to fear is called the “fight or flight” response. That response has helped us survive the predators and other tribes that have wanted to kill us. But again, it is another loophole in our biology to be abused to turn on our aggression toward “the others,” whether in the form of vandalizing their temples or harassing them on the social media. “Desecrated Graves in the Old Jewish Section of the Cemetery, Vienna” by Scott Rettberg is licensed under CC BY 2.0 When ideologies manage to get hold of our fear circuitry, we often regress to illogical, tribal and aggressive human animals, becoming weapons ourselves – weapons that politicians use for their own agenda. Arash Javanbakht is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University. This essay originally appeared in