Comments on: sup fresh http://olekms.com/2010/01/sup-fresh/ thoughts on things Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:56:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: GP http://olekms.com/2010/01/sup-fresh/comment-page-1/#comment-28 GP Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:21:46 +0000 http://olekms.com/?p=147#comment-28 Humans are not designed to hurt each other. While it's commonly discussed that humans are naturally violent, this is only true when a human life is threatened. The instinctual drive of every normal human (not sociopaths) is to maintain the survival of the self and the survival of the human race. It's why we are driven to breed. However, it does become necessary to hurt, maim and kill other humans from time to time. In order to circumvent our main instincts, we create, in our minds, a belief that the person or people we are fighting are not human, or at the very least, subhuman. Lesser than us. (in some cases, greater than, see: tall poppy syndrome) It enables us to do horrific things to other humans, because they are the enemy, because they are not us. We are normal, and they are not. In extreme cases, this manifests in unimaginable brutality towards the other. We don't just kill, we torture them. (see: Holocaust, public belief towards Jews, homosexuals, gypsys, anyone really) Even the "good" guys do it as well, see the old Superman comic "Slap a Jap", the caricatures of Japanese people during WW2, the caricatures of African Americans during...well, any time in American history. In lesser cases, this circumvention causes us to call people derogatory names such as "nigger" or "faggot". We, as Anna said, are creating stereotypes and connotations that people who we define as different, people who we do not understand, can be labelled with. While we may not outwardly show it, ultimately, we see those people as lesser or subhuman, so we can circumvent our natural instinct to not kill them, if we had to. (part of the self/other belief is that the other is always a threat to the self) -GP PS: Hey Olek, I'm apparently part of this one to one blog thing. Humans are not designed to hurt each other. While it’s commonly discussed that humans are naturally violent, this is only true when a human life is threatened. The instinctual drive of every normal human (not sociopaths) is to maintain the survival of the self and the survival of the human race. It’s why we are driven to breed.

However, it does become necessary to hurt, maim and kill other humans from time to time. In order to circumvent our main instincts, we create, in our minds, a belief that the person or people we are fighting are not human, or at the very least, subhuman. Lesser than us. (in some cases, greater than, see: tall poppy syndrome) It enables us to do horrific things to other humans, because they are the enemy, because they are not us. We are normal, and they are not.

In extreme cases, this manifests in unimaginable brutality towards the other. We don’t just kill, we torture them. (see: Holocaust, public belief towards Jews, homosexuals, gypsys, anyone really) Even the “good” guys do it as well, see the old Superman comic “Slap a Jap”, the caricatures of Japanese people during WW2, the caricatures of African Americans during…well, any time in American history.

In lesser cases, this circumvention causes us to call people derogatory names such as “nigger” or “faggot”. We, as Anna said, are creating stereotypes and connotations that people who we define as different, people who we do not understand, can be labelled with. While we may not outwardly show it, ultimately, we see those people as lesser or subhuman, so we can circumvent our natural instinct to not kill them, if we had to. (part of the self/other belief is that the other is always a threat to the self)

-GP

PS: Hey Olek, I’m apparently part of this one to one blog thing.

]]> By: Fodder http://olekms.com/2010/01/sup-fresh/comment-page-1/#comment-27 Fodder Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:56:37 +0000 http://olekms.com/?p=147#comment-27 I couldn't work it out at the time, but it finally hit me. This post kinda reminded me of Orwell's "1984" where people's speech was regulated so that they would only use certain kinds of words. I read the book when I was too young to really understand it, but I have had it mentioned to me that the idea behind it was that people's thinking can be influenced by the way they speak. The 'Newspeak' in the book involved things like replacing antonyms with "negated words", e.g. 'bad' became 'ungood'. So in a way, it's like 'bad' was removed from the language, the idea being that if 'bad' didn't exist as a word, it would be harder for someone to conceptualise what it meant. It's like if you lived in a world where the colour blue didn't exist, and someone came along and told you about it, you might think about it as some abstract concept, but you'd never really form that concept into anything concrete. I am going somewhere with this. =P So in the opposite sense, if common usage of words like 'faggot' and 'nigger' are seen as derogatory, then in people's minds (consciously or subconsciously), gay people and black people will be seen as being lesser. 'Nigger' brings with it so many conotations other than skin colour, and so even if someone were to refer to another person as nigger, even if it were just a reference to skin colour, it would be difficult to suppress the initial attachment of the other stereotypical qualities. That's why I think people get all worked up over it (although doing it to the point of being over-politically correct is just as bad, IMO), because it's hard to change people's views if people will continue to use such words in a derogatory way. Sure, language will evolve and 'faggot' may come to mean someone who is noob-like (ie. gets ass-raped in every game they play), but because this evolution will have stemmed from a gay origin, I think it'll be hard to remove the relationship entirely. I couldn’t work it out at the time, but it finally hit me. This post kinda reminded me of Orwell’s “1984″ where people’s speech was regulated so that they would only use certain kinds of words. I read the book when I was too young to really understand it, but I have had it mentioned to me that the idea behind it was that people’s thinking can be influenced by the way they speak. The ‘Newspeak’ in the book involved things like replacing antonyms with “negated words”, e.g. ‘bad’ became ‘ungood’. So in a way, it’s like ‘bad’ was removed from the language, the idea being that if ‘bad’ didn’t exist as a word, it would be harder for someone to conceptualise what it meant. It’s like if you lived in a world where the colour blue didn’t exist, and someone came along and told you about it, you might think about it as some abstract concept, but you’d never really form that concept into anything concrete.

I am going somewhere with this. =P

So in the opposite sense, if common usage of words like ‘faggot’ and ‘nigger’ are seen as derogatory, then in people’s minds (consciously or subconsciously), gay people and black people will be seen as being lesser. ‘Nigger’ brings with it so many conotations other than skin colour, and so even if someone were to refer to another person as nigger, even if it were just a reference to skin colour, it would be difficult to suppress the initial attachment of the other stereotypical qualities.

That’s why I think people get all worked up over it (although doing it to the point of being over-politically correct is just as bad, IMO), because it’s hard to change people’s views if people will continue to use such words in a derogatory way. Sure, language will evolve and ‘faggot’ may come to mean someone who is noob-like (ie. gets ass-raped in every game they play), but because this evolution will have stemmed from a gay origin, I think it’ll be hard to remove the relationship entirely.

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