What can we do to help stop hate

I think it's not the most constructive way to look at the issue of hate if we separate the acts of terrorists and point to them and say "this is bad, this is where all the evil in the world lies, don't do this". It's not the single acts and single actors that are "bad", it's the whole big picture. I think it all starts from the kindergarten, when we for the first time have feelings of things not being fair, when we for the first time get bullied or ignored by others etc. We all have these kind of mini-traumas and because of them, we all carry some amount of - I don't have a better word for this - destructive potential inside us.

In a semi-healthy environment, you learn to handle your destructive potential or your destructive potential only shows up in mild things; e.g. as a pretty harmless relationship conflicts. But some people experience these feelings more than others and/or their environment enhance and brace these feelings. The areas where there are lots of conflicts between inhabitants, different religions, tribes etc. are a great example. The kids can grow up seeing their loved ones killed for no apparent reason. The feelings of injustice and inferiority are probably huge. When they're adults, they can use these feelings as a fuel and take a revenge. They might not take a revenge on the original people who caused their distress, but to whoever they now see as their "enemy".

That's also why, to my mind, it's not constructive to name single actions and actors as "the bad ones". It'll, in turn, lead us to see them as our enemy, and make us crave for revenge. We'll walk in circles. The hate doesn't stop by finding new bad guys who to hate.

And we walk in circles already, been for a long time. And I'm not sure if we can ever fully stop doing that, but we can try to calm down the circle. What should be done is probably make the environments more healthy in conflict-ridden areas. We don't want to have new children with bottomless traumas. We should also try to "heal" the people who already have those bottomless traumas. More psychological and psychiatric understanding and help is needed. No, not just meds, but true understanding.

I've been able to face my own demons via psychedelic drugs, so I know it's possible to "heal" even from very bad traumas. Of course, it doesn't mean you still don't have any destructive potential inside you, but it's much, much tamer.

It still bothers me though if we ever can truly have world peace or something, because it takes just one new Hitler or one new ISIS to cause so much new damage to so many people. We'd need some kind of bigger, collective understanding of these kind of causalities to make the new Hitlers or ISIS people to see it's not worth it. Just my 2 cents.

/r/infj Thread