The Psychology of Hate

 Dangling the Shinny Object to Manipulate Us

My pondering's of recent have been over a comment that I read from Patty Culhane where she wrote that "to stop a small child from having a tantrum, just hold up a spinning disco ball, it works every time".  Culhane further states that when she wants to describe how to easily distract someone, she says: "Look! Something shiny!"  I can imagine how well this distraction works on a small child, furthermore I see it being used in America today to manipulate adults.  Unfortunately with so many adults, the psychology of hate is being used in place of the shinny disco ball. 

Just consider these examples: 

One such individual has cleaned himself up to appear as the average straight laced dude who wears the baseball cap and is a spokesman for NRA.  He publicly decries: "I'm terrified by where Barrack Obama and his radical America hating leftist goons are leading this great country."  So many see him as a defender of the Second Amendment and our Freedom that they over look the fact that he was once a draft dodger who urinated and defecated on himself to avoid the draft.  And if that is not enough, he was known to advocate enslaving underage females as sex slaves in the lyrics through his music. 

The other example is the Duck Dynasty, which to me in reality would be considered White Trash.  Nonetheless, they are portrayed as a God fearing family that love and care for each other while speaking openly about their faith.  Oh! and their faith just happens to condone intolerance and judging others, while making excuses for them selves.  I recently saw a post on Facebook and was appalled at some of the people who are Liking and identifying with these characters--and in the real world just happen to be clean cut yuppies and nothing like the characters they are portraying. 

Yes, The Psychology of Hate is alive and useful in American society.  In the words of Nichlas Epley, "... we deny human beings their humanity.....from slavery to genocide, society has shown a terrifying ability to disregard the person-hood of others.”

  So the shinny object is dangled to the people using the psychology of hate and many are just too foolish or naive to recognize that they are being used or manipulated for an ulterior agenda.