On my last Q&A, a commenter asked me how I prevent myself from partaking in tribal hatred of the other, and instead focus my critiques on centers of power.
Thank you, Chris. You help me remember that my sisters and brothers are my family, and that the basis of all we fight for must come from a position of love. But we must keep fighting. Thank you.
One of Shakespeare's characters says "I am only a poor creature that would live." That's the existential truth that applies to all of us. We should never forget it.
That living should be respected and honored. Yet, we see right before us men (mostly) who disgrace and dishonor our right to live and to enjoy our life. People such as Trump, Musk, Bezos and others have NO respect for your right or my right to live peaceably with enjoyment. They are self-appointed overlords who want only their contentment to be protected and preserved.
I'm assuming you do not suffer from short term memory loss. Lets get real. Not too long ago, days really, our now departed president, Biden, and his team, Blinken and all, left office and are responsible for the deaths of 600 thousand Ukrainians whose lives they used to bring Russia down. They left office and did a remarkable job in supplying Israel with weapons to kill many tens of thousands of Palestinians and left them with no homeland. You obviously hate Trump because that's what hate does, it destroys our capacity to see reality.
Your points are well-stated and respected. However, your thoughts do not diminish the horror of the current moment. (By the way, your sarcasm is noted.) I wrote to Biden expressing my rage and anger over both Gaza and Ukraine. I have friends who are Ukrainian. I was furious with Biden for not bowing out sooner. The slaughter of the Palestinians was at the beheft and thrill of Netanyahu, a man consumed with xenophobic hate. In Uraine's war with Russia,, we and the EU held back too long in providing war materiel to Ukraine. So, no. I do not have short term memory. But, come to think of it, perhaps you should stay on topic.
I agree with what you are saying now, but initially your focus was not on the events you just referenced, but an attack on Trump and his band. I'm not in love with him either and have no trust in his solution for Gaza, or Ukraine/Russia, but what was left for him to deal with was dumped in his lap n by the Biden administration, and a secretary of state who is a neocon and a hateful SOB. By the way remember when Biden said with pride to Bibi, "I'm a Zionist too." Blumenthal has got it right.
QUIT USING "TRIBAL" as a synonym for decidedly western behavior. This has become a tired, overused, and under thought out contemporary western intellectual fad.
Nor is the term neutral! Historically, it was applied to sub-Saharan Africans, to indigenous peoples of Australia, and to Natives of the Americas. You know; dark, uncivilized, silly primitive religions--tribal. In contrast, Europe (western part, anyway) is home to enlightened, civilized, ethnics.
Yes, "tribe" is used by Native Americans. It has to be because the term is in N. American treaties. Not at all the same as using it as a general pejorative.
There's another implication. Non-tribal people are the evolved ones; the elite with their unbearable lightness of being wafting them far above the heads of the dark, indistinct masses.
But just for fun, look at the 19th and 20th C. history of Europe and Euro descent colonies. Then tell me who's civilized and who isn't.
By having friends and relatives with whom you differ politically, you should be able to avoid hatred. Just don't limit your friends to those who agree with you, and don't refuse to talk and otherwise interact with relatives who disagree with you.
Like Chris, I try to avoid hating anyone, but I couldn't be more displeased, because of both U.S. empire and its wars, and because of human destruction of the natural environment and the killing of most of the native life there.
Chris, thank you once again for an insightful interview.
Since the US has assumed, unilaterally, the position of world police, it has also assumed the role of naming and proscribing entities or organisations that threatens the Western powers’ hegemony and the capitalist system that feeds it. To give it some veneer of authority, they have required a moribund UN to rubber stamp their decisions. They refer to these outlawed entities as “terrorist organisations”. Every entity, organisation or movement from Latin America to Africa to Asia that have not served their agenda have been so proscribed. Although the UN has declined a US request to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation, the US, Israel and their sycophants have continued to label them as such.
Most of the so-called terrorist organisations have fought or is fighting a popular cause that usually carry the support of the majority of their people. Whether the cause is ideological or to depose an unjust regime or to rout a colonial power, the cause, if popularly supported, is just. Isn’t it then time that Hamas and all organisations that fight just causes are appropriately named as “freedom fighters” or “the resistance” (as the French were labelled during WW2), for example. I get the impression that everyone is shying away from affording organisations like Hamas the respect it deserves to at least acknowledge their raison d’ être. They are fighting, in my opinion, a just war against a heinous Israeli occupation since 1948, are they not?
My thoughts usually align or are at least sympathetic to Hedges' critiques of where we are socially and historically in terms of civilized society. His assessments, while poignant have been painfully redundant. In these comment sections many ask for answers. That is a reasonable request when one is wallowing in unknowing despair. Hedges offers virtually nothing in this regard (we can talk about why in another thread if anyone is interested) outside of militant strikes. As a self described an anarchist, Hedges states that writing letters to your representatives in an effort for change is futile and that militant worker strikes are the real answer to power. I question both of his hypotheses.
With regard to the latter, I believe that, as a member of a Republic, it is indeed your duty to hold your elected officials accountable for there actions, whether that be a protest circle in public or writing letter. Both require work. Most are too lazy to do it. That is why it doesn't work. But I believe it is wrong to blame the principle instead of the woeful effort. To be clear, the woeful effort is not by accident, it is designed to be discouraging by those in power. It is done, largely through predictive programming. What needs to be done--in conjunction with voicing your call for accountability is voice your need for change with how you participate in society. The voices for accountability need to be numerous and overwhelming. That's hard.; but necessary. If that were to take place, I believe it would be very effective. We've never seen that kind of effort, so how can you dispute it?
With regard to the former, I have little faith in workers strikes ability to orchestrate social change. I challenge Hedges to discuss the precedent and success of doing so. I dont think history supports his theory. I readily admit I'm not an expert of subject of worker organization and strikes, but I have looked at the numbers of worker strikes in the U.S. an it seems to have relatively low participation rate as well as low effectiveness in holding power accountable. Even if its number could grow, I see little precedent for worker strikes "working". Counting the 10 largest strikes ever in the U.S. (beginning in1886 with the Great Southwest Railroad Strike) the total number of strikers have numbered less than 2.75M in a span of over a 100 years! Some of those more significant strikes involved Steel workers (Steel workers strike of 1919 and 1959) that ultimately led to the production of steel being outsourced. Essentially, these strikes just simply put themselves out a job. So much for those strikes by private enterprise workers. The latest significant strike (1970) was by U.S. Postal workers. This has simply resulted in a postal service that is heavily in debt and on financial life support. The ultimate result is that it is on the verge of privatization. So much for that strike by government workers.
I am in awe of Hedges as a journalist and conversationalist/public speaker. I think he largely speaks the truth. However, I think he is misleading his followers in his prescription for change; and the power elites love it because it simply results in idle depression. He preaches anarchy, but anarchy is not real change.; it simply results in violent revolution and chaos. Beware of what you wish for, because chaos cuts both ways. I am not interested in participating in a crap shoot. I really wonder who Hedges handlers are. Why would they even allow him to speak on You Tube? They
don't have to. Hedges has admitted the full brunt and extent of censorship in the U.S. Why would
he be exempt at all? Its because I believe the real message is not challenging to those in power. Again, they love the downward spiral and ineffectiveness of it all. I think its high time to shed the depression, get proactive in calls for accountability, and bark up a different tree than those that call for militant worker strikes as the answer to our loss of democracy in the U.S.
Such a huge consideration, The Nature of Good and Evil, even limited to the question posed to Chris Hedges: how do you keep from falling into us and them hatred?
To do it even passing justice would entail an on-going discussion on the nature of being human, which in itself is on-going, raising related questions each which entail consideration of views based on religious belief, philosophies, social "sciences", often in opposition and of the denying the basis of legitimacy of or overriding the other beliefs.
So keeping it limited to the specifics as discussed here, and limited to the smaller set of my own experiences, the only ones that I can speak of with a reasonable degree of reliability:
As far as hatred, it seems easier to do in the abstract, both with groups and individuals.
I personally have never hated anyone that I have actually known. I don't think I am alone in this.
In most instances, what people experience as hatred is a deep-rooted process of us versus them in our species that is universal, and can manifest itself on any identifiable difference, (religion, race, political party) a process that is largely unconscious, pre-verbal, and instinctive. It is everywhere around, and so automatic that we don't realize that is this underlying all of the specific instances. We fight over the points of the manifestation without seeing the root.
In most instances, what we experience as hatred is a reaction against an IDEA, the model of them that we carry in our minds, that vaguely hangs on certain characteristics of the group. Most of we generally don't even truly know members of that group, and yet include all in this abstraction that we accept unquestioningly as reality.
I fundamentally agree that it is actions, even small acts of decency can be healing to, and even a basis for the saving of the spirit falling into black, encompassing despair.
I have seen this.
And I believe - for the greater part - that we all have the capacity for the committing acts of evil.
But I do think that there is a range of what is capable of being done by whom.
I can understand rage, even the impulse to commit violence. I believe that we all have this impulse.
But I cannot comprehend those who act on the impulses that we likely all experience, and feel nothing, no empathy for those who are harmed. Or the lack of empathy that as a rule we seem to feel when acts of great harm are done on a group that we don't identify with.
And yet that seems to be not at all a rare characteristic in human nature.
It instead seems to be the overwhelming norm of human nature, historically and in the world that we see now.
If there is an equivalent to Us and Them for me, I have a hard time accepting the Us of human beings. What we witness in Palestine, what we see around the world, in the U.S., what comprises history, overwhelmingly seems to grow out of, be inescapably what we ARE, the particular circumstances of nation, religion, race just act as things to hang them on, a justification for something that defies morality, reason something fundamental in our nature.
Thank you, Chris. You help me remember that my sisters and brothers are my family, and that the basis of all we fight for must come from a position of love. But we must keep fighting. Thank you.
One of Shakespeare's characters says "I am only a poor creature that would live." That's the existential truth that applies to all of us. We should never forget it.
Agreed, but that must be applied to all natural life, not just humans.
That living should be respected and honored. Yet, we see right before us men (mostly) who disgrace and dishonor our right to live and to enjoy our life. People such as Trump, Musk, Bezos and others have NO respect for your right or my right to live peaceably with enjoyment. They are self-appointed overlords who want only their contentment to be protected and preserved.
I'm assuming you do not suffer from short term memory loss. Lets get real. Not too long ago, days really, our now departed president, Biden, and his team, Blinken and all, left office and are responsible for the deaths of 600 thousand Ukrainians whose lives they used to bring Russia down. They left office and did a remarkable job in supplying Israel with weapons to kill many tens of thousands of Palestinians and left them with no homeland. You obviously hate Trump because that's what hate does, it destroys our capacity to see reality.
Your points are well-stated and respected. However, your thoughts do not diminish the horror of the current moment. (By the way, your sarcasm is noted.) I wrote to Biden expressing my rage and anger over both Gaza and Ukraine. I have friends who are Ukrainian. I was furious with Biden for not bowing out sooner. The slaughter of the Palestinians was at the beheft and thrill of Netanyahu, a man consumed with xenophobic hate. In Uraine's war with Russia,, we and the EU held back too long in providing war materiel to Ukraine. So, no. I do not have short term memory. But, come to think of it, perhaps you should stay on topic.
I agree with what you are saying now, but initially your focus was not on the events you just referenced, but an attack on Trump and his band. I'm not in love with him either and have no trust in his solution for Gaza, or Ukraine/Russia, but what was left for him to deal with was dumped in his lap n by the Biden administration, and a secretary of state who is a neocon and a hateful SOB. By the way remember when Biden said with pride to Bibi, "I'm a Zionist too." Blumenthal has got it right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7CCjwmqWU
QUIT USING "TRIBAL" as a synonym for decidedly western behavior. This has become a tired, overused, and under thought out contemporary western intellectual fad.
Nor is the term neutral! Historically, it was applied to sub-Saharan Africans, to indigenous peoples of Australia, and to Natives of the Americas. You know; dark, uncivilized, silly primitive religions--tribal. In contrast, Europe (western part, anyway) is home to enlightened, civilized, ethnics.
Yes, "tribe" is used by Native Americans. It has to be because the term is in N. American treaties. Not at all the same as using it as a general pejorative.
There's another implication. Non-tribal people are the evolved ones; the elite with their unbearable lightness of being wafting them far above the heads of the dark, indistinct masses.
But just for fun, look at the 19th and 20th C. history of Europe and Euro descent colonies. Then tell me who's civilized and who isn't.
By having friends and relatives with whom you differ politically, you should be able to avoid hatred. Just don't limit your friends to those who agree with you, and don't refuse to talk and otherwise interact with relatives who disagree with you.
Like Chris, I try to avoid hating anyone, but I couldn't be more displeased, because of both U.S. empire and its wars, and because of human destruction of the natural environment and the killing of most of the native life there.
Chris, thank you once again for an insightful interview.
Since the US has assumed, unilaterally, the position of world police, it has also assumed the role of naming and proscribing entities or organisations that threatens the Western powers’ hegemony and the capitalist system that feeds it. To give it some veneer of authority, they have required a moribund UN to rubber stamp their decisions. They refer to these outlawed entities as “terrorist organisations”. Every entity, organisation or movement from Latin America to Africa to Asia that have not served their agenda have been so proscribed. Although the UN has declined a US request to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation, the US, Israel and their sycophants have continued to label them as such.
Most of the so-called terrorist organisations have fought or is fighting a popular cause that usually carry the support of the majority of their people. Whether the cause is ideological or to depose an unjust regime or to rout a colonial power, the cause, if popularly supported, is just. Isn’t it then time that Hamas and all organisations that fight just causes are appropriately named as “freedom fighters” or “the resistance” (as the French were labelled during WW2), for example. I get the impression that everyone is shying away from affording organisations like Hamas the respect it deserves to at least acknowledge their raison d’ être. They are fighting, in my opinion, a just war against a heinous Israeli occupation since 1948, are they not?
Here's a petition calling for accountability for the arrest of Ali Abunimah in Switzerland:
https://chng.it/8D4pkxPhWS
And another calling on Pope Francis to go to Gaza. The bombs have stopped. What is he waiting for?
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/gkvBfY44rq
Although I agree he should go, his going will stir up hate in many sectors which is perhaps the reason he has not gone to Gaza.
My thoughts usually align or are at least sympathetic to Hedges' critiques of where we are socially and historically in terms of civilized society. His assessments, while poignant have been painfully redundant. In these comment sections many ask for answers. That is a reasonable request when one is wallowing in unknowing despair. Hedges offers virtually nothing in this regard (we can talk about why in another thread if anyone is interested) outside of militant strikes. As a self described an anarchist, Hedges states that writing letters to your representatives in an effort for change is futile and that militant worker strikes are the real answer to power. I question both of his hypotheses.
With regard to the latter, I believe that, as a member of a Republic, it is indeed your duty to hold your elected officials accountable for there actions, whether that be a protest circle in public or writing letter. Both require work. Most are too lazy to do it. That is why it doesn't work. But I believe it is wrong to blame the principle instead of the woeful effort. To be clear, the woeful effort is not by accident, it is designed to be discouraging by those in power. It is done, largely through predictive programming. What needs to be done--in conjunction with voicing your call for accountability is voice your need for change with how you participate in society. The voices for accountability need to be numerous and overwhelming. That's hard.; but necessary. If that were to take place, I believe it would be very effective. We've never seen that kind of effort, so how can you dispute it?
With regard to the former, I have little faith in workers strikes ability to orchestrate social change. I challenge Hedges to discuss the precedent and success of doing so. I dont think history supports his theory. I readily admit I'm not an expert of subject of worker organization and strikes, but I have looked at the numbers of worker strikes in the U.S. an it seems to have relatively low participation rate as well as low effectiveness in holding power accountable. Even if its number could grow, I see little precedent for worker strikes "working". Counting the 10 largest strikes ever in the U.S. (beginning in1886 with the Great Southwest Railroad Strike) the total number of strikers have numbered less than 2.75M in a span of over a 100 years! Some of those more significant strikes involved Steel workers (Steel workers strike of 1919 and 1959) that ultimately led to the production of steel being outsourced. Essentially, these strikes just simply put themselves out a job. So much for those strikes by private enterprise workers. The latest significant strike (1970) was by U.S. Postal workers. This has simply resulted in a postal service that is heavily in debt and on financial life support. The ultimate result is that it is on the verge of privatization. So much for that strike by government workers.
I am in awe of Hedges as a journalist and conversationalist/public speaker. I think he largely speaks the truth. However, I think he is misleading his followers in his prescription for change; and the power elites love it because it simply results in idle depression. He preaches anarchy, but anarchy is not real change.; it simply results in violent revolution and chaos. Beware of what you wish for, because chaos cuts both ways. I am not interested in participating in a crap shoot. I really wonder who Hedges handlers are. Why would they even allow him to speak on You Tube? They
don't have to. Hedges has admitted the full brunt and extent of censorship in the U.S. Why would
he be exempt at all? Its because I believe the real message is not challenging to those in power. Again, they love the downward spiral and ineffectiveness of it all. I think its high time to shed the depression, get proactive in calls for accountability, and bark up a different tree than those that call for militant worker strikes as the answer to our loss of democracy in the U.S.
Such a huge consideration, The Nature of Good and Evil, even limited to the question posed to Chris Hedges: how do you keep from falling into us and them hatred?
To do it even passing justice would entail an on-going discussion on the nature of being human, which in itself is on-going, raising related questions each which entail consideration of views based on religious belief, philosophies, social "sciences", often in opposition and of the denying the basis of legitimacy of or overriding the other beliefs.
So keeping it limited to the specifics as discussed here, and limited to the smaller set of my own experiences, the only ones that I can speak of with a reasonable degree of reliability:
As far as hatred, it seems easier to do in the abstract, both with groups and individuals.
I personally have never hated anyone that I have actually known. I don't think I am alone in this.
In most instances, what people experience as hatred is a deep-rooted process of us versus them in our species that is universal, and can manifest itself on any identifiable difference, (religion, race, political party) a process that is largely unconscious, pre-verbal, and instinctive. It is everywhere around, and so automatic that we don't realize that is this underlying all of the specific instances. We fight over the points of the manifestation without seeing the root.
In most instances, what we experience as hatred is a reaction against an IDEA, the model of them that we carry in our minds, that vaguely hangs on certain characteristics of the group. Most of we generally don't even truly know members of that group, and yet include all in this abstraction that we accept unquestioningly as reality.
I fundamentally agree that it is actions, even small acts of decency can be healing to, and even a basis for the saving of the spirit falling into black, encompassing despair.
I have seen this.
And I believe - for the greater part - that we all have the capacity for the committing acts of evil.
But I do think that there is a range of what is capable of being done by whom.
I can understand rage, even the impulse to commit violence. I believe that we all have this impulse.
But I cannot comprehend those who act on the impulses that we likely all experience, and feel nothing, no empathy for those who are harmed. Or the lack of empathy that as a rule we seem to feel when acts of great harm are done on a group that we don't identify with.
And yet that seems to be not at all a rare characteristic in human nature.
It instead seems to be the overwhelming norm of human nature, historically and in the world that we see now.
If there is an equivalent to Us and Them for me, I have a hard time accepting the Us of human beings. What we witness in Palestine, what we see around the world, in the U.S., what comprises history, overwhelmingly seems to grow out of, be inescapably what we ARE, the particular circumstances of nation, religion, race just act as things to hang them on, a justification for something that defies morality, reason something fundamental in our nature.
Anger is a powerful tool when properly channeled and compassionately applied.