On Social Strife
Incompleteness, ignorance and suffering, hatred and disgust, and some remedies
Bit of an impromptu post here, but I recently overhead a casual conversation that revealed a less flattering side of humanity, and it left me feeling…sad. So I decided to write about it. This post is in part therapy for me; but also, as we'll get to, it presents a valuable opportunity to educate and (hopefully) prevent some unwholesomeness from spreading its roots.
Let me know if you enjoy this type of content. :)
Note: I’ll be continuing as usual with Part 2 of the Social Success series in the next few weeks.
To respect the privacy of those in the conversation I overheard, I'll keep it broad, but it went a little like this. Someone belonging to a particular group, that had been subject to injustices in the past, was speaking about an opposing group who had enacted those injustices. Given the historical injustice, this person was lamenting the other group, and the topic eventually culminated in this person saying "…they [the other group] disgust me. And I hate them [for what they did]."
Let me preface by saying I have no affiliation to either of these groups, so hopefully that absolves me of some of the tribal biases that hinder fair judgment.
We’re going to start off this post by first establishing what exactly bias is, and why it hinders objective perception. We’ll then talk about bias in the context of social perceptions, what factors contribute to it, and how it can warp our view of others. We’ll touch on why hatred and disgust can be so dangerous. And last, I’ll provide you with some actionable strategies that help prevent and remediate the suffering that so often accompanies biased misperceptions.
Incompleteness
You and I have a particular way of seeing the world, and how we see the world is shaped by how we experience it1. When we receive data about the world around us, we construct a model of that world so that we can better navigate it to accomplish our goals. Whether it be remembering where that berry bush is, understanding when a harmful predator is most dangerous, or predicting what the person sitting across from us is feeling, models help us to better position ourselves to serve our needs.
Models are inherently biased. What does that mean? In a sense, it means that they are incomplete. As a goal-seeking agent accumulates data, a model structure emerges that is limited by whatever data it receives. And what exact data an agent is receptive of depends on what its goals are and the environment it finds itself in. A spider is biased towards spinning a web2, because webs helped previous spiders accomplish their genetic goals (i.e., capturing food). The spider itself can actually be seen as a physical model that its genes built to serve genetic proliferation.
But genetic evolution has percolated spiders into an inescapable niche that makes alternative methods of proliferation unavailable to the spider, and this niche is inescapable precisely because the genes have biased the spider to interact with the world in a particular way. No matter how hard it tries, the spider can't see the world from our view—the information the spider receives is much different than the information we receive. Its sense organs are different, its nervous system is different, and its physical shape and size are different (spiders are tiny…most of them are, at least). The spider has a subjective experience of the world totally different from ours, despite us both inhabiting the same objective world. A spider is biased towards experiencing the world like a spider.
If a model is biased because it is incomplete, it implies that the data that guides model construction is incomplete. Three interrelated reasons for incompleteness include the model:
Being unable to store and process all of the data, i.e., memory limitations
Not having access to some of the data
Receiving data that has been filtered prior to reaching it
Let's use these points to try and understand why we're vulnerable to misperceiving reality.
Memory Limits
One reason for incomplete understanding is memory limitation. We have brains composed of billions of neurons that intricately connect in a series of neural networks that parse, process, and generate responses to the data that our sense organs feed it. Yet, despite how impressive these marvelous machines are, they are dwarfed by the vast and complex world that surrounds them. There are practically infinite sources of information that surround us, spanning from infinitesimally small atoms to astronomically large planets, and we simply don't have the memory capabilities to process near-infinite data with a finite mind.
The real world is continuous and interconnected, but for us to understand it we first need to break it down and group it together into discrete packages, and make some assumption about the general behavior that occurs within those packages. We see a stew as a stew, not as meat, vegetables, spices, and broth; we see meat as meat, and not a complex array of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids; and we see proteins as proteins, not as collections of amino acids composed of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen. Well, this last one was a stretch, we can’t really see individual proteins3 but you get the point.
Filtration
There are whole other worlds unbeknownst to us because they get subconsciously filtered out before we’re aware of them. Many of these worlds are now only slowly coming to light as we further improve technological measurement systems.
We can't see ultraviolet (UV) light like a bee, or sense electromagnetic waves like a shark. All of that information exists around us, but most of it is filtered out before reaching our nervous system. Our sense organs weren't adapted (i.e., biased) to see UV light, so after passing through our pupils it kind of fizzles away. But despite us not seeing it, UV light still exists. It even has the ability to harm us. Long term exposure to UV light, that same UV light that our sense organs discard, can damage the retina, which senses visible light. This is why we wear sunglasses with UV protection, and why sunglasses without UV protection can lead to further vision impairment. Sunglasses without UV protection filter only visible light, which cause us to squint less and relax our pupils, allowing more harmful UV light to pour onto the retina.
The information that does make it past our sense organs gets additionally filtered in aggregate by our nervous system. Individual droplets of rain aren't really important to me, what is important to me is the fact that many droplets coalesce into flows that travel downwards into reservoirs that I can drink from. Or, snakes sometimes bite us, after which bad things tend to happen, so it's probably best for us to steer clear of harmful snakes…on second thought, let's be extra safe and make that all snakes. This results in a biased model that sees all snakes as harmful, despite not all snakes necessarily being aggressive or venomous.
When our brain performs an aggregation, that grouping of many into one, we inherently lose some information. That's the whole point; our finite brains are trying to discard the information that doesn't serve us, and hold onto the valuable stuff. But that aggregation step involves some assumption about the underlying behavior, and that assumption transforms the data, which then biases the mental model to perceive the world in a way that is congruent with the transformed data.
Access Limits
In addition being unable to process and store all information, there is also some information we simply can't access. I can't see what’s happening in that city across the globe, in the microbial culture living on my eye, or what once occupied the space I'm currently sitting at a million years ago. These are spatio-temporal access limitations, that is, we can't be everywhere in space and time all at once. We also can’t see what others (friend or foe) restrict us from seeing, or what we restrict ourselves from seeing (either advertently or inadvertently). And even when data does eventually reach us in the here and now, memory limitations prevent access to most information, and filtration only lets through the "valuable" information. Hopefully you can start to get a sense of how these three reasons are interrelated.
Ignorance and Suffering
Buddhist Concept: Avidyā (ignorance, misconception) lies at the root of Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness)
Ok, now that we have a better understanding of what bias is, we can move on to the purpose of this post, which is to understand why a biased perception of the world creates people who develop disdain for other people, especially towards those who belong to opposing groups.
This disdain is nourished by a lack of information, which, as we’ve established, generates bias. We’ve found that information scarcity arises from some combination of: a lack of ability to store data, a lack of access to data, and processes that filter data.
When someone belongs to a group that has been mistreated, that mistreatment shapes how they view the world. Their model of the world becomes understandably biased towards recognizing the perpetrators as threats, which consequently limits and transforms the information they receive in the future.
Here are a few ways in which model bias can limit and transform social perceptions.
Grouping. Grouping people together applies a particular assumed behavior to every member within a group. Whether it be us or them, this assumption necessarily misrepresents everyone within a group to varying degrees and neglects their diversity
Emotional reaction. The higher the emotional arousal to a response, the more subjective the perception of it. If an opposing group ideology provokes someone’s stress response, as they often do, good luck asking that someone to provide an objective analysis of that ideology
Engagement. Engaging only with information that reinforces current beliefs, either voluntarily (actively seeking out negative information about the other group) or involuntarily (someone else from your group telling you about their misgivings with that group)
Involuntary engagement with emotionally charged information has been further amplified by social media, which presents information with the goal of capturing and holding your attention. Negative and outrageous stories capture our attention, and stories that already align with our mental models require much less effort to engage with and thus hold our attention
Disengagement. Disengaging only with information that challenges current beliefs, either voluntarily (why would I believe anything they say), or involuntarily (fellow group members are generally discouraged from sharing information that conflicts with the group's ideology, social media will not feed you information that you don't engage with)
Information that challenges our beliefs can be quite distressing. Our world view sits atop a set of beliefs that, if incorrect, could require substantial restructuring efforts. It's much easier to reject and resist information that threatens our peace than to accept it
Avoidance. Similar to disengagement, avoidance allows your brain to fill in the blanks with more reinforcing negative thoughts, creating an endless chain of increasingly amplified negativity.
All of this (and more) culminates to form a mental model that is fed with information that remains consistent with a particular group ideology. This model, by virtue of being fed with a monoculture of ideas, can become incredibly fragile, and the more fragile the mental model the more vicious the reaction to anything that opposes it. This is why we can get so worked up when presented with information that conflicts with our world view (especially when that view is rigid), why we can consequently find it so difficult to accept that conflicting information, and why we tend to search instead for reasons to reject it.
Hatred and Disgust
"…they [the other group] disgust me. And I hate them [for what they did]." - Anonymous
A useful defense for a fragile mental model is hatred. Hatred is an emotion that stains whatever it touches, drowning each and every aspect of whatever it is directed towards into a sea of negativity. The homogeneity and simplicity of the stain is comforting, because it hides the true, complex, and heterogenous nature of whatever it envelopes. But hatred is a symptom of a fragile mental model, a compensation for weakness. Hatred hinders objective inquiry, leaving hateful people confused. And hatred breeds further hatred, creating a fragile system that produces a chain of harmful reactivity among all within the system.
Another useful defense for model fragility is disgust. Disgust is an adaptive response that helps keep us alive. For example, our waste has the ability to harm us, so disgust ensures that we avoid it. Likewise with cockroaches, so we turn to extermination to avoid the harm they may cause us. If our bodies were more resilient to disease, we would not be disgusted by these things—but alas, the body isn't perfect and needs additional defenses to protect the chinks in its armor.
Things can start to get scary, however, when disgust is directed towards other humans. Disgust of a pest leads to the justification of their extermination, and history has shown that humans can convince themselves that other humans can be considered as pests too. The attempted extermination of the Jewish and various minority populations within Nazi Germany is one such example. The Nazi movement was fertilized by passionate ingroup love paired with vehement outgroup hatred, and the heinous acts that followed were propelled and justified by disgust.
These days, people who think that they're immune to the same psychological parasitism that captured the people of Nazi Germany are naïve. We are nearly biologically identical to those who lived in twentieth century Germany. Culture, while certainly being more malleable than our physiology, is still built upon our collective biology and is governed by the goals of the individuals that compose it. We are just as prone to the make the same mistakes that our ancestors made if we aren't careful.
And if we zoom out a little farther, we can see what fueled Nazi ideology was the collective hatred by the rest of Europe for Germany’s misbehavior from the First World War. Germany was understandably disciplined by the rest of Europe, but this punishment was taken to a point where Germany was ostracized and economically devastated. This understandably bred hate and resentment within Germans towards their opposition and eventually culminated in the harmful hyper-nationalistic Nazi movement. The further we zoom out, the more we can recognize the chains of reactivity that produce horrific human behaviors.
Hatred breeds hatred. Disgust justifies atrocity. This is why I found the casual mention of social hatred and disgust so jarring; why I’m writing a whole post about why it happens; and why I want to prevent it, which brings us to the final section.
What can we do?
"I know you are all fighting because you are scared and confused. I'm confused too…I don't know. The only thing I do know...is that we have to be kind. Please...be kind...especially when we don't know what's going on." - Waymond Wang, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Becoming aware of our ignorance is the first step. This involves recognizing that how we perceive the world doesn’t necessarily reflect what the world actually is. Much of our dismay stems from a lack of completeness in our mental model of the world, so we need to work on filling it in and recognizing that it is incomplete.
Filling it in means breaking down the barriers that prevent diverse and nutritional helpings of information from coming in.
These barriers may be external. In the context of group conflict, external barriers tend to be governed by those we surround ourselves with. This could be our local community, a political party that desperately wants to maintain our support, or a social media application that wants to keep us engaged. We don't need to abandon our communities, but we need to make ourselves aware that other communities exist, and that those communities are composed of people with the same motivations, hardships, beauties, and flaws as us.
These barriers could also be internal. Our mental models tend to resist information, often subconsciously, that is incompatible with their current structure. We can have a hard time believing that someone from an opposing group could be lovely, or that someone from our group could be anything less than virtuous.
What can we do when we feel that resistance?
Mindfulness
Whenever you feel resistance towards a source of information, approach that resistance with curiosity and inspect it. Don't blindly believe everything that you feel, try to instead identify the root of that feeling and how it came to be. This is what it means to be mindful. Mindfulness is a skill that needs to be tended to and developed, so I'd suggest meditation as a starting point to develop it. Open awareness meditation can be a great place to start, which essentially involves trying to detach the emotions from your senses and thoughts to get a clearer picture of what they really are.
Another mindfulness practice that can help alleviate unwholesome thought is mettā meditation, otherwise known as loving-kindness meditation. This meditation practice brings with it a slurry of benefits to overall personal well-being and extinguishes the harmful thoughts that ignite social strife. These findings are supported by peer-reviewed science.
Here's a sample practice you can try for yourself:
Sit or lay in a comfortable position and close your eyes
Come up with a list of five people in your life that each fit into one of these categories:
1) yourself; 2) a loved one; 3) a mentor; 4) a stranger; 5) an enemy
Release the tension in your body, focus on a few breaths, and
Picture the first person in this list, yourself4, seated in front of you
Now, imagine how the person in front of you would behave if they were happy, peaceful, and free from suffering
An internal chant, while not necessary, may help keep you on track for this meditation. You can try repeating "May you find happiness, may you find peace, may you be free (from suffering)"
Spend 2-3 minutes on each person, using a timer if necessary, and pay attention to how it makes you feel to see them happy.
Once you reach the enemy, pay attention to whether you find it difficult to imagine them happy. If that difficulty exists, try to understand where it stems from.
Once you’ve gone through everybody individually, picture them all together sitting before you, joyful and care-free. Spend a final 2-3 minutes wishing them happiness, peace, and freedom.
This mindfulness practice is powerful. Seeing people happy and peaceful tends to make us feel happy and peaceful as well, and this meditation practice makes us increasingly aware of that. We become more kind and compassionate, because we want to recreate the happy people we imagined from the meditation practice. We start to behave in ways that bring the best out of people, regardless of whether they're a friend, a stranger, or an "enemy". Even the notion of enemy starts to fade away once we're able to view everyone as fellow humans, as we gently set aside the well-intentioned fictions that our minds create in attempt to protect our fragile mental models.
Understanding
A final antidote to incompleteness I'd prescribe is self-education. Exposing oneself to a diverse diet of information is critical to developing a resilient and less-biased model. Systems can become fragile when their inputs lack diversity. A diet composed of refined sugars and trans fats weakens a cardiovascular system; attempting to prevent all threats from reaching your immune system makes it unprepared for the threats that do eventually trickle through; a musculoskeletal system unfamiliar to exercise, exertion, and discomfort becomes weak and brittle.
Just like how staying physically healthy requires physical discipline, staying mentally healthy requires mental discipline5.
Exposing ourselves to information that we have yet to understand is hard to do, especially if it conflicts with our existing world view. But the fact that we have yet to understand it is precisely what makes it so valuable. We already (seemingly) understand the ideas from “our side”, and as a result we don't really learn anything new from perpetually engaging with ingroup ideologies. The true bounties lie within the shadows that cloak the ideas of the other side. The shadows are intimidating, especially when our groups amplify those fears by encouraging us to avoid them; but as we've discussed, those shadows are illusions bred by ignorance. Indiscriminate curiosity sheds light on those shadows, and enlightens us to the often not-so-scary truths hidden beneath them.
The more we open ourselves to discovery, the less incomplete our mental models become, the more we realize how much we don’t know (i.e., the Dunning-Kruger effect), and the less biased we become. We become more accepting of others, regardless of whether they are like us or not. We become less fragile and reactive, more peaceful. We become more resilient to ideas that threaten the foundations of our mental models, choosing not to reject them but instead invite them in and see how they can fit. And if they don’t fit, that’s okay too.
I'll leave you with this quote from David Bohm6, who (I think) put this whole idea rather nicely.
"The first thing we have to do, in the long run, is to look at our whole way of thinking, which has developed over so many thousands of years…People have to participate and make a cooperative effort to have a dialogue. A real dialogue in which we will not merely exchange opinions, but actually listen deeply to the views of other people without resistance. We cannot do this if we hold to our own opinion and resist the other. That doesn't mean we should accept the other, but we first have to be able to look at all the opinions as suspended, as it were, in front of us, without carrying them out and without suppressing them." - David Bohm
And how our ancestors experienced it.
Many of them are, at least.
Without technological assistance.
In times where you’re not the biggest fan of yourself, you can try starting with someone easier (a loved one, a mentor). Sometimes, you may find it most appropriate to place yourself in the enemy position.
These two things can’t really be separated. To be physically fit requires mental fortitude, and vice-versa.
David Bohm provided significant contributions to quantum theory, the philosophy of mind, and neuropsychology. He is widely considered to be one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century.
In my opinion, memory limits,. filtration, and access limits (although access limits maybe less so) are evolutionary traits that allow humans to conserve energy. It's extremally energy-exhaustive to process everything happening around us - so ours brains have developed ways to conserve energy by modelling and processing the information around us. Many books about habit formation will talk about the function of the vasoganglia in our brains which stores patterns as habits so we can execute them without thinking. As an extension of human nature to follow the path of least resistance in processing information around us, we sometimes fall into the trap of biased thinking (because, as you mentioned, it's easier to be ignorant.
Although it may be sometimes necessary to our survival as humans, I think following the path of least resistance opens us up to be heuristic. I agree that everyone should work to exercise unbiased thinking.
I really like the following quote, which I think supplements your post nicely: "Don't criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances - Abraham Lincoln".