for avoiding the unwanted.  Such methods they have to be taught in a systematic way.  Moreover one has to ask if alternatives are practically feasible.  Far too many lack economic resources to get out of their situation.  Then opportunities have to be deliberately created to give them alternatives.

If one looks at the longer perspective change becomes a necessary.  Otherwise civilisation will collapse as a consequence of accumulated environmental problems.  Also in the short term traditions can be individually very destructive.  Traditions which are outright dangerous (like genital mutilation) or potentially ruinous (like inflation of dowries) should of cause be replaced.  But otherwise cultures have to be allowed to change on their own terms.  Forcing upon people a ready-made solution is usually doomed to fail.  Either people don’t understand the point of doing in a certain way.  Or they misunderstand how it works and use things incorrectly.  Many attempts to improve people’s lives have failed for this reason.  The locals have not been involved in the formulation of the solutions.

Uploaded on the 27th of February 2024.