WEBVTT - Hate 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:08.200 It's springtime in Minneapolis, my hometown. The snow is melting 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:11.240 on a lot of signages on display, signs posted on 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.000 people's lawns, taped to their windows, attacked to their doors, 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:16.919 and one of the most popular reads, hate has no 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.120 home here. Maybe you've seen that sign too. There's an 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.720 online map full of pins where they've been spotted, from 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.720 South Korea to Somalia. That sign campaign, started in two 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.920 thousand seventeen by a group of neighbors in Chicago, means 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.839 to resist bigotry and to extend kindness to people on 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.760 the margins of our society, and the spirit of the 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:40.000 sign is unimpeachable. But the literalist in me wonders what 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.760 that phrase really means, Like do the people who live 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.160 in those houses permit themselves to hate a concept like bigotry? 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.720 Late at night over drinks with friends, would they admit 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.320 to hating extremists of the opposing party? Are we allowed 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:00.760 to hate hate groups? This is deeply human The show 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.400 about why you do what you do I'm Dessa host 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.800 and fellow human being often overwhelmed by the victual and 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.840 violence on the news and in the social feeds. So 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.880 the question to jure is how does hurt or anger 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.760 metastasize into hatred? Why do we hate one another? And 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.440 how can we stop? Also, even though the topic is 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.640 necessarily heavy, I promise this isn't a lay face down 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:27.560 on the carpet, because why even try any more kind 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.360 of episode? Even the dark stuff needs a little light. 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.200 When did kids start saying I hate you? Probably those 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.399 words would come out either just before or just after 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.240 three years old. That is Emma Carlson who goes by 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.479 M she's a clinical therapist who works with kids and adolescence. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.360 The word hate may come out because they don't have 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.680 any other language for it. Their vocabulary is so limited. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.560 You have a four year old, I do? Have you 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.160 heard it? Oh? Yes? She was very, very ticked off 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.080 that I wouldn't let her jump off of her bed 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.080 onto the floor she was living. You know, my sweet, kind, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.320 empathic little person just became this ball of rage that 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.320 would cry at the drop of a hat and would 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.640 throw a tantrum over what I would consider next to nothing, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.600 Such big emotions coming out of this tiny, tiny body, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.800 and she would go I hate you, And then like 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.920 does the clinical part of you know, like, ah, this 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.600 is just simply, you know, a child struggling with verbal 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.200 skills to express frustration. Absolutely, and like my head notes that, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.920 but my heart was breaking. Everything that I had, you know, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.560 thought I had dealt with about my relationship with my 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:54.440 mom just became completely unearthed. And it was the catastrophic 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.080 thinking of, Okay, she hates me. Now it is just 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.280 going to get worse. The thing is, M does hate 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.680 her own mom, or at least she did for a 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.240 big part of her life, and so hearing that word 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.880 from her daughter delivered more than the standard jolt of pain. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:13.560 We'll come back to M and her trials with her 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:19.520 own mom, but let's switch gears for a minute. Most 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.520 of us, if we're lucky, don't feel hatred towards members 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.320 of our immediate family. The place we might be most 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.880 likely to encounter hatred his online, and you might be thinking, well, 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.400 on social media, hate's gonna hate. That's just part of 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.840 the deal. But global agencies are taking it seriously. The 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.760 United Nations called for a regulation of hate speech on 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:46.880 social media, as the recipient hate online feels like bedbugs 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.600 of the mind, and when you are not around them, 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.240 you kind of still feel them crawling in your head. 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.000 That's Dylan Marrin, who I met as an actor. He's 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.800 tall and slim, thoughtful on a goofy with a signature 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.880 flop of dark curls. And in the years since we met, 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.320 he's become known as a cultural critic, particularly for a 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.920 series of online videos that championed progressive causes so GLBT rights, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.840 media representation, feminism, and some of his stuff has gone viral, 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:24.000 like viral, viral viral. People who say it doesn't exist 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:29.560 are full of today. I'm on boxing, police brutality, the 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.799 two biggest videos. I think we're like fifteen twenty million. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.279 The higher his star rows, the spici or the comments 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.520 section got, people who disagreed with the ideas in Dylan's 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.160 videos started writing some really, really foul stuff about him online. 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.359 He created a file on his computer called the hate 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:55.960 folder where he keeps screenshots. Let's see, uh, you are 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:01.160 cancer and another person said, please decapitate yourself. I remember 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.880 one person wrote that they wanted to hear the sound 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.599 of my septum crushing under their fist. Was there some 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.000 part of you that celebrated the haters because it meant 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:12.800 that you were touching a nerve, or that you're doing 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.880 something important. Oh my god. Yeah. The first time that 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.600 I started getting it, I was like, oh my god, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.960 like I I can't believe like I matter enough to 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.839 be hated. If you're going to speak truth to power, 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.880 you gotta brace for blowback. And for a second it 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.160 was easy to ride pretty high on that buzz of righteousness. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.280 Both of these things are true at the same time, right, 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:44.760 it is incredibly psychologically damaging, and also I felt that 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.280 they were proof of my power. You are just like 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.680 I am, the king of the world. Over time, Dylan 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.360 started to believe that, in an important way, social platforms 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.159 were bringing out the very worst people people, including himself. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.640 The most negative thing you can write, which is also 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.960 confusingly and dangerously sometimes the funniest thing that you can write, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.240 that is easiest to upvote, because hyperbole and intensity is 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:19.200 what cuts through online. Dylan recently wrote a book about 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.320 his experience, and I read it on a plane, nodding 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.400 athletically for much of the ride. As an indie musician, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:27.760 I spend a lot of my time online more than 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.520 I would like, promoting tours or albums, and I've seen 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.280 how a clever diss rises like a hot air balloon. 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.960 Over more nuanced perspectives. And I too have screenshot at 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.839 hateful messages where people question my gender or call me 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.800 names you can't say on the radio, and I fixated 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.000 on those words. I've lost sleep more of them. I've 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.760 carried mace, afraid somebody might bring that aggression to the 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.240 world outside the screen. And the way that my friends 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.080 tried to comfort me sounds a lot like the way 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.279 that Dylan's friends tried to comfort him. Forget them. They're 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.640 just sad, lonely guys who live in their mother's basement. 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.440 And it's like, well, first of all, if they're sad, 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.880 I too feel sad many times. If they live in 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.160 their mother's basement, I also lived with my mom for 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.960 a long time post college. Like I get it, you know, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:22.880 like that's relatable to me. One night, Dylan started clicking 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.440 through the profile of a guy named Josh, who had 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.600 written to tell him that being gay is a sin 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.560 and also that Dylan is a moron. But sifting through 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.840 Josh's posts humanized him. For Dylan, it really is like 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:41.200 sending a hate letter and then paper clipping, you know, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.840 photos from your family reunion, a partial family tree, and 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.880 your resume as you send it. There was one post 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.720 where he talked about being alone on a Friday night. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.080 There were so many posts he made about like crying 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.000 at a movie, about feeling alone and wanting to hang 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:05.760 out with someone, and I just saw myself reflected in him. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.160 Almost on impulse, Dylan reached out to Josh, who was 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.760 a senior in high school and having a pretty horrible 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.000 time of it. I was just angry about it all. 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.480 It was just a lot of it was a build 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.000 up of all your multiple videos you made of Dylan 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.640 offered that he'd been bullied in high school too. Josh 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.360 had a lot of family and law enforcement, and a 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.480 video that Dylan had made about police brutality had pushed 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.440 a tender spot. How do you feel that people like 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:38.240 you and me can have productive conversations. I think that 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.760 if you're trying to have a conversation with someone that's 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.760 completely different than you, then take everything away that makes 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.880 us different. In the conversation was not a total kumba 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.840 yah full of tearful epiphanies, but it was a conversation, 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.200 and Josh apologized. It was a person who was like, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.760 this is who I am, and I'm really sorry that 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.600 I hurt you. Dylan went on to have lots and 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.960 lots of conversations with people who have written awful things 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.520 about him, and he just published a book about what 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.800 he's learned. It's called Conversations with People who Hate Me. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.200 That's the one I read on the plane. And his 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.640 takeaway from all these exchanges. Our tendency to write people off, 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.600 to dismiss haters as trolls. It's just fundamentally flawed. It 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.440 is this fantasy we tell ourselves that the people who 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.040 write negative things online are one type of person, and 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.720 the word troll evokes this image of this distant monster 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.000 who lives under a bridge, and we are the good 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:43.439 and noble townspeople who are tortured by this monster. As 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:47.240 Dylan writes, their entire lives are not built around tormenting 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:53.880 the villagers. On the contrary, they are fellow villagers. We're 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.880 often really eager to recognize other people as haters, but 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:01.199 real slow to name that impulse in ourselves. That's documented 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.000 in formal psychological surveys too. When asked if they hate anyone, 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.880 most people say no, but a significant number of people 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.920 say they've been subject to hate. However, that pattern doesn't 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.840 hold in communities that have been locked in long term 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.400 violent conflict. In that context, some people will announce flat 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.319 out that they just hate the other side. I served 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.840 as an officer in especially unit in the in the 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.840 Israeli Army. It's mandatory in Israel, so everyone is serving 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.480 in the army, and twenty four years ago I was 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:41.040 very very seriously injured in Lebanon in a fight with 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:46.680 Bah soldiers. I was hospitalized for for a very long time, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.679 for almost four years. Both of my hands were paralyzed 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.240 for a very long time. They weren't functioning. That is 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.920 around helper and professor of social psychology at the Hebrew 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.160 University in Jerusalem in Israel. He now studies the psychology 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.559 at play in long term intergroup conflicts like the one 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.319 that's plagued the region he was born into, the one 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.880 that's consumed generations of Palestinians and Israelis. And the questions 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.720 that have motivated his life's work are the same ones 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.520 that came to him as healing injured in a hospital bed. 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.600 You really have a lot of time to think do 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.199 we have to be in this situation? There must be 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.800 something that we can do. People don't want to keep 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.320 on hurting each other and killing each other? Why do 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.160 people hate? Ran spends his time trying to find out 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.480 what hate is, exactly how it works, and how it 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.720 might be stopped. I don't see hatred as an extreme 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.640 version of any other emotion. I don't think that hatred 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.080 is an extreme version of dislike. I don't think that 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.200 it's an extreme version of anger. Ran doesn't use the 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.760 term in the same way that we do casually, the 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.120 way we might hate lima beans or the nasal whining 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.080 of a particular up star. That stuff wouldn't qualify. If 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.800 I feel hate, I don't hate the action that this 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.920 person did. I hate the person it set. They did 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.000 something wrong, and they did it because you know this 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.960 is who they are. It's in their nature or character 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.040 or culture, and this can never be can never be changed. 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.120 You might be angry at someone for stealing from you, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.560 or you might hate them for being an irredeemable thief, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.079 and it runs work. To hate another person or group 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.280 is to perceive them as intrinsically bad or evil, a 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.280 threat to you or those you care about. Are there 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:43.080 certain personal characteristics that makes some people more prone to 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.640 hatred than other people? Definitely, people who hate are people 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.840 that cannot tolerate ambiguity or complexity, and for them it's 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.760 much much easier and in many many ways also addresses 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.880 their like psychological needs to somehow see the world as 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.800 you know, black versus why, the good versus the people. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.559 Addan has spent his adult life trying to understand hatred 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.839 and quantifiable terms, analyzing data and looking for trend lines. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.280 M the therapist we spoke to earlier, spent many years 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.280 sorting through the messiness of her own personal hate before 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.840 she started working in clinical terms. The relationship with her 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.480 mother had been difficult for a long time. M's mom 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.880 had berated her since she was little, but there was 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.040 a specific moment when all that strife jelled into something stronger. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.920 My mom had stayed home from work, which was happening 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.760 more and more frequently, and she was so hungover she 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.679 fell down on the floor of the kitchen and had 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.160 a seizure in front of me. So like, I called 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:57.240 the paramedics, and I called my dad, and and then 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.920 it just never got talked about ever again. M was 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.040 sixteen at the time of the kitchen episode. Nobody checked 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.199 up on her to make sure she was okay afterwards, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.280 and that disregard broke some last straw inside her. M 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.640 was not swept up in a tantrum. She realized that 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.800 she just really and truly hated her mother. It was 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.840 easier to put all of those feelings into just kind 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.320 of like a ball and just bury them down and 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.880 hold onto them so tightly. I was so angry. I 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.800 was so angry. M cut ties and with a very 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:37.120 sharp knife. Her mom called clearly and precarious situations struggling 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.360 with addiction and her own mental health crises. But M 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.400 was just done. When she got engaged, she decided not 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.960 to invite her mother to the wedding. I clung to 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.840 that hate sometimes. It was the only thing that kept 0:14:50.840 --> 0:15:04.200 me going. A Hatred can be effectively used as fuel, 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.080 and not just by those of us trying to traverse 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:12.000 thorny and painful personal relationships. Institutions with global influence have 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:18.480 tried to harness hate too. It was a fascinating study 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.680 that found that after World War Two, only a tiny 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.200 fraction of soldiers actually fired their guns at the enemy, 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.400 and those that did fire their guns very often intentionally 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.440 missed their targets, their human targets. So after World War Two. 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.080 When it was discovered this was the case, military leaders 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:41.440 decided to initiate psychological training programs which resulted in a 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.640 massive increase in the willingness to kill in a war setting. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.840 That is hate crime expert Matthew Williams. He's professor of 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.240 criminology at Cardiff University, and there he was describing the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.080 psychological programs employed by the U. S Military to increase 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.440 kill rates after the Second World War. The army started 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.880 using man shaped targets instead of bulls eyes and tried 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.800 dispersing responsibility for killing throughout the troops or to place 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.280 it onto an authority figure like the commanding officer. They 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.240 also aimed to recast the enemy. One side is told 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.600 that the other side is in some way subhuman. They 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:22.560 are akin to say, parasites, they are cockroaches, their vermin 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.120 for example. So if hate can cause violence, and what 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.960 causes hate, Matthew identifies what he calls accelerance, social or 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.840 psychological forces that push people to hatred. So a social 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.280 force might be, for example, a condition on economic condition 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.520 where competition is fierce because the resources are incredibly scarce. 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.480 In situations where resources are scarce in times of economic downturn. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.960 For example, we saw it in two thousand and eight 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.320 with the crash. Division grows in an environment where money 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.600 is really tight, For example, people might fight to obtain 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:00.320 resources for themselves in their community and denigrate other people 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.560 who are trying to do the same. That's a social excellerant. 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:08.000 The second type of excelerant is psychological. For example, a 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.760 trauma that's happened to a person in their lifetime. Say 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.359 they've been unemployed for a very long time, and they 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.840 feel shame, embarrassment the way their life is developed, and 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:19.879 then they're told by a political leader that it's not 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.920 their fault that they are unemployed, and in fact, it's 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.919 the fault of immigrants because they're taking all the jobs. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.000 Then all of a sudden, this psychological trauma is being 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:34.720 weaponized in a way that demonizes an outgroup. The social 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:40.600 excelerant job scarcity, compounds with the psychological excelerant humiliation, and 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.720 Matthew says that if those forces bear down hard enough, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.120 hatred is forged in the pressure, and hateful sentiment can 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.680 become hateful action. I was a victim of a hate 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.439 crime around twenty years ago when I was standing in 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.400 a gay bar in London. I lit up a cigarette 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.520 and someone asked me for a light. I offered, and 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:06.399 within seconds I was on the floor and I looked 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.520 up at my attacker and they used a homophobic slur. 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.520 Two other men were in on the assault. Queer bashing 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.000 was the name for that kind of attack. Then it 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.160 wasn't about robbery or personal conflict. It was more like sport. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.920 Matthew remembers hearing their laughter as they left. They didn't 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.800 hate him personally. Their contempt was for his general way 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.440 of life. The hate in hate crime overlaps or maybe 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:38.280 blurs into other terms like bigotry or moral disregard. After 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.280 the attack, Matthew lay on the floor, bleeding from the mouth, 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:46.000 head ringing. He's never held his partner's hand in public since. 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.360 He became obsessed with the question of his attackers motives. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.760 What could those guys have possibly gained from beating him up. 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.360 I was looking for something concrete to separate them from me. 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.000 I was looking to see that there was something maybe 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.400 you know they are so different from me because biologically speaking, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.000 they are fundamentally different. I wanted to find that, but 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.400 I didn't. The surprise for me was that We're all 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.640 capable of hatred. Given the right set of circumstances, anyone 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.480 can become the attacker. Because all my attackers were young 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.240 black men, one of my concerns was that the attack 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.400 may have changed the way I think about young black men. 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:33.880 As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people were subject 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.600 to different accelerants, and our ability to cope with them 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.800 varies two but none of us are immune to them, 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.919 and Matthew was self aware enough to guard against his 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:47.359 own experience pushing him to reactionary or retaliatory attitudes of 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.480 his own. There's an onus on all of us to 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:56.159 prevent our particular pains from calcifying into general prejudices. Without 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.359 willful intervention, hate can have a very long life span. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.360 Back to Iran, a psychologist ask Israelis today what does 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.800 it mean to be in Israel? And five out of 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.200 the first seven things they will say would be related 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.840 to Palestinians. You know, we're better to them, We're more 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.119 more than them. They want to damage or hurt us 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.840 in many ways, and we have to stick together to 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.240 cope with that situation. Would it be too much to 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.720 say that a sense of hatred that feeling hatred can 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:33.560 unite people are definitely unfortunately. I think that in many, many, 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.960 many ways, hate is the ultimate glue that brings people 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:44.159 together into groups. Probably the most powerful, extreme and also 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:49.520 mobilizing emotion is hatred. In the cartoon studio of imagination, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.520 it's easy to picture people and the grips of hate 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.240 as looming over others, victimizing the less powerful. But according 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:02.680 to Iran, those who actually experience hate understand themselves as victims, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.320 like they're on the right side of a moral battle, 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.479 defending a way of life and their virtues from an 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.639 enemy hell bent on their destruction. Given that hate is 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:18.400 so morally salient, so effective at connecting us and motivating action, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.399 how would we ever hope to quit it? Matthew the 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:28.479 criminologist says, our efforts have to start early. You cannot 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:32.400 turn off the cultural tap to prevent the information flooding 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.719 into the brain. So this is why when trying to 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:41.760 initiate anti racist policies, anti racist initiatives, this has to 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:43.560 be done at a very young age. We have to 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.119 start under the age of eleven, at least under the 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.920 age of eleven to see real differences That idea rests 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.760 on several studies of children's brains which indicate that fear 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.199 responses to black faces are learned. They don't show up 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.359 when kids are little, but they do by adolescents. But 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.680 of course we can't just wait for an improved crop 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:04.720 of ten year olds to grow up and save the world. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.840 What works to stop people from hating? So that's the 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.320 million question. I think when people hate it is driven 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.560 by a more general idea that, you know, people and 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.960 groups simply cannot change. But in his formal studies, and 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:23.879 has found that if you can convince people that change 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:26.800 is possible, not even in the context of the group 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.119 with whom they're in conflict, but like generally, that people 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.840 can evolve over time, then it's possible to make some headway. 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.479 In two thousand eleven, Science magazine published the findings of 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.239 one such study. So we talked about the fact that 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.800 in the history people change and groups change their views, 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:50.080 their attitudes, and their behavior. We managed to reduce their 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:55.600 levels of hatred towards the other group in almost and 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.240 that sort of reduction might have real consequences in the 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.840 kind of policies that people would can sit her endorsing, 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:05.639 and by that also to increase their willingness to engage 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:10.680 in actions that would you know, entail making huge compromises, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:15.160 political compromises in order to promote peace. So just by 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.679 convincing that the groups can change, we decreased hatred and 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:24.680 increase people's support for compromises. Now back to M, who 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.800 sees no promise of any compromise with her mom. But 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.000 this point in her story, she has spent years hating 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:36.080 her mother. The hallmark version of this story would involve 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.560 a reconciliation. That's not the real life of the story, 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.159 absolutely not. As M moved through her adulthood, the hate 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.600 that had at one point served as an engine became 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:51.520 an anchor. When I got married, I was like, I am, 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.000 I have to let this go. I have to let 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:58.560 it go. That's easy to say, but hard to do. 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.720 For M. That didn't mean mending fences. It just meant 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:06.879 letting go of the electrified wire feelings that I have 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:11.280 towards my mom. It's often easier to feel nothing about 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.280 her than it is to feel anything about her, so 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:15.920 I try really hard most of the time to feel 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:18.399 nothing about it. Do you think falling in love with 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.560 your husband helped to fall out of hate with your mom. Yeah, 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:26.440 I think so, And in turn it allowed me the 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:30.080 permission to fall back in love with myself. I became 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.240 a much better student at school when I stopped hating 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.920 my mom. It's probably a correlation not causation thing, but 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:41.120 I had so much more time and energy to put 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:45.680 into school, which I love. Even after everything, I do 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:50.240 have to thank my mom because without her I would 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:56.760 not be in the career that I am now. It's peace. 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.560 It's not the best of all possible pieces, or the 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:03.159 one that she designed if she were in charge, but 0:25:03.240 --> 0:25:06.560 it's peace. Even when a war ends, it doesn't mean 0:25:06.560 --> 0:25:14.120 the underlying conflicts do. The pressures of our lives, social 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:18.360 or psychological, can move us to hate one another. Binary 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:21.679 thinking that casts some groups as virtuous and others as 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:25.560 villains can make us more susceptible to hatred. When we're 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:28.840 de personalized to one another on a forum like the Internet, 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:32.440 or as a product of propaganda, it's easier to hate 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:37.320 somebody who doesn't seem fully human. Moreover, hatred might take 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:40.560