Update 7 on the Fear-Disgust-Hate project

Background on “Fear” and “Disgust” as well as first drafts of short-text-responses to counter these feelings, are described in Update 1, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Update 5 and Update 6.

Hate is not a primary emotion, but a manifested result of one, – like disgust and fear, – usually directed towards some version of a scape goat.

As such, counteracting hate is treating a symptom rather than the cause. This project consequently will target the underlying emotions, but it is still important to understand a little about hate as a concept.

Defined by wikipedia, “hate” (hatred) is defined as an intense negative emotional response.

Unregulated emotions interrupts the ability to process information and challenges our thinking abilities (like rationality, logical reasoning etc.).

Izzeldin Abuelaisha and Neil Aryab further defines hate as a public health issue since the effects of hatred can include a tendency to be violent, often to the extreme and often involves the dehumanization of the other, which serves as a gateway through which moral barriers can be removed and violence can be perpetrated. Hatred then, might be seen as a prime and extreme, enabler of direct, structural and cultural violence (ref 1).

In their paper they also describe some primary hate-prevention principles [my highlighting]:

These four principles include, knowledge (to facilitate the understanding of the health consequences of hatred), practical
(to develop emotional self-awareness and conflict resolution skills), critical thinking (to create immunity and protection from provocative hate speech, superstition, and the influence of charismatic leaders or groupthink that promotes
rapid spread of hatred), and moral (to foster an understanding of mutual respect and human rights).

The stronger we feel the more convinced we become that our thoughts are true. The goal must therefore be to down-regulate the intensity of the emotional response so that the logical reasoning and rationality that was blocked by emotions, is given a chance to act on our thinking abilities. In theory, with those abilities restored, the access to primary prevention principles like these, become unrestricted.

I will try to achieve this down-regulation using short-text-responses to disgust and fear (found in Update 3 and Update 6), hoping that the end result is the amelioration of hate.

Next, then is to test these short-text-responses on some profoundly hateful statements that seem to be triggered by disgust and hate, and see what happens.