Cain's Curse: How Violence Shapes the World (Part 2)

A racist political poster from 1866.

NOTE: If you haven't read Part 1, I suggest you do so first.




Why does a man shoot a church full of worshippers? Why does society tolerate the enslavement of a population for centuries? Why do good men die fighting wars they never asked for? Why does a cop gun down a teenager in the street? Why does a man stab a woman for wearing a scarf? 

Looking back into the past, one is convinced that for as long as humans have prospered, we have found innumerable ways to devour one another. Being a curious species, we invented the art of categorisation. One could say the success of mankind lies solely in the art of naming things. As toddlers, we are taught to assign names to the things we come across. This is a fork. That is a spoon. A sparrow is not a crow. A cow is not a horse. And so on. Language borrowed from our elders and passed on, faithfully. Until we do the same to ourselves.

Once we have done that, we have laid the foundation of macro-aggression: 'Us versus them'. It might seem harmless at first. (Jack is white, Tom is black. Brian is a Christian, Ruqayyah is a Muslim. Sam is thin, Rob is fat.) It is only natural to do so. So, we keep on adding labels. Layer upon layer. (Jim is straight, Elly's gay. Dan's a capitalist, Jen's a communist. Kim is rich, Anne is poor.) To the point where labels are all that remain. We reduce a person to the labels we assign them, stripping them of everything they ever were or hoped to be. The more labels we have, the more we distance ourselves from what we share: being human. 

But all that is not enough. A person could realise and acknowledge the sheer diversity of lives that surround us without surrendering themselves entirely to an 'anti-them' campaign. What then, sows the seeds of putrid hatred among our hearts? A seed so vile, it sprouts forth the most profane and repulsive ideologies. One would claim that hatred is to blame, but I choose to denounce that. Instead, I propose another explanation for the origin of organised aggression.

For centuries, the sole aim of mankind has been to find a reason for its being. Again and again, fumbling through our ignorance, we have stretched our arms into the darkness, hoping for something to pull us out and into the light (Some people choose to believe there is a light. I choose to believe there is no light at all, but that's for another day). Something to give us what we crave the most. A raison d'être. There have been those who have spent their lives shaking the tree of knowledge, longing for the fruit of redemption that never falls into their laps. And then, there have been those who believe they have discovered it. The ultimate truth. For some, it is God's word. For some, a man. For some, a woman. For some, their country. And then, for some: themselves. 

Such a leap of faith is no mean feat. It takes an ounce of courage and a grinding conviction for the best of ideas to survive. But once our hands have clasped onto something, exhausted and relieved, we turn ourselves to complete and utter devotion. This blind faith and selfless loyalty come at a terrible cost: the price of exclusion. We exclude those who do not subscribe to our beliefs and label them some more. The more we dwell upon this, the more transparent it becomes: All crimes against humanity are not born out of hatred (for the other), but of love (of the self). 

Like all forms of love, loving an idea takes a toll on the better angels of our nature. Looking through the reductive lenses, the world is reduced from its spectral beauty to a dull monochrome. An interplay between black and white. For this, I blame an unlikely culprit. The devil that pulls the strings of attachment; oxytocin. Like all forms of attachments, I believe our attachment to ideas of morality, race, gender, religion and equality may also be, to some extent, regulated by our brain and ultimately, by chemical messengers. 

This explains why a society could deconstruct and demonise another population, subjecting them to decades, even centuries of abuse and neglect. It is not so much 'they are evil' as it is 'we are divine'. It is not 'they deserve less', as it is 'we deserve more'. It was never 'they need to die' as much as it was 'we need to breed'. And so, we lynch and bomb, steal and slaughter, all in the name of what we hold true. This mass-scale narcissistic fugue state has eaten away at the core of almost all societies. And as long as we know how to create labels, we will inevitably feed this nameless monster that has haunted humanity forever.

Then, let us shed all labels that define us. Let us not pigeonhole each other and embrace the spectacular diversity of lives that we encounter. This is essential. This is tomorrow.

P.S. At the expense of sounding like an absolute tart, I sincerely apologise for the delay in writing this. I have been quite ill for some time and in no good shape to think or write much.