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Hello and welcome to it happen here.

Last episode, I was joined by your savior.

Hello, and he's here again because we're gonna get more into what we spoke about last time.

Last episode, we painted a hopeful account of humanity's nature.

Could see if my reading of Rutka Bregmann's Humankind a hopeful history.

So I probably fed into the anarchists so utopia narrative a bit with that previous episode.

But the truth is that I'm not really being optimistic and being realistic.

But realism has been confused with cynonicism for so long that even acknowledging both sides of the coin can be seen as overly utopia.

People can be bad, and we'll get into the why.

But for whatever reason they are bad, that is why as anarchists have consistently argued nobody should have authority.

Now they will always be outlined.

And this explanation I'm about to share it is not going to get into every unique case of badness, but we are going to get into some of the reasons that people do bad and what we can do about it.

As I said last episode, we took issue with this idea of civilization as a thin venail and were put forward the premise the Keemans are mostly pretty decent.

In fact, I didn't mention it last episode, but we don't even really like to kill each other, contrary to popular belief, brag when actually shares that in World War Two, studies showed that many soldiers didn't shoot their weapons even in combat.

Trained soldiers had a difficult time actually pulling the trigger and killing people.

There are exceptions, as I said before, but in a lot of cases it's very difficult for people to actually kill.

Military strategies ended up changing once authorities realized this, and the training programs of soldiers was to readers time to overcome this resistance.

But that reluctance to killin does also indicate that it takes some effort to overcome our general decency toward each other because most people, again most on all, are not natural born killers.

So again, how do we do bad?

You know, all sorts of atrostees have been carried out by humans, both in ancient and modern times.

What do you think is the course.

Self preservation in some way, either physical or psychological.

I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not a sociologist.

Most of my experiences with people is both queer people and then looking at Nazis and like political extremists.

So it's maybe not the best sample side for the general population.

I think I tend to exist kind of on the perimeter of most human experience, but probably some form of either psychological or physical self preservation in my experience slash opinion.

That's interesting.

I didn't think of it.

I think it comes close to what Breaguen ends up getting into, but I think self preservation, well, we'll get into that in a bit.

You know, it's it's difficult to square that with just how brutal some of these disasters have been, you know, these atrocities that have taken place around the world, organized systemic industrial cruelty, you know, things like the Holocaust.

Totally, it's interesting because I think it's two paradoxical instincts that play off each other.

There's this self preservation and there's also I believe in I thin guess some version of the death drive, and I think those can can interact in really odd ways.

But the desk drive, Yeah, like it's like it's specifically, it's like specifically like like fascism and like you know, you can see this in like the genocides of the twentieth century and twenty first centuries like specifically, but no like fascism as like a political embodying of the death, which is I think also an aspect.

I think these things exist together in parallel while being paradoxical, and that's what produces a lot of the incongruity around things like fascism, right, it is, it is like an inherently paradoxical system.

When you say self preservation, are you just talking about on the individual level, or are you seeing like community self preservation as.

Well, both both, but also I think not even just physical, but also like psychological, like being able to like continue being able to continue existing as yourself, either within a group of people or just you as an individual, Like psychological things that you need to do to make yourself feel like you're in community or that you are safe, that you have meaning, or that you have purpose as well as the physical aspects.

And you're saying that that lends itself to atrocity.

I think it can.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that actually is strikingly close to what Bragman ends up uncovering.

Look at the reasons that people will talk about for like why the genocide and Gaza is like necessary, right?

It is?

It is playing off both of those impulses.

Yeah, yeah, I mean all sorts of genocides when you hear the descriptions of them, and this is what you hear of the people who perpetuated them, what their explanations or justifications, you know, from the Holocaust to Rwanda to Palestine.

Yeah, it's me and mar you know, totally it is deeply Evil's that something we can look away from it?

It really is difficult to square with the most humans a decent thesis when you look at how some of these society is, even the ordinary people, for example, the citizen population of Israel, even the civilian population, even they are like disturbingly genocideh in their rhetoric.

And so you know, it's like, how do we reach that point?

How do we get there?

How does an ordinary human baby grow into that?

It can happen to you.

It can happen very easily, and I think it can happen in a short time span and you can get out of it.

I think maybe not just as easily, but you can't get out of it also in a fastime span.

I think it's like that you are not immune to propaganda.

Idea you can look at like in n To Germany, Robert has talked about quote unquote the little Nazis, the regular Germans who ended up partipating and becoming Nazis, and you are not immune from that, and that can happen as a response to a whole bunch of traumatic impulses as well.

Whereas I think people now even use like politics just to You're like this like idea of politics as permission to be like an overtly cruel person to other people, either like in your life or online.

Right, you will you will use use various political topics, and that gives you permission to unleash unmitigated hostility against people that you now perceive as being like immoral or you perceive as being like ontological enemies.

Exactly exactly.

I mean there were particular studies that were undertaken in the twentieth century that are often used to sort of explain that, you know, after all of Nazi Germany and the post World War TWI era, people will seeking explanations for atrocity and so so experiments were done and are now pointed to as explanations for how this could have taken place.

You know, so one particular experiment that's really well known as the Stanford prison experiment.

Right, this idea that you take random students and give them a position of power and they become sadistic gods.

You know, it proves just how thin the ven ale civilization really is, or already the evil the civilization could empower.

But at least for that particular experiment, the reality was never so straightforward.

You know, the gods were literally coached and encouraged to be cruel.

You know, they were actually putting on performances.

The prisoners were also expected to perform, so rather than being like an actual scientific experiment, it was more like guided theater.

I mean it inadvertently, it becomes an interesting experiment in like humans desired to like please authority.

Right exactly, exactly, to like perform to.

The expectations of the people who are actually running this experiment, and how capable you are of falling into these roles under like under that paradigm exactly.

I mean, you see that in Nazi Germany as well, a lot of the people were doing things to please the fear, you know, like they didn't necessarily know or there was a lot of wiggle room from what I've read to interpret the fear as wishes, Yeah, as people who wanted to rank up and rise up in the in the organization, but interpret things in a way that they would presume would please Pitta and his desires moving towards the fear.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

That's the that's the name of the phenomenon.

I mean, when the sound for Person experim When people tried to recreate the experiment for television, E've got it made for pretty boring TV because it was bad science in the first place.

It's not something that people do not actually, it's it's what they do when they are pushed, when they are prodded, you know, when certain expectations, et ceter.

It's kind of similar with this other famous experiment that that Bragman talks about, which is the Stanley Milcrumb's Obedience experiments, where volunteers were told to administer increasingly painful electric shocks the stranger just because I got in a lamp code told them to.

It's like another instance of you know, we doing these things just to please authority, even to the point of murder, because you know, the dial of the electric shock was deadly after a certain point, and you could hear the screams of the the victims.

Of course they were fake screams, but you know, the participants could hear them.

But what Bragman ended up uncovering is that most of the participants will't follow the orders blindly.

They were following the orders, yes, but they would do because they believed that they were doing something good, something good for the good of science.

That even though the shocks were uncomfortable, that it wasn't something they want to do, there was a noble sacrifice in the name of progress.

Even so, the participants weren't in the front.

You know, they were distressed, they were shaken, they were sweat and they were begging to check on the learner.

But they also said things like he agreed to be in the experiment, you know, or this will help science right or I don't want to do this, but I have to, demanded lab Coote, who is telling them to continue, please continue, please continue.

He was calm, he was professional, and also even how the nudge is that he used were framed made a difference.

So if he was directly ordering them and telling them you have to do this, surprise many people would actually be more likely to resist a direct order framed in that way for such an experiment, but a more subtle nudge, just like know what, you know, science, the experimental requires this, you know, the experiment needs to do this at more subtle It tended to get people to continue.

And the people who were interviewed who did take it up to those higher volagers, they said they did it because they believed they were contributing to scientific development.

So it's really this misguided belief in a higher cause that also contributes to atrocity.

It's very easy to get this idea that, oh, you know that those are just monstrous people.

You know, we have this idea in pop culture that these the Nazis are like cartoonish monsters.

They are monstrous, but they are monstrous people.

You know, they are, at the end of the day, people who do evil with the belief that they're doing good.

It's a very extent.

I know that there were some who you know, recanted or who knew what they were doing wrong, but they had other pressures that were pushing them in that direction.

Right.

There are many explanations we was behaving and all sorts of situations, but a lot of the people they thought that they were contributing to the right things, didn't care, but they were taught to care in the wrong direction.

The bad guys don't think that they're bad guys.

And whether we're talking about the Nazis of the past or the Designers of today, they construct these elaborate narratives to frame themselves as the righteous ones.

You know, as far as the Nazis are concerned, they are purge in Germany of a serious threat to the well be in and the safety of their future and all that stuff.

Read Designers to stay.

You ask them, even though they're pariahs of the world at this point, you ask them why they believe that this must continue, and they will say, you know, we have to defend ourselves.

We have a right to defend ourselves.

YadA, YadA, YadA.

There are true believers within these groups, you know, who are able to commit some of the worst acts, committed ideologues who boast of their trustees, who express no remorse, who take pride in their role, and people reach that point of ideology through a process of radicalization.

You know, we look at the tends to genocide.

I think is the framework people have used before to point out how a segment of a population can become a target of genocide.

It's not like one day you wake up and it's just like, oh, we're going to geneside this group of people.

It's a process.

You know.

First you start off with classification.

You create a separate group of people, separate category of poison.

You make them signify themselves in some way, carry ID cards or some kind of insignia on their clothing or whatever.

They begin to face discrimination or some kind the discrimination, you know, is ramped up through dehumanizing language.

You compare them to verment or rodents, the disease.

And that's just the thing, and we're going to get to that.

But part of how you get people who would otherwise be caring or compassionate about their fellow human is through distance.

Right, So the people who who are most blood thirsty tend to be very far from the front lines.

You know, people who are demanding that World War One continue, for example, they were very far from the actual fighting versus at the actual front lines of World War One.

You had soldiers playing football together during Christmas.

That's a separate story.

But you create distance, either create physical distance or you create psychological distance and dehumanization is one of the ways you create psychological distance.

You distance people from seeing their fellow human being as a human being.

Segregation is another way of creating that distance, which then lends itself to the humanization.

Comparing the people to wom into animals, anything other than human as another step in the humanization and can people to separate themselves from those peopuel and then they create specific groups.

The next stage to create specific groups and organizations to enforce discriminatory policies.

You fool the broadcast, operate the propaganda to polarize population.

And then we'll step seven, eight, nine, and ten go from actually preparing the removal relocation of people to the persecution, the extermination of the group, and finally the denial that such a crime ever could so that process it can take years, it can take decades, but it's something that can turn even the most regular poison into virulent proponent of Rihanna side if they are not fastidious in their opposition to any such language, especially in the early stages, because they get fed this steady extreme propaganda of all the actions are justified, their loyalty to their inn group becomes tested by their willingness to engage in those harmful actions.

The stay with that group, will do whatever their tool is good, even if it leads to other people being hood and it just creates an evil.

But it's an ordinary evil.

It's an evil that is convinced of.

It's a virtue.

It is wrapped up in ideology and social conformity because you know, humans are social creatures and it drives us to cooperate.

But that sociality can be narrowed down to test our in group.

And that's where Breakman actually gets into an interesting point about empathy, right, because we tend to see empathy as a positive thing, and it can be.

But as Bragman notes, drawn from psychologists Paul Bloom's work, empathy can also make us partial, irrational, and even cruel, because it can narrow our focus to those people who are like us and ignore others.

That's why soldiers can fight and kill other people because they feel empathy for their in group, their homeland citizens, or their comrades and arms.

Their loyalty and affection for the people they care about supersedes the lives of the people that they don't care about.

Now, of course, we want to look at systems and we're talking about this because I don't think that this hijack and of empathy is inevitable.

You know, nationalism, propaganda, these things play a role in how people end up being separated this way, and it's in groups and our groups.

But you know, there is also indications that in group and our group, separation cann occur even in the absence of a stake, So it is something we have to be continuously vigilanti of.

Another aspect of as a systemic analysis or approach, is looking at how our position within society also shapes how we operate, how we treat people, how we think, and how we act.

Bragrant cites neuroscience research that demonstrates how authority literally changes how we think.

Powerful people become less empathetic and I'm more likely to see others as tools rather than independent people.

You know, this is not new information, per see.

You know, the envirolence that powerful people are in both shapes them and are shaped by them, they say, and has long gone that power corrupts and absolute power crupts absolutely and spaces like Silicon Valley, like Wall streets, like Washington, DC, like corporate boardrooms and all the other upper echelons of government to divorce rulers and authorities from ordinary people, their insular spaces that keep them from being challenged or being grounded by the impact of their actions and others, so powerful people don't have to care.

And I think such hierarchies are attractive to people who already are inclined to do bad, even if they believe that they're doing good.

The authoritarians, the supremacists, the abusers, They are attracted to those positions.

But even good intention people could lose themselves in authority too, because authorities as a whole existed in this bubble that rewards their worst instincts, and a further shape in the system around their worst instincts, around distrust, selfishness, exploitation, and so on, to reward themselves and their patterns of behavior, and thus, through the social most seaway fact, people end up in that expectation created by the system.

I guess my only comment here is that these systems are not just exclusive to like state power or like corporate authority.

These same mechanisms reproduce themselves in all sorts of social arrangements, including like radical politics, and frankly especially radical politics.

You can see it's a lot with groups, whether they're communists, whether they're anarchists, whether they're I don't know.

Social democrats probably have this problem, but no specifically like in anarchist scenes, you see this happen constantly.

It is almost funny how how much of these things just get natively recreated and like in group out, group in amics are always are always a big issue.

I mean, like you can also point to the book Cultish, which explains how American culture is pretty defined by like cult like tendencies, not saying that every single group is a cult, but cult dynamic explain to a large part of everyday American life.

And that's both good and bad.

Sometimes being in occult is fun until it's not very fun.

So these dynamics themselves are not necessarily you know, bad, but there's something to be like mindful of.

Yeah, exactly, so in being mindful of it, you know, that's an aspect of it.

You know, we have to find solutions to this academic of badness, of behaviors being reinforced by these systems that are cause harm to people and harm to the world.

And so what I always advocate for and we is big and small.

I wouldn't call it the one solution to everything, but it's it does encompass a lot, but it's just understanding and taking on a dynamic social revolutionary approach to change, you know, from the effort to do to confront the existence system, to stand up against it.

But they're also the things that you do to put forward an alternative, to put forward and to practice alternatives.

So one of the things that we can do is to create, but you know, perpetuate a positive and trusting take on human decen see, you know, to create that social place boy effect that can shape how people treat each other for better, but that can be boiled down to just be nicer to each other.

So there's more we've done than that.

Of course, on the systems front, we also to change how we educate each other in radical spaces and also in terms of how we raise children.

We have to organize you know, alternative economic systems and alternative social arrangements that get us in the habit of trust, of trusting people's freedom, of practicing freedom, and also of emphasizing greater intrinsic motivation in people as well.

You know, a lot of our society is built around control and mechanisms of control through extrinsic forms of motivation, you know, like punishments and prisons and grades and bonuses and wages, all the different things that are meant to keep us going here now.

But I think a system that more leans into intrinsic motivation is something that we should be working toward.

You know that people do things so they're in see for reasons that we are driven by.

That I think is far more sustainable long term and more fulfilling long term than continuing to be stuck with the punishments and rewards that come from outside.

Yes, we have to develop a revolutionary consciousness that is also very much grounded in you know, people's intrinsic motivation to have their needs met, to pursue their interests, to care for others.

And that is where I think we'll say tea in fors long term because you can create all these bonuses and incentives externally, but I don't think it's something that will last.

There are, you know, experiments in earth with a great emphasis on intrinsic motivation, not even necessarily radical experiments.

By see what Bregman actually looks at examples of schools that don't have grades or fixed curriculums, and that companies that don't have managers, that are run entirely by employees.

I mean, anarchists have been known about these, but he emphasizes that the people in these environments thrive because they've been trusted to direct themselves.

They can bring off the best in themselves because they've been given the room to do so, you know, and spaces like free schools and maker spaces and cooperatives they give us the room to develop our cooperation and creativity.

You know.

Of course, the system isn't going to stand by as these transformations take place.

It might tolerate or even celebrate some like the examples that Bregman had looked at, but those are always going to be treated as exceptions the second he tried to make them the norm.

I think you're going to face some real challenges because ordinary people one of these things, but the rulers don't.

It's like the example that I had brought up earlier, you know, the famous nineteen fourteen Christmas truth during World War One, where British and Jeman soldiers put down their guns, they sang songs, they played football, but eventually the high command crack down these truces.

The fratnization of people who are different from each other was a threat to the war machine because these systems are invested in maintaining hostility and division, and so we have to consciously and openly stand up against hostility and division to build systems that bring out the best in people.

I don't think that a hopeful view of human nature should be seen as utopian.

As I said earlier, is realistic.

Cynicism is not realism.

They're not the same thing.

Having hope is not being that you are completely deluded of the darks side or dark aspects of humanity and humanity's possibilities.

But it means that you don't limit yourself to that outcome, that you challenge that narrative, and that you seek to do better and to create something better.

And that's really what I care about, and that's all I have to share.

All power to all the people.

This it could happen.

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