Thread by @Moshe_Hoffman

Really liked recent mini-series “why we hate”.

👍 summary of psych lit+ historical examples.

But...🔑 thing I thought missing, as usual: No discussion of structural problems/underlying incentives.

Let me explain what I mean+why I think that’s 🔑.



(🧵)

As the docu-series nicely summarizes:

Milgram showed people do bad when authoritative figure tells them. Informative. Important.

But, umm, what determines who authorities want us to harm?

2/

Zimbardo showed we abuse when in position of power.

Moreover, archived recordings + show Z actually pressured subjects to be abusive. And future work shows didn’t replicate when that part left out.

Important.

But, umm, who usually exerts pressure to abuse? Why?

3/

Cambodian torturer tortured fellow citizens when instructed by the state. Felt it was his duty.

Right. But why did the state demand this?

4/

Sports fans can get violent.

Maybe that’s what happens when wear clothes indicating in-group & out-group membership? And groups compete? An extension of what happens in kid’s summer camps, where kids are assigned to teams?

K. But is that what happened w/ the Hutus & Tutsis?

5/

Chimps attack conspecifics from different troops. Whenever they have sufficient numerical advantage.

Does that suffice to explain what happened w/ the nazis? Apartheid S. Africa? Palstinean Occupation? Jim Crow?

6/

So...

We clearly have the built in cognitive capacity to form groups, assess people based on group membership, and discriminate accordingly.

As this lit nicely demonstrates.

But *when* do we do this. And when does such discrimination become more or less extreme or brutal?

7/

The docu-series/psych lit discusses possible moderators.

Does that answer the above questions?

Eg, we don’t shock the learner, in Milgram study, as much, if the learner came in w/ us as a friend.

8/

Eg the neo-nazi threw out his neo-nazi boots after a Jew treated him humanely.

9/

Eg Colombians were more sympathetic toward the farc after hearing about their beliefs and perspectives.

10/

All solid examples and evidence. Yielding solid prescriptions for, on the margins, reducing hate.

But do those *explain* the *cause* of such hate?

And are they liable to actually *remove* the hate? Or just trim around the edges?

11/

So what I think the lit/docuseries is missing:

Abu Ghraib didn’t happen *b/c* a few soldiers found themselves in position of power over prisoners. It happened presumably b/c higher ups *wanted* prisoners tortured, and gave subtle signals of such. As in Zimbardo’s study.

12/

(Why did they want prisoner’s tortured? Cause American brass wanted to assert their dominance over al qaeda? Over the taliban? Over Iraqis? We wanted them to know who was boss? It’s a dominance display? Maybe?)

(Dominance displays from leaders who could hide behind fog of war and indirect speech and lengthy chains of command. From leadersfighting an asymmetric war w/ minimal fare of retaliation. And minimal fear of facing an international criminal court. And a carte blanche at home.)

It’s this incentive structure, imo, that causes the abuse. Not the prison guards themselves being in a position of power.

Sure. That plays a mechanistic role. But on its own it’s not enough.

Guaards don’t always act like Abu Ghraib. As failed Zimbardo replication shows.

13/

How much does it matter if there are symbols of in-group and out-group membership? Like sports insignia?

14/

I mean when was the last time you started a fight w/ someone cause they had a cross on their necklace? Or an “I ❤️ New York” t-shirt?

Imo it matters what the coalitions symbolize. And how important it is to signal coalitional affiliation.

15/

Jews weren’t hated *b/c* they had a star on their sleeve. They had the star on their sleeve *b/c* they were hated.

16/

The Star helped keep track of the jews. Enabling easier discriminatory treatment, for sure. And may prime the pertinent psychology.

But on its own...I’ve warn jewish stars and never had any problems.

17/

The star, on its own, doesn’t get you put on a train. You need a state to do that.

A state built off an ethno-nationalist justification. A state powered by a base competing w/ Jews for jobs, In hard times. Compensating supporters w/ stolen homes and art.

18/

Does being different suffice? The Catholics were also different. They weren’t treated the way the Jews were. The Romani were.

Why them? And not them?

The Catholic Church—unlike Jews and Romani—had power.

Turns out power affects who you turn your hate towards.

19/

(See also: why Africans were enslaved. Or why the Irish felt the brunt of British rule. Sure there were deeply internalized justifications for this mistreatment. But would these justifications been internalized, and the hate been felt, against them, if they had power?)

Let’s turn to empathy/theory or mind/personal contact.

Admittedly these moderate hate.

Do they *explain* hate?

20/

Certainly in individual cases these can make a difference.

Like determining who hides their neighbor. Influencing who joins the resistance.

No doubt.

But, did Hitler *just* not have enough personal contact w/ Jews?

21/

(Hitler notoriously spent *two years*, while poor and homeless, w/ a Jew as his *sole* business partner, and arguably only friend. Hitler drew the postcards. The Jew sold them. For two years. *Right* before the war. Whence Hitler became a vile anti-Semite.)

Hutus and Tutsis lived side by side.

Did the proximity *in general* act to suppress genocide?

Au contraire, it enabled the gov to offer the notorious carrot that you could join your Tutsi neighbor’s plot of land w/ your own, so long as you killed him.

22/

Battalion 101, a nazi killing squad back in ww2, did have hard time killing Jews they walked, one on one to the forest, consistent w/ the empathy and theory of mind and personal interaction moderator story.

23/

But not so much harder that it couldn’t be overcome with some vodka. Or by walking the Jews to the forest in groups, or hiring locals to do the actual shooting. All of which the battalion resorted to.

24/

All of which the battalion resorted to, to ensure the job got done that they were hired to do, paid to do, given extra rations to do, and kept from the front by doing.

25/

Did southern slave owners lack sufficient personal interactions with their slaves? Not enough to see them as human?

26/

OR

Did the white southerners *strategically* avoid seeing slaves as human?

Purposely restrict the types of interactions with them, or how they framed those interactions IN ORDER to make it easier to continue mistreating them?

24/

Would the dehumanization have prevailed had cotton not been so lucrative? Had slavery not been protected by the great-compromise that united our states? Had plantation-owners not had so much power in the south? Had the south not been over-represented in the capital?

25/

Let me conclude.

My point is not to minimize the value of the psych lit; it does a spectacular job showing our evolved cognitive capacities for hate, and many of the mediators worth targeting.

And the docu-series imo summarized this valuable lit rather well.

26/

But imo targeting such mediators will only get you so far. Cause they ain’t really the *ultimate* causes of the hate.

27/

The ultimate cause of hate, rather, are things like coalitions expropriating resources, striving for dominance, w/ means and the motive to abuse. And ability to pressure underlings to do the abuse. Harnesses our cognitive capacity for hate, as needed.

28/

Thus, to have real impact, imo, we really ought to be targeting the structural problems. The incentive problems. The things that determine when the relevant psychology comes on line. And makes targeting that psychology, directly, an up-hill battle.

Eom