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?

The 1% Doctrine

If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response.  –Dick Cheney, November, 2001

    The 1% Doctrine, also called the Cheney Doctrine, is a standard of action implemented by the U.S. since 9/11.  Pakistani scientists are mentioned in the quote, but the issue involves much more than them.  The quote and the name are from the book The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind from 2006.  The Doctrine has expanded to other situations, the reasoning behind it is a fallacy, Cheney had ulterior motives for applying the doctrine in limited cases, it fails CAWTBER , and it should be discontinued.

    The Cheney Doctrine released George W. Bush from his area of greatest weakness—the analytical abilities so prized in the U.S.’s professional class--and freed his decision making to rely on impulse and improvisation, according to the book.  This ties in with negative instinctual behavior as described in Instinct vs. Intellect.  In addition to naming the doctrine, the book also relates historical events of the time leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the election of 2004.

    Although once #3 on the New York Times bestseller list, the book is currently on sale new at Amazon for $0.49 indicating that the book arguably has little current value, but the Doctrine should be addressed because it is apparently still in widespread effect.  A New York Times review of the book, Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars (June 20, 2006), was harsh on the Bush Administration saying that the doctrine was simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.  The instant discussion is not another book review and is about the Doctrine, not the book.

    While some action was taken at first concerning the Pakistani scientists, they were later freed.  (The back-story on the scientists is here (2004).)  The impetus from the 1% Doctrine was used in invading Iraq where lame evidence on weapons of mass destruction was used to justify a war that has cost more lives and damage than the original 9/11 attack.  We are still paying the price of the invasion of Iraq and the doctrine is being used in other scenarios.

Zimmerman’s 1% Solution

    By projection, in George Zimmerman’s mind, if there was even a 1% chance that Trayvon Martin was a major threat, then Zimmerman was justified in confronting Martin.  The abject failures of Cheney’s reasoning in invading Iraq, and Zimmerman’s reasoning in provoking Martin discount the 1% Doctrine.  As explained in Dick and Trayvon … Connect the Dots (July 5, 2013), by Judy Balaban, the reasoning behind the 1% Doctrine has evolved into Your Home is Your Castle and Stand Your Ground laws.  This reasoning has also slipped into other areas such as over arming police agencies and over searching airline passengers.  Balaban wrote, it absolved us, as a nation, from the responsibility of having to retreat or prove anything in order to justify using force.

    Balaban said, much like an armed George Zimmerman riding around to look for a problem in Sanford on the night he shot Trayvon Martin, the Bush administration looked around the Middle East for a problem, decided it had found one in Iraq where nobody had attacked us and where there was no hard evidence that anyone was planning to, and shaped its suspicions into a rationale for invading Baghdad.

    In similar current issues, as examples, if there is even a 1% chance that a 95-year-old man who uses a walker might endanger the lives of police, then the 95-year-old should be tasered to death for refusing medical attention.  If there is even a 1% chance that a 3-year-old handicapped child might be a terrorist, then he should be pulled out of an airline search line and confronted.  These trigger happy actions are the result of failures in policy.

The Doctrine is a Fallacy

    The idea that the 1% Doctrine is a good way to make decisions is a fallacy.  Decision Theory examines methods of decision making and you can get an idea of the complexity of this study here.  Some methods of making decisions under uncertainty are the law of large numbers, the axiomatic approach, the Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem, and Bayes probability.  The null hypothesis in statistics is a standardized method which is often based on a 95% probability.  The 1% Doctrine is a silver bullet that seeks to explain away complex procedures such as these with a simple solution—a lazy way for an administrator to make what appears to be an effective decision.  (The silver bullet is a magic bullet used to kill werewolves and used by the Lone Ranger for trick shots.)

    The 1% Doctrine is similar to something in Decision Theory called the Precautionary Principle.  The idea is that events with low probability and high impact deserve special attention.  The Precautionary Principle is an argument associated with global warming:  even if the probability is low, the impact would be so high that we should take extreme action now to prevent it.  The Republicans obviously have been denying global warming and so have been discounting the Precautionary Principle.  But phrasing it a different way, if there is even a 1% chance of global warming then we should take extreme measures to prevent it.  Apply this to Saudi Arabia:  given that 15 of the 19 attackers from 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, if there is even a 1% chance that Saudi Arabia was involved in 9/11, then we should attack Saudi Arabia.  These examples demonstrate that Cheney does not really believe the 1% Doctrine himself or else he would apply it to global warming and Saudi Arabia as well as to invading Iraq.

    The uneven application of the doctrine can be seen in other areas.  Cheney did not apply it to the threat prior to 9/11 or else more actions would have been taken to prevent 9/11:  if there is even a 1% chance that airplanes can be hijacked and flown into buildings, etc.  Consider chewing gum and throat cancer.  Presuming that 1% or more of throat cancer victims chew gum, if there is even a 1% chance that chewing gum causes throat cancer, then chewing gum should be outlawed.  (This is not saying that chewing gum should actually be outlawed but rather is a demonstration that the doctrine is flawed.)

    The issue in this discussion is not so much whether we should go to war, global warming is real, or chewing gum causes throat cancer, but whether the 1% Doctrine is a valid method of making decisions--and it is not.  As more evidence, is the cut off strictly at 1.00% or could it be, say, 0.5%?  What if the odds are 0.99%?  Is 0.99% close enough to 1%?  The answer is that the odds in these situations are not known to that accuracy, making the 1% Doctrine not based on 1%, at all, but rather based on the idea of low probability:  if somebody has a belief, justified or not, that there is any chance, then action should be taken, which brings us to irrationality and paranoia (see next paragraph).  But the doctrine is not really just based on low probability or else it would also be applied to global warming, invading Saudi Arabia, and outlawing chewing gum.  The doctrine is based on low probability and an ulterior motive to already take action on some issue.

    The idea to take action based on any belief, however small and not necessarily justified, plays on paranoia.  Fear, as an instinct, can have some legitimate benefits but can also work against us in modern times.  Fear can be detrimental as an unbridled instinct and can be used to manipulate people by corporate leaders and politicians (see Instinct vs. Intellect).  Paranoia is irrational fear.  Lately, paranoia is joked about as being overcautious in a positive way:  if there is even a miniscule chance that someone is going to attack you—oh, wait, that is the 1% Doctrine!  It is paranoia as policy!  The problem with paranoia as a way of living is that if you irrationally treat people as enemies, then they do in fact tend to turn against you—in a way it is a self-fulfilling policy.

    The 1% Doctrine creates more risk than it resolves resulting in a worse case scenario than before.  If you have a 1% probability that someone is plotting against you, then you have a 99% probability that they are not plotting against you.  If you attack them, this makes you the aggressor, not them, and increases the likelihood that they are going to attack you back, so the probability that they are going to attack you has just increased from what it was before, 1%, to something higher.  You just made the situation worse!

    The idea that the 1% Doctrine is a good way to make decisions is a fallacy.  Decision Theory has formal methods of analyzing decisions and the 1% Doctrine is not a true silver bullet answer.  The 1% Doctrine is another label for the Precautionary Principle used in analyzing global warming decisions.  The Republicans only use the 1% Doctrine for actions that they already want to take and they do not apply the doctrine evenly with other issues.  The 1% Doctrine results in irrational decisions, such as outlawing chewing gum because it might cause throat cancer, and promotes paranoia as policy.  The 1% Doctrine makes situations worse by creating more risk than what existed before.

Ulterior Motives

    Given that Cheney selectively used the 1% Doctrine (for invading Iraq and not for global warming, for example), what were his other motives for starting the Iraq war?  The answer is easy, money:

• Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War
• Dick Cheney: War Profiteer
• War Profiteers How Dick Cheney lined his pockets
• Cashing In - Fortune In Profits Await Bush Circle After Iraq War
• How Bush & Cheney benefit from Iraq War
• Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
• The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers
• Contractors Reap $138 Billion from Iraq War, Cheney’s Halliburton #1 with $39.5 Billion
• Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War
• Who Profits from War?

    Of course, some people will say the money had nothing to do with it, or that he deserved the money because he worked hard for it.  Probably some people believe that this is how capitalism/democracy is supposed to work anyway:  get government influence in order to help yourself make money.

A CAWTBER Fail

    The 1% Doctrine fails CAWTBER because it is far on the fail end of the sliding scale.  The doctrine has a 99% chance of bumping elbows and thus is a fail.

Discontinue this Doctrine

    To overcome this irrational doctrine, use reasoning like that used in Instinct vs. Intellect:  Even though I am afraid of another culture and even though my government is using this fear to persuade me that it is ok for the government to spend billions of dollars on a new war (instead of infrastructure, education, owed retirements, etc.), I have to accept the reasoning that a 1% probability of being correct actually increases risk instead of reducing risk, and that the corporate leaders are making huge profits by manipulating my fears.  The politicians are also manipulating my fear for their own gains.  Therefore, I do not support the 1% Doctrine.

Conclusion

    The 1% Doctrine is a trigger happy standard of action used by the U.S. since 9/11 to pretend to justify military force in pre-determined cases.  Since you can suspect anyone of doing anything, the 1% Doctrine can be used to justify whatever you want.  The arbitrary use of the 1% Doctrine (for invading Iraq, but not for global warming, for example) demonstrates this.  The profitability of using the Doctrine for some people demonstrates an ulterior motive for this arbitrary use.  The extended use of the Doctrine for such things as stand-your-ground laws and airport searches turns would-be victims into aggressors and fails CAWTBER.

1% Doctrine:
A trigger happy blunder
That increases risk.

Suggested Comments:

  Should a percentage cutoff even be used?  If so, what should it be?  99%?  95%?  50%?  Something else?

Instinct vs. Intellect

I may make you feel, but I can’t make you think.  Jethro Tull

    Even with our human intellect, we are still influenced by instinct.  Emotions, cravings, and gut feelings are methods used by our DNA and genes to try to control our actions.  Corporations, the news media, and politicians can manipulate these same methods, as well, to influence our behavior.  The freedom to obey our instincts appears to be a political theme.

Instinct is not always good

    We tend to crave sugar because evolutionarily it has been in short supply we needed the calories and energy.  We still tend to crave sugar even when sugar is plentiful.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct by loading up our food with sugar and by selling us products with, for example, high fructose corn syrup, which we crave like sugar, but which we purchase instead of sugar in efforts to lose weight.  One result is that we eat too much sugar, gain weight, and get diabetes.  Ideally, when we crave sugar, we should rationalize that this is just our instinct talking to us and ignore it.  Politicians take advantage of this with big gulp sodas.  Politicians on one side legislate against big gulp sodas for health reasons.  Politicians on another side claim that restricting the sale of big gulp sodas violates our freedoms.  Probably neither side really cares about our health nor our freedoms, but rather the politicians are creating a drama side show to distract from other issues.

    We tend to crave sex because evolutionarily population size has been difficult to maintain and grow.  We still tend to crave sex even though now we are overpopulated.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct for sex by bombarding us with advertisements for products that make us look sexy.  One result is that we are frequently thinking about sex when we should probably be concentrating on other things.  Ideally, when we are thinking about sex, we should rationalize that this is just our instinct talking to us and ignore it.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct with a myriad of sexual issues such as Viagra, birth control, abortion, gay rights, marriage, and family sizes in relation to income taxes.  Emotions in the forms of infatuation, love, jealousy, and rape culture play a part in our instincts influencing procreation.

    Fear, an emotion, is evolutionarily a strong and fast way to react to emergency situations.  We still respond strongly to fear even though we can use our reasoning skills to survive and even though we live in much safer environments than we used to.  Corporate leaders take advantage of the fear instinct to sell guns.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct to promote wars and instigate support for policy.  Induced fear of skin color is an especially pernicious use of emotions for political ends.

    We tend to believe in a higher power apparently because following the leader was an evolutionary survival tactic.  We still as a society have strong faith even though the human intellect allows critical analysis of beliefs.  Corporate leaders take advantage of this instinct by reducing health insurance coverage for employees and saying that it is because of religion.  Politicians take advantage of this instinct by religiously repressing women for political gain.

Devolving back to instinct

    Oddly, as a society, we seem to be moving backwards towards following instincts rather than overcoming instincts with intellect.  Through advertising, corporate leaders do a good job of convincing us to smoke, drink, eat too much sugar, burn too much gasoline, buy too many guns, use tanning booths, and other unhealthy things that hurt ourselves but help corporate profits.  The politicians then use emotions to turn the logic of this around so that any regulation to discourage people from spending money to hurt themselves is called a violation of their freedoms.  I have a freedom to help cigarette company profits by giving myself emphysema.  I have a freedom to help corporate agriculture profits by eating too much sugar, becoming overweight, getting diabetes, etc.  I also have the freedom to see that the corporations and politicians are manipulating my emotions to take my money and make me ill in the process.

    We are still paying in a big way for George Bush’s gut instincts in world affairs while he was President.

Using intellect to examine instinct

    Instinct is not always bad, but it needs to be examined when it does harm.  While self-actualization has been considered to be a desirable objective, this goal changes when we consider that some aspects of our self are not so desirable:  for example, desiring self-actualization so that we can eat all of the sugar that we want, smoke lots of cigarettes, have sex with lots of people, and watch war updates on television.

    It is a problem that it is easier to cater to instincts to smoke, eat sugar, and go to war, than it is to rise above these instincts and reason things out with our intellects.  We should be able to use these thought processes:

• Even though I have a strong natural desire to smoke cigarettes and even though I like the cigarette advertisements, I have to accept the reasoning that when I buy cigarettes it helps the profits of corporate leaders and injures my health.  Therefore, I need to take actions to stop smoking.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to eat sweet things and I like the sugar high from doing so, I have to accept the reasoning that when I buy sweet things, it helps the profits of corporate leaders and injures my health.  Therefore, I need to take actions to stop smoking.
• Even though I am afraid of other world cultures and I feel good about the idea of striking out against them in a war, I have to accept the reasoning that the gut instinct of a president is not enough of a reason for doing so and that the long term societal economic effects of doing so are detrimental, even though some corporate leaders will benefit monetarily hugely by war.  Therefore, I need to not support a war in this case.
• Even though I love the feeling of having and firing guns and I have a right to them from the Second Amendment, I have to accept the reasoning that guns are sold to me at great profit to corporate leaders and guns endanger my family and friends.  Therefore, I need to realize that indiscriminately stocking up on guns is not necessarily to my benefit.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to drive a big car and feel the power and safety of a large engine, I have to accept the reasoning that when I burn large amounts of gasoline, it is for the benefit of the profits of corporate leaders and it is detrimental to the environment, jeopardizing our future health and safety.  Therefore, I need to take actions to reduce the amount of gasoline that I am burning.
• Even though I have a strong natural desire to look sexy, I have to realize that a lot of this desire comes from a barrage of advertisements from corporate advertisers seeking to make money from my desire to be attractive.  This situation can also be exploited by politicians with other motives.  Therefore, I need to keep my sexual desires in proper perspective with other issues.
• Even though I feel good sun bathing and using tanning booths and I like the effect of brown skin, I have to realize that tanning is encouraged by corporate leaders for their own profits and is dangerous to my skin.  Therefore, I should reduce this activity even though it feels good.

    A pattern exists in these descriptions.  A strong natural desire, an instinct, exists to do something which after thought is not really in our best interests in modern society to do.  Corporate leaders take advantage of these desires to make profits on us even though the results are unhealthy for us.  Some politicians take further advantage of these situations for their own interests.  When attempts are made to regulate any of these activities then we cry that our freedoms are being violated.  Then, we can be further manipulated to spend our money and react in ways that are detrimental to us.

    Intuition, by the way, is not the same as instinct.  Intuition is an educated guess based on knowledge and experience.  An example of intuition is guessing that a mathematical proof can be obtained.  The intuition shows the way and provides motivation.  However, the details of working out the proof are still accomplished.  Also, Star Wars was a good movie, but let the force be with you falls under instinct, not intellect.

    The corporate media’s role in this discussion is to make a profit by selling advertisements.  The higher the readership, the more ads sold.  The more controversy, the higher the readership, and the more advertisements sold.  The controversy has to be an acceptable kind of controversy, though, so that the controversy does not upset too much the people buying the advertisements.  The types of issues in this document have been acceptable controversies primarily because they are made up.  It is well known that eating too much sugar can cause weight gain and other health problems, and it is well known that corporate leaders put too much sugar in food in order to help sell the food.  The corporate media sets this up as a false controversy pretending that somehow this might be ok, as though the scales of justice are somehow closely balanced on this issue.  This is apparently enough of a justification for the victims, who are predisposed by nature to eat too much sugar, to continue eating the sugar packed food and to blame others for interfering with their gorging.

    Incidentally, some of the issues discussed in this document are CAWTBER fails:  banning big gulps, legislating against women for religious reasons, and going to war for lame reasons.  It is ok if people want to fall for advertisements to overeat, smoke cigarettes, buy too many guns, and basically throw away their money to their own detriment, and call it freedom to do so, but when these people blame another political party for these failures, and influence public policy because of their misguided opinions, it is a fail.

Conclusion

    Even with our human intellect, we are manipulated by our instinctual desires.  Corporations, the news media, and politicians manipulate our emotions to influence us to spend money for their gain and to make political decisions in their favor.  When others call this out, we claim that our freedoms are being violated, allowing us to be further manipulated.  We should be able to recognize this and instead use our intellect to derive better decisions.

Some instincts hurt now,
Others benefit from this.
Let’s think this out more.

Suggested Comments:

What are other instincts that were beneficial in the past but are detrimental now?