How Labels and Affiliations Affect our Judgment.
As a society we are empathetic to those we consider our allies, and unsympathetic to those we consider to be our enemies often times becoming outright hostile to them even when we dont have any direct evidence they are our enemies. For example when a situation comes on the news where it is between someone we view as on our side against someone we view as against us, people have a tendency to excuse the actions of "our guy" and blame the victim or the party of the victim for provoking the attack, and when it is the other way around people flip the script and say that the perpetrator is a prime example of the rhetoric of our enemies and say that they represent all those on that side.
when we view situations based on labels and team affiliations we lose sight of the issue and it becomes us vs them instead of a terrible act that was unfortunate regardless. And this opens us up to be controlled by the leading party figures because they can use those situations as propaganda because of the way we react to them. They can and do write articles using specific wording to incite hostility towards those you consider your enemies and belittle hate crimes perpetrated by their allies. They write headlines like "white man assaults black woman" or "four teens kidnap and torture disabled man" and most recently "mexican man assaulted by woman repeatedly with brick" the first incites hatred against white people, the second disregards a hate crime against race by not including it, and the third incites hatred against conservatives by selective race inclusion (the perpetrator was black, but by the article you assume she was a conservative white trump supporter)
another form of this we can see is in hollywood, where no one can say it isnt filled with sexual predators. But when "our guy" is called out we say no it cant be, hes such a nice guy. And therefore all those who accuse them must be shills for our political opponents set to smear him/her. and on the other end when our enemies are accused we immediately call for them to be fired or to resign because the accusation enough is grounds for termination. And in this way the political leaders can control the people and dissuade their opponents from challenging them in fear they will be called out for an imaginary offense and have their lives destroyed.
instead of seeing people, we end up only seeing targets. When we look at articles we look for a reason to be angry and to direct that anger to our enemies, when really we should be feeling sadness for the victim regardless of the motive of the perpetrator, regardless of what politics they follow, regardless of what side theyre on. We go through life on social media looking for a reason to be angry, and the media and the political leaders feed on that and use it against us.
when we view situations based on labels and team affiliations we lose sight of the issue and it becomes us vs them instead of a terrible act that was unfortunate regardless. And this opens us up to be controlled by the leading party figures because they can use those situations as propaganda because of the way we react to them. They can and do write articles using specific wording to incite hostility towards those you consider your enemies and belittle hate crimes perpetrated by their allies. They write headlines like "white man assaults black woman" or "four teens kidnap and torture disabled man" and most recently "mexican man assaulted by woman repeatedly with brick" the first incites hatred against white people, the second disregards a hate crime against race by not including it, and the third incites hatred against conservatives by selective race inclusion (the perpetrator was black, but by the article you assume she was a conservative white trump supporter)
another form of this we can see is in hollywood, where no one can say it isnt filled with sexual predators. But when "our guy" is called out we say no it cant be, hes such a nice guy. And therefore all those who accuse them must be shills for our political opponents set to smear him/her. and on the other end when our enemies are accused we immediately call for them to be fired or to resign because the accusation enough is grounds for termination. And in this way the political leaders can control the people and dissuade their opponents from challenging them in fear they will be called out for an imaginary offense and have their lives destroyed.
instead of seeing people, we end up only seeing targets. When we look at articles we look for a reason to be angry and to direct that anger to our enemies, when really we should be feeling sadness for the victim regardless of the motive of the perpetrator, regardless of what politics they follow, regardless of what side theyre on. We go through life on social media looking for a reason to be angry, and the media and the political leaders feed on that and use it against us.
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