Us versus them is violence to the soul. Ego identity is still the current rage.
Podcast Discussion
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. – J. Klrishnamurti
Who is the “Us” and who is “Them” in us versus them?
Ego identity is a central element of the personality. It is the sense of self or the “I” that you take yourself to be. It’s the center of the personality, not the whole of the personality, only its identity. The other element of the personality, the circumference, is individuality, the sense of being an individual. So the center is the identity, and the circumference is the individuality.
Ego identity is experienced as a kind of personal feeling that feels very familiar and quite intimate to oneself. This is a state of experiencing one’s identity (an ego state) devoid of any defensiveness, which happens after the process of secondary autonomy has gone through its full course concerning this ego structure. One feels intimate with oneself, soft and cozy. However, the most important distinguishing quality of this feeling of self is the recognition that this is what one usually feels is oneself. It is the emotional tone that characterizes one’s personality.
The process of cathecting the body in the initial stages of ego development focuses Cosmic Consciousness on the body to the extent of feeling and behaving as if one’s consciousness comes from the body. The result of cathecting the psychophysical organism is the development of ego identity based on the body. One forgets that he is a boundless conscious presence and believes he is a body with personal consciousness.
Being cathected to the body creates a sense of separateness, which is fundamental to us versus them.
Recently, I listened to a podcast that gave me a lot to ponder, given recent events like those in Charlottesville and Las Vegas. There appears to be a resurgence of “us versus them,” which threatens much of the progress of the last decade or so toward a more global community. The polarization of the American political system and nationalism, such as MAGA, North Korean nukes, Brexit, and Catalonia, are a few examples of this trend.
As I listened to this intriguing podcast, I noted time and again how the Diamond Approach addresses many of the issues, dynamics, and evolutionary forces that contribute to the maturation of consciousness and the emergence of real human beings.
Escaping us versus them
Real change is impossible to entertain when we are trapped in identifying with our conditioning, beliefs, and past. So, this post is for those who recognize the dynamics of anger, rage, and hatred lurking in their psyche and want to explore some options for liberating themselves from their grasp.
Below is a brief outline of the podcast with a few comments (in italics) and links (in bold) that relate to specific teachings within the Diamond Approach, which support students in deepening their understanding of the unconscious forces that drive much of behavior and identity.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast – episode Name Thy Demons: The Roots of Human Violence.
Is human civilization growing less violent? Cognitive scientist and Harvard professor Steven Pinker argued the point in his 2011 book ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature,’ in which he also defined the ‘five inner demons’ that push us to wrath. Know them — speak their true names — and you have the power to undermine their influence. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Christian Sager explore Pinker’s thesis and draw in supporting research and dissenting opinions.
- If it bleeds, it leads – still seems to be the driving force behind today’s news.
- Violence isn’t a human urge or instinct like hunger or sleep.
- Pinker looks at 2-year-olds as being the most violent stage of humanity.
In the Diamond Approach, one gains some insight into the “terrible twos,” the stage of human development involving separation and individuation for the maturing ego consciousness and identity. The “red essence” teaching reveals how anger and rage emerge when this quality of true nature is frustrated and trapped within the confines of ego identity.
Neuroscience
Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain. Fields show that violent behavior is the result of the clash between our evolutionary hardwiring and triggers in our contemporary world. Our personal space is more crowded than ever, we get less sleep, and we aren’t as fit as our ancestors. We need to understand how the hardwiring works and how to recognize the nine triggers. With a new perspective, engaging narrative, and practical advice, Why We Snap uncovers the biological roots of the rage response and how we can protect ourselves—and others.
- Violence is tied into evolved responses that make sense in the long history of human evolution.
- Learning about ego reactivity dynamics can help rewire our conditioned responses.
- Pinker: The ability to recognize and define the triggers that lead us to violence is the first step toward stopping the process.
- Humans and primates have a biological aversion to violence.
- ‘Forward panic’ – a long apprehension and fear can lead to savage violence.
- Understanding projection’s psychological nature and functioning helps us separate the imagined from the real, the past from the present.
Fields: Moralization Gap: Everyone thinks that what they are doing is innocent and that they are long-suffering victims within their narrative. Even the worst people have justification for why they think what they are doing is right.
Pinker: Seeking System in the brain appears to drive all behavior. ALL behavior.
The world is full of seekers whose identity is wrapped up in seeking wisdom, truth, or enlightenment. This is the same as seeking riches, beauty, fame, love, or recognition. The purpose of all of these identifications is to fill the emptiness.
Our brain’s frontal lobe contends with the regulation of fear and rage. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that controls important cognitive skills in humans, such as emotional expression, problem-solving, memory, language, judgment, and sexual behavior. It is, in essence, the “control panel” of our personality and our ability to communicate.
The personality will do anything to preserve its identity and uphold its domain. This tendency – or, let’s say, this need – is so deep, entrenched, and completely the fabric of our identity that only the person who has gone a long way toward establishing the essential life can apprehend and appreciate this.
Pinker: There is no single psychological root that makes us violent.
Pinker’s 5 Demons
- Predatory or Practical Violence: violence “deployed as a practical means to an end.”
- Dominance: the “urge for authority, prestige, glory, and power.” Pinker argues that dominance motivations can occur within individuals and coalitions of “racial, ethnic, religious, or national groups.”
- Revenge: the “moralistic urge toward retribution, punishment, and justice”
- Sadism: the “deliberate infliction of pain for no purpose but to enjoy a person’s suffering…”
- Ideology: a “shared belief system, usually involving a vision of utopia that justifies unlimited violence in pursuit of unlimited good.”
Predation – When there is a chasm between the perpetrator’s perspective and the victim’s, it makes it easier to conduct predatory violence. Predator believes the victim is ‘less than’ them.
Dominance – A study of American street violence shows that young men with a ‘code of honor’ are more likely to perpetuate violence. The code of honor helps them moralize violence. If there is an audience present, it doubles the likelihood of violence.
Men tend to be more violent than women.
Thought to be a product of evolution. In the male brain, there is a nucleus in the anterior preoptic portion of the hypothalamus (image) that is twice the size of a female’s, and there are 5 to 10 times more testosterone receptors here for men than women.
Biologists believe testosterone prepares men for the challenge of dominance.
The phrase, fuck it or kill it, first appeared in the book A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber. “Testosterone has two, and only two, major drives: fuck it or kill it,” alleges Wilber.
You’re more prone to violence if you have too much self-esteem (grandiosity). Narcissists who think well of themselves and are out of proportion with their accomplishments are people we should be worried about regarding dominance and violence.
Pinker: A trio of symptoms that can make for an authoritarian political leader:
- Grandiosity
- Need for Admiration
- Lack of Empathy
People, in varying degrees, harbor a motive for social dominance. Their group is part of a hierarchy, and they want their group to always be on top of the hierarchy. They have twenty-five million years of us versus them evolution to contend with.
Social dominance may not be about race but about coalition – groups evolving to band together – relates to male aggression as part of our brain. Racism is more likely between 2 men of different races than between a man and a woman of other races. It becomes especially deadly when combined with nationalism.
Former Neo-Nazi Says It’s On White People To Fight White Supremacy – “White people need to solve the problem of white supremacy.”
- Revenge is the motive for terrorism. Studies show that the urge for revenge lights up the brain’s area associated with the craving for sugar, nicotine, and cocaine—“sweet revenge.” Revenge evolved to be a deterrent to violence. There is a moralization gap with revenge because people consider the harm they inflict justified. One way to curtail the urge for revenge is to broaden our circle of empathy from those we are closest to outward.
- Sadism – dominance and revenge are part of sadism
- Ideology – It promises utopia, which prevents believers from weighing the cost/benefit analysis. It also paints its opponents as inherently evil and deserving of punishment – the classic holy war scenario.
4 Better Angels
Pinker…
examines four motives that “can orient [humans] away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism.” However, the first step is identifying our demons.
- Empathy: which “prompts us to feel the pain of others and to align their interests with our own.” empathy
- Self-Control “allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses and to inhibit them accordingly.”
- The Moral Sense “sanctifies a set of norms and taboos that govern the interactions among people in a culture.” These sometimes decrease violence but can also increase it “when the norms are tribal, authoritarian, or puritanical.” superego
- Reason: which “allows us to extract ourselves from our parochial vantage points.”
Pinker identifies five “historical forces” that have favored “our peaceable motives” and “have driven the multiple declines in violence.” They are:
- The Leviathan – the rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary “with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force,” which “can defuse the [individual] temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge, and circumvent … self-serving biases.”
- Commerce – the rise of “technological progress [allowing] the exchange of goods and services over longer distances and larger groups of trading partners” so that “other people become more valuable alive than dead” and “are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization.”
- Feminization – increasing respect for “the interests and values of women.”
- Cosmopolitanism – the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media, which “can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them.”
- The Escalator of Reason – an “intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs,” which “can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their interests over others’, and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won.”
Is violence in the world declining? Given that most of humanity is trapped in identifying with the past, that ego identity is based on seeing oneself as separate from others, and that instinctual forces govern much of ‘normal’ activity in the world, I don’t think so. Perhaps part of the issue is that we are bombarded with too much of “if it bleeds, it leads,” and social media is being used more for discharging and reacting than real contact.
FAQ
1. What is ego identity?
Ego identity is a core aspect of our personality, representing our sense of self or the “I” we perceive ourselves to be. It’s the center of our personality but not the entirety of it. The other part of our personality, the circumference, is our individuality or sense of uniqueness. Ego identity is a personal feeling that feels familiar and intimate to us. It is the emotional tone that characterizes our personality.
2. How does ego identity relate to violence?
Ego identity can contribute to violence when tied to beliefs, traditions, or nationalities that separate us from others. This separation can breed violence. For example, identifying strongly with a political party or a religious group can lead to an “us versus them” mentality, escalating into conflict and violence.
3. What are the dynamics of anger, rage, and hatred?
These emotions often emerge when our sense of self or identity is threatened or frustrated. They can be linked to our past experiences and conditioning and drive much of our behavior and identity. Understanding these dynamics can help us liberate ourselves from their grasp.
4. According to Steven Pinker, What are the five “demons” that lead to violence?
Pinker identifies five “demons” that can lead to violence: Predatory or Practical Violence, Dominance, Revenge, Sadism, and Ideology. Predatory Violence refers to violence used as a practical means to an end. Dominance is the urge for authority, prestige, glory, and power. Revenge refers to the moralistic urge toward retribution, punishment, and justice. Sadism refers to the deliberate infliction of pain to enjoy a person’s suffering. Ideology refers to a shared belief system that justifies unlimited violence in pursuit of unlimited good.
5. How can we counteract these “demons”?
Pinker suggests we can counteract these “demons” by fostering empathy, self-control, moral sense, and reason. Empathy allows us to feel the pain of others and align their interests with our own. Self-control allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses and inhibit them accordingly. Moral Sense sanctifies a set of norms and taboos that govern interactions among people in a culture. Reason allows us to extract ourselves from our parochial vantage points.
6. What are the historical forces that have favored peaceable motives?
Pinker identifies five historical forces that have favored peaceable motives: The Leviathan (the rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary), Commerce (the increase in technological progress allowing the exchange of goods and services over longer distances), Feminization (increasing respect for the interests and values of women), Cosmopolitanism (the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media), and The Escalator of Reason (an intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs).
7. Is violence in the world declining?
The answer to this question is complex. While some argue that violence is declining due to the forces mentioned above, others point out that most of humanity is still trapped in identifying with the past and seeing themselves as separate from others. This, combined with the instinctual forces that govern much of ‘normal’ activity in the world, suggests that violence may not decline as much as we hope. However, the perception of violence may be amplified by media focus on violent events and the use of social media for discharging and reacting rather than real contact.
The Diamond Approach explores many more topics, issues, and dynamics of human behavior and development. If you wish to learn more, please contact the author.