The Three Visceral Republican Hatreds

    Three visceral hatreds stand out after many years of shift work with Republican workers.  These three hatreds are what the workers in these jobs talked about hour after hour, day after day, year after year during business hours, evening shifts, and graveyards.  They were like a magic handshake into a meditative comfort zone for them.

    You have to have something to talk about to while away the hours at work.  Although talking about sports can take you pretty far, conversations generally start in or drift into one of these three areas of hatred.  This was not immediately obvious, and took a number of years to recognize.  Certainly other topics came up, and not all conversations were hateful, but personal experience showed that a chronic pattern emerged.  These three things consistently came up in conversations to pass the time.

    Liberals are not one of these three targets of hatred because liberalism is not ancient enough to qualify as a visceral topic.  The three visceral hatreds apparently originated many thousands of years ago even though they are playing a part in current politics.  However, they do relate indirectly to hating liberalism.  In the current context, the word visceral relates to our viscera or guts and visceral hatred means hatred without thought, in other words, instinctual hatred.  The discussion below will have some unpleasant concepts, but these concepts need to be addressed in order recognize and address the GOP hatred problem:  name it to defeat it.  In order to follow the discussion below, it is necessary to give up on the ideas that gut feelings and follow your instincts are necessarily good things.  It is time for rational thought to take over from visceral feelings.  (See Instinct vs. Intellect.)

    The three visceral hatreds do not apply to all Republicans, but they apply to enough Republicans to make these hatreds significant in the campaigning and in the running of government that is associated with Republicans.  The catering to these hatreds results in the manipulation of voters.  It also results in shallow thought towards deep policy issues.

    Labeling is important, and here is a story to begin a discussion on labeling.  A new young light-skinned union worker in a rural flat area was involved in an incident that required a visit by a team of urban investigators.  The young worker became quite upset after being called a hillbilly by one of the investigators.  The insult did not make any literal sense, because there were no hills around; if you wanted to insult these workers, redneck would have been a more appropriate attempt.  This insult showed the ignorance of the investigator.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a hillbilly.  The older local workers assured the young one that an insult is only an insult if you take it that way:  if people think you are a redneck, be proud of it and try to turn the slur into a compliment. 

    The above strategy does not work for all types of pejoratives because of the concept called privilege.  The young worker had the privilege of being male, light-skinned, and a union worker.  He could speak out without fear of significant retribution and the investigator was probably later (lightly) reprimanded for using the slur.  A characteristic of privilege in the discussions below is that many people who have privilege do not know that they have it:  if you are born with it, it is a natural part of your surroundings, kind of like the young fish who asks, What is water?  Women, gays, and persons of darker skin do not have the same level of privilege of being able to ignore and stand up to slurs used against them without significant likelihood of retribution.

    With all of that preparation out of the way, here are the three primary visceral Republican hatreds:

    1.  Misogyny.  Hatred of women, with the main topic of discussion often being the latest divorce that someone is getting.   The conversation usually goes quickly to support payments.  Often, you’ll hear I’ll do anything for my kids, except you don’t hear things like respect their mother or gladly pay their support.  How is misogyny visceral?  Apparently for many men procreation is a violent act, a conquest, an assertion of dominance.  This appears to be the case with many animals, as well, supporting the idea of an evolutionary advantage for this attitude.  Generally speaking, women create life and men take it (such as in hunting or fighting in a war).  For many men, procreation is an act of violence that results in new life being created in a woman.

    Misogyny is used in the visceral Republican’s family and male social life as a reverse role model and a motivational tool.  It is used as a reverse role model by depicting girls as having negative attributes and advising boys to not be like girls, such as you big pussy and you run like a girl.  It is used as a motivational tool in a similar way, such as fight like a man and boys don’t cry.

    Misogyny is often a love-hate relationship because you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.  This creates the interesting situation of these men being intermixed with the people they hate, so they must sometimes disguise their hatred by being politically correct.  The term politically correct apparently comes from authoritarian governments where it is illegal to speak against the government--thus, anything politically correct is the official government line and is safe to say.  Since the US is not authoritarian, the use of the phrase politically correct in reference to US issues does not apply in the same way.  This phrase was briefly used humorously and is now a pejorative.  It basically means, I could be polite, but instead I’m going to be hateful and call it "political correctness."

    Republican leaders take advantage of misogyny by such things as voting against the fair pay act for women, blaming women for rapes, legislating against abortions, reducing Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) funding, and reducing funding for women’s health issues.  Each of these issues can be rationalized, but as a group they cater to the misogyny of visceral Republicans.  The GOP has some women leaders, but this does not translate into support for women, because the women GOP leaders as a group take positions, like those above, that feed misogyny to their visceral followers.  Also, an occasional overture to women, or isolated support, does not override the GOP’s chronic misogyny.

    To be politically correct in this situation is to pretend to respect women in a way that really communicates your hatred, such as something like, to be politically correct, it was all the guy’s fault, but we all know that really she was inviting trouble with those tight pants.  This statement also indicates revulsion for the political correctness of pretending to not be misogynistic.

    2. Homophobia.  Hatred (fear) of gays, with the main topic of discussion often being the dislike or making fun of other people and their gay-like behavior.  In discussions about gay men, it often involves men who were in sexual situations involving other men--for example, someone who rents a porno movie and finds out at home that it is gay porno.  For discussions about gay women, it often involves the labeling of dyke to a woman who is perceived as being unfriendly towards men.  The naive evolutionary advantage of homophobia is that homosexual activity does not reproduce (although a percentage of gays in a community arguable does have an evolutionary advantage).

    Homophobia is used in the visceral Republican’s family and social life as a reverse role model and motivational tool.  It is used as a reverse role model for such things as to teach boys not to dress frivolously, such as in bright or pastel colors, or not to act too prim.  It is used as a motivational tool in such ways as guiding behavior around other men, such as in a public restroom:  don’t look below the waist.

    Although homophobia sometimes results in violence, in many cases the homophobes tolerate friends known to be gay so long as the gays do not act out--kind of like tolerating women (and gays) so long as the women (and gays) forfeit any attempts at equal privilege.

    Republican leaders take advantage of homophobia by copping machismo attitudes in ads and government with such things as being tough on crime, belittling liberals, standing up to other nations, and supporting gun possession.  GOP Leaders often have gay family members and gays on their staffs, so it is not a matter of actually being against gays, but rather just having the appearance of being against gays.  A visceral Republican voter may admit that Republican policies hurt him financially, but he will still vote Republican because at least the Republican candidate hates qu****.

    To be politically correct in this situation is to act civil in public situations, but to harass the gays when out of public view.

    3. Racism.  Hatred (belief in inferiority) of people with other physical characteristics.  There is actually no such thing as race.  Humans are a single species and our physical differences vary on sliding scales:  we are not black or white but smooth variations of a large variety of shades.  Racism could apply to eye color or hair color as well as skin color, a seemingly arbitrary criteria.

    Racism appears to have evolutionary origins having to do with fear of outsiders.  There is evidence that this goes at least as far back as monkeys.  In ancient times, contact with outsiders was a rarer occurrence and fear of outsiders was probably a defense mechanism.  In more recent times, as contact with outsiders has become more common, fear of outsiders has become a detriment.  This is apparent with the ongoing conflicts between Jews and others, Adolf Hitler’s blonde haired blue eyed Aryans and others, eugenics, and racial conflicts in the US.

    Scientific research on racism has modest evidence that outsiders trigger a fear response for some people in the amygdala.  A sample study is here.  This is not to say that racism is inherited (see Nature AND Nurture), but that visceral reaction appears to play a part in racism.

    Racism is used in the visceral Republican’s family and social life as a reverse role model and motivational tool.  It is used as a reverse role model as depicting others as having negative attributes and advising children not to be like the others.  Persons with dark skin, as examples, are said to be lazy and Jewish people are said to be stingy.  Racism is used as a motivational tool in a similar way, such as get a job so that you don’t become a welfare queen; or slow down, you’re sweating like a n*****.

    Racism appears to be less prevalent or non-existent in situations where young children of various skin colors co-mingle, probably because of the lack of outsider status between the children.  This leads many people to claim that racism is taught and not a natural occurrence.  More likely, it is the dislike of outsiders that is natural, and dislike of skin color is influenced by whether other-skin-colored people are considered to be outsiders or not, although surely an environment where types of people are demeaned has an effect.

    Republican leaders take advantage of racism by, for example, supporting Southern and rural culture, taking stands against welfare queens, and making voting more difficult for persons with darker skin.  The Republican Party has some persons of darker skin, but these persons typically take stronger stances against other persons of darker skin, so having a person of darker skin is not the same as supporting persons of darker skin.

    To be politically correct in this situation is to call a spade a spade.  Spade in this idiom apparently originally referred to a type of shovel and meant linguistically to use simple and direct language.  In racial terms though, it apparently refers to the ace of spades as in black as the ace of spades.  It is what a racial person would consider to be a polite way (politically correct) of saying call a n***** a n*****.  Ironically, the ace of spades is traditionally seen as the highest card in a deck.

Commonalities between the Three Hatreds

    Where is the hatred against liberals?  Liberals are not included in this list because the hatred of liberalism is not visceral--it requires some thought.  In the case of women, it is usually fairly obvious when you see a woman.  With gays, it is not so much when you see a gay (how would you know offhand who someone is having sex with?), but when you see someone acting gay--but it is still a fairly obvious situation.  Dark skin is also fairly obvious.  But liberalism?  Not obvious.  You can’t have a knee-jerk reaction to something that is not readily apparent.  Maybe you can pick out a guy with long hair and assume he is liberal (not all are), but in a crowd it is normally impossible by sight to pick out the liberals from the conservatives.  With the three visceral hatreds, however, by picking out the women, gays, and persons of dark skin, you are statistically bringing into focus the liberals.

    Abraham Maslow’s self-actualization for a visceral Republican means the freedom to put down women, gays, and persons of dark skin as one is naturally wont to do.  Fighting for freedom plays naturally into this scenario by fighting women, gays, and persons of dark skin for the freedom to hate them.  Blaming the victims is natural because by hating them, I was just doing what I naturally do.  Slurs play a part in this activity by putting down the hated as does political correctness by making fun of the hatred.

    Republican leaders do not have to be misogynistic, homophobic, and/or racist themselves to take advantage of this.  All they have to do is cater to these hates in order to get the votes of the visceral voters, such as the case where a visceral working voter will vote against his own self interests because a candidate makes statements against gays.  If the Republican leaders are not really interested in misogyny, homophobia, and racism, what is it that they want?  Money.  Are they willing to pretend to be misogynistic, homophobic, and racist in order to win elections and get more money?  Yes.

    Republicans have twisted religious beliefs into supporting these hatreds:  Women should be submissive!  God hates gays!  And, somehow, that religion supports slavery.  These hatreds incorporate bullying as a political strategy:  bullying women, gays, and persons of darker skin.  The visceral Republicans are encouraged to intimidate people in these groups because it comes natural, God says so, and they are encouraged to by their Republican leaders, creating an aura of status quo privilege for homophobic, male, persons of lighter skin.

    Even though the majority of people are not Republican, the intimidation of these groups by Republicans reduces voting for non-Republicans.  It is easier for the GOP to convince a majority of male, homophobic, persons of lighter skin to vote Republican than it is to convince those people plus a majority of women, gays, and persons of darker skin, so disenfranchising the latter groups by utilizing visceral hatreds, i.e., subverting democracy, is a strategy for Republicans to win elections without majority support.

Conclusion

    Three visceral hatreds stand out after years of shift work done with Republican workers.  These three hatreds were like a magic handshake into a meditative comfort zone for them:

    Ain’t women a problem?

    Yep.

    And I hate qu****.

    Me, too!

    Not to mention them dang n******!

    Hey, we’re gonna get along just fine!

    These three hatreds are what the workers in these jobs talked about hour after hour, day after day, during business hours, evening shifts, and graveyards.  They are three passwords into the Republican inner circle where true believers can be identified.

In the GOP:
Your hates are my hates?
We can be good friends!

Suggested Comments:
What other ways do politicians use visceral hatreds to manipulate votes?

Ideas vs. IDs

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
--Eleanor Roosevelt

    Ideas should be judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identity (ID) of the person with the idea.  This relates to academic articles, bullying, political attacks, and anonymous articles like this one.  Ideas vs. IDs also ties in with Kings vs. Consent.  Other ways of paraphrasing this concept are judge the message, not the messenger; and, principles before personalities.

    Double blind peer reviewed academic articles are an example of ideas over IDs.  These articles on research which are submitted for publication are sent to peer reviewers with the authors’ names removed from the submissions, so the reviewers have to consider the intrinsic merits of the research without knowing who did the research.  The authors likewise do not know who the reviewers are and so cannot tailor their research to satisfy particular reviewers.  The result of this anonymity is that the ideas in the research are judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identities of the people involved.

    Bullying is the opposite concept.  In bullying, ideas are forced on others by intimidation regardless of the intrinsic value of the ideas.  This is obvious in schoolyard situations but also applies to other situations that fail CAWTBER, such as dictatorial governments, corporate advertisements, and religions that do not tolerate open discussions of other ideas.

    Johannes Guttenberg’s press revolutionized independent thought beginning in 1450 by allowing people to read the Bible themselves, instead of having to rely on church leaders for Biblical information, helping to fuel the Reformation.  Martin Luther assisted this process by translating the Bible from Latin to German.  Biblical ideas could then be judged by their own merits rather than only by interpretations of church leaders.  The Internet has revolutionized freedom of speech more than anything since the Guttenberg Press by allowing widely dispersed individuals to converse with each other en masse without the gatekeeping of mainstream media.

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, is an example of an idea being judged by ID rather than by the intrinsic merits of the idea.  The ACA is very similar to Mitt Romney’s An Act Providing Access to Affordable Quality, Accountable Health Care, commonly called Romneycare.  So basically, both major political parties support the same idea, so the idea is good, but the one from Obama is criticized by the Republicans simply because it came from Obama.  This is character assassination with no regard for the ideas of the person being assassinated.

    The same thing from another angle is the issue of pro-choice, where presumably the Democrats are on one side of the issue and the Republicans are on the other side, yet some Democrats will slip in who are anti-choice—they are elected based on the label of Democrat, yet their ideals are something else.  They are political Trojan Horses who run on the party platform but then vote differently from the platform.  This happens on a wider scale when politicians run on their characters and reputations and get votes regardless of their stands on issues.

    Bullying also occurs in the expression of Freedom of Speech when people have the attitude that actions have consequences and that people with opinions should identify themselves.  These attitudes are used to intimidate and harass people with ideas that you do not like:  rather than argue the merit of the ideas, you intimidate the person who has them.  This is often related to a twisted interpretation of the US 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech in which you can say what you want, but other people have the right to intimidate you for your ideas.  This bullying is dampened when ideas are anonymous—you can’t bully someone when you don’t know who they are.

    The bullying of bloggers seems to be fairly common on the Internet according to comments by other bloggers, with such bullying sometimes including threats of violence against bloggers with certain beliefs.  Threatening people with ideas other than your own is rather the opposite of belief in Freedom of Speech.  Apparently many of the same people who think that the 2nd Amendment gives them unrestricted access to firearms also believe that the threat of violence against people practicing the 1st Amendment is A-OK.

    The intimidation of Freedom of Speech is also accomplished by corporate leaders and government entities who prohibit, or discourage, the discussion of topics such as politics and religion at workplaces, including parking lots.  (Of course, the administrators’ views on these topics are often well known, so the result is that only the administrators have de facto Freedom of Speech.)  This carries over to the Internet where policies are often clearly stated that employees must not refer to their employers while giving opinions on the Internet, sometimes to the extent that employees are required to provide disclaimers that their comments do not represent their employers.  Even if an employee does not identify hir employer, this information can often be readily determined by search engines.  I am sure that employers exist who promote Freedom of Speech by their employees as a patriotic act, but I don’t seem to be hearing about them.  The controlling of Freedom of Speech by employers ties in with Kings vs. Consent.

    So this blog is anonymous in order to keep the discussion on ideas, and not identities.  The Internet provides opportunity for the increased freedom of the discussion of ideas by reducing the amount of control of mass communication by the corporate media, much like the printing press increased the discussion of religion by reducing the control of mass communication by the church.

    Another way of saying ideas vs. IDs is principles before personalities, a phrase commonly used in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).  The situation with AA is the extreme diversity of members from the cross section of society represented by this equal opportunity disease, from the homeless to millionaires, people who normally would not mix.  Principles before personalities helps to keep this group working together.  Name-calling would be counterproductive, kind of like killing the messenger because you do not like the message.

Conclusion

    Ideas should be judged by their intrinsic merits and not by the identity (ID) of the person with the idea.  This relates to life in general including academic articles, bullying, political attacks, and anonymous articles like this one.  The opposite of this method is to accept the ideas of kings, corporate administrators, and bullies because of who they are, regardless of the intrinsic merits of their ideas.  Other ways of paraphrasing ideas not IDs are judge the message, not the messenger; and, principles before personalities.

Freedom of speech means
It is safe to speak and write,
With no bullying.

Suggested Comments:

  Does the situation that some newspapers allow unsigned letters to the editor qualify as ideas over IDs?