Our body doesn’t have an Organ, Hormone or Neuro-Chemical pathway that can absorb and process hate
By: K. O. Pinlac
Tags: Discrimination, Hate, Hate Speech, Racism, Elections

Our body has a standard response when it comes to an abnormal event. And that is to be “stressed”. Once the body encounters an aberration, it releases a hormone called cortisol in order to prime the body for action — basically to do everything in its power to remove the stressor. We either assume a fighting stance to get ready for combat, hoping to eliminate the threat or perhaps scare it away. Warfare against a perceived threat is the last resort, however, because the brain’s powerful computing machine usually finds it wise to just flee. Stress is a normal reaction, but to constantly trigger the release of cortisol is not. Lifestyle-related tension or strain in the modern world is not normal. We’re never designed to be always on our toes, dreadful of what is lurking behind the corners. There is so much trouble in a day, why do we need to add hate? At the end, hate is a self-sabotaging human behavior based on imagined fears fed by a warped understanding of justice. Yes, there is a link between hate and our sense of justice.

Why should we care?

Because hate is a useless emotion and a stressor easily preventable. We don’t need to hate, but it seems like we are addicted to it.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the flight or fight response system is self-limiting, so that when the perceived threat is no longer near, heart rates and cortisol levels go back to normal. But if the mind is conditioned to react to an imagined threat, then, blood pressure rates and hormone levels continue to surge, so that those who are continuously under stressed or feeling under threat, they are experiencing one or more of the following health issues:

Digestive problems

Headaches

Sleep problems

Weight gain

Memory and concentration impairment

Anxiety/Depression

Hate: extreme dislike or disgust towards a person or group of people

It is bad enough that we live in a world of uncertainty and unending transitions that leaves us exhausted and bewildered at the end of each day. We are worn out by the forced workouts, which is the need to lift heavy burdens, of the nagging need to honor commitments, and of the constant responsibility to make things happen. The expectations weighed heavy on our shoulders and we wondered what on earth were we thinking that made us sign up to enter into a relationship. Life is such a challenge that those who vowed to cherish each other even in sickness or when the bank account is poor are struggling to honor that pledge. There is no need to add hate to our frayed nerves.

Hate is an irrational feeling or mindset. Enlightened men and women can’t spare a room in their minds for entertaining such a rowdy guest. They are wise enough to realize that hate is the most unproductive emotion to have.

So why spend precious time and dispense valuable energy on something as unnatural, extreme, and useless as hate?

Hate is rooted in ideology.

Hate is a reflex action even though we were born without the capacity to hate. Hate is taught. Hate is schooled into our hearts and minds.

In the Journal of Emotion Review, researchers succinctly described the ideological basis for this emotion. They also pointed out that “haters” oftentimes feel justified and empowered to go after the object of their hatred. They published their conclusion by stating something bizarre and yet shamefully familiar :

We hate persons and groups more because of who they are, than because of what they do. Hate has the goal to eliminate its target. Hate is especially significant at the intergroup level, where it turns already devalued groups into victims of hate. When shared among group members, hate can spread fast in conflict zones where people are exposed to hate-based violence, which further feeds their hate. Hate can be reassuring and self-protective, because its message is simple and helps confirm people’s belief in a just world.

After reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf, especially the first half wherein the petite, dark-haired Aryan leader explained the basis for the Jewish Solution to the Jewish Question, two things were made clear to me. First, that hate is not in-born. Hitler was already 15 years old when he first encountered the concept of Jewishness. When he was a young man, he even rejected the ideas preached by hard core anti-Semites. It was not natural for him to hate Jews. Second, you need a constant reinforcement of specific ideas to develop an ideology of hate. Hitler loathed the notion of hurting Jews for religious reasons. He admitted that he personally detested the sharp anti-Semitic sentiments of Vienna’s local newspapers, especially the spite-laden prints of the Volksblatt. And yet, after a steady diet of ideas that he admitted to be coming from people and organizations he previously disliked, Hitler entered into a deep spiritual and moral battle.

By his own admission the struggle lasted for close to two years, to which he claimed to have emerged victorious, because reason won over sentiment. In my opinion, Hitler’s tragic fall started when he penned those words, because I believe that the word sentiment was a euphemism for conscience. When Hitler allowed reason to overrule conscience, that was the time when he was indoctrinated with hate.

The extreme edges we find in a hate-filled speech or a hate-fuelled violence are the leaves and branches, which are nothing more than the outward manifestation of what is buried deep within, while the tap root from which these branches and leaves draw sustenance is called ideology.

Hate is about people, le’t not be deceived.

When we say I hate the taste of this burger, or I hate the color of that car, these are mere expressions. But True Hate is an idea that makes a person dislike a person or group of people.

Hate being the poisonous flower emerging from a soil of toxic ideology is not difficult to prove. Nazi Germany exterminating Jews. Serbs vs. Croats. Ku Klux Klansmen lynching African Americans. Rwanda Genocide. These are just a few headlines to remind us that hate is fundamentally wrong. We can disagree. We can discuss. I can express how disappointed I am with a certain policy or with a certain belief system. But I must never permit myself to hate, which is triggered by the wholesale mis-categorization of people.

Hate as an emotion is wrong, because we don’t have the appropriate biological response to deal with it.

Grieving as an emotion is natural. Being sad is natural, and we can prove that statement by studying the endocrine glands related to that emotion. It is easy to follow and examine the hormones and the neuro-chemical pathways related to the shedding of tears when life is at the ebb of the lowest flow.

The same thing about the human emotion called happiness. Joyfulness is as natural as breathing. We know this is true. We know that mirth and the happiness that comes out unbridled in a moment of jubilation and accomplishment is good for the body and soul. We know its true even in the absence of scientific proof. Instinctively, we know. But if we apply the scientific method, we’ll find out that merriment is healing to our biological systems. In fact, the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine states in medical jargon what we knew all along, that laughter is medicine to both body and soul.

In contrast, hate is not suited to our overall biological framework.

We don’t have the “capacity” for hate, although we’re capable of hate. The emergence of hate is only made possible by the benign, and at first, seemingly harmless indoctrination from families, friends, and acquaintances. It is through these circles, and through our community that we inadvertently learn to make judgments and generalisations in order to explain our present challenges and struggles. Hitler blamed the Jews for the German people’s woes. Burma’s elite blamed the Rohingyas for imagined offenses. Elite Americans blamed blacks and Mexicans for some undefined irritations. Hate is not only unnatural; it doesn’t make sense.

If we allow hate to grow inside, we don’t have the capacity to process it, because hate comes from the external and it is not a natural emotion. Although hate is not a normal and a functional emotion like happiness and grief, its presence in our lives causes a great deal of stress. An extreme dislike or disgust for a person or people group unnecessarily triggers the body’s fight or flight mechanism. This mechanism is reserved only for emergency situations, and yet when we give room to hate and allow it to fester, we are investing in the most unproductive and self-defeating endeavor known to man.

Nelson Mandela’s chains began to fall the moment he realized the absurdity of hate.

Like him let’s begin the process towards real, community-wide, and socially transformative freedom, by first setting ourselves free of this malaise. Just like what Zat Rana said in his article: “Why You Should Be Kind to People You Hate.”