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Good evening. This is
Radio Free Beszel. I
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am Alphonse. Tonight:
The Pandemic of Hate.
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"a false, treacherous and
contemptible swine: this
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was shameful Israel, the
wicked and disloyal who
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hated good and loved everything
evil, who then
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poisoned several rivers
and fountains so that
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many lost their lives;
for whoever used them
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died suddenly. Then every
Jew was destroyed,
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some hanged, others burned, some
were drowned, others beheaded."
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"under conditions like these,
there are people
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who deliberately take
sides with the enemy
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and must be treated
accordingly. In
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times of war, such
people were shot."
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"Treat them like the
plague-spreading lepers
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that they are. You want
to be put in isolation
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camps? That's where
this is headed, you
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will have deserved it,
and I'm all for it."
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The first quote I just read
was from Guillaume
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de Machaut in 1349, during
the Black Death when
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the people in the town
where he was decided
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that the Jews were responsible
for the plague,
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and murdered them. The second
quote was by Arūnas
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Valinskas, a Lithuanian
public intellectual
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and a former parliamentarian,
in September, 2021.
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The third quote was from
a reddit discussion in
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Canada, also in September
'21. The post was
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highly - extraordinarily
highly - upvoted,
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with many awards. I have
never seen hate like
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this. I've never seen our
leaders encourage us
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to divide and hate and
avoid one another, to
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blame other people for
threatening our lives.
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The closest I recall was
following 9/11 when
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there was widespread blame
of Muslims. But this
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this is much worse. And
the height of it is
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the vaccine mandates, the
vaccine passports.
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I'm vaccinated, by the
way, by choice before
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all the madness began.
But I shouldn't have
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to say that. Here's what
it's like for someone
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who isn't, a Lithuanian
man, Gluboco Lietuva,
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who joined Twitter specifically
to explain what
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it was like for him and
his wife who declined
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the vaccine passport in
his country. He says
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they've been suspended from
their jobs. They can't
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return - and they wouldn't
if they could, because
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their co-workers are sending
death threats.
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They can't get new jobs
in their fields. They
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can't even enter the
supermarkets to buy groceries
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because they're banned
without the passport.
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They have to buy food from
stalls on the street.
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They need to fix their
home but they
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can't go into the
hardware store,
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and they can't even hire someone
to do the repairs
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for them. He writes, "Despite
hardship we decided
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resistance is our moral
path. We want our kids
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some day to feel pride towards
us, not disgust.
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Freedom is fragile, and
we must defend it.
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If not us, then who?
We do not stop you
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earning a living, though
you stop us. We do
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not ban you from buying
food and clothing,
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though you ban us. We
do not hate you,
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though you hate us. We
do not banish you,
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though you banish us.
We do not wish death
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upon you, though you
wish death upon us.
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And when the time comes,
as it inevitably will,
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when you too are banished
by the ever-increasing
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arbitrary rules of the
new authoritarianism,
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we will fight for your rights
just as we fight
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now for ours. Because
we are all equal. We
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all have equal right to
exist in society."
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For me this recalls the famous
poem by Martin Niemöller:
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"First they came for
the Communists, and
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I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a
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Communist. Then they came
for the Jews, and
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I didn't speak up, because
I wasn't a Jew.
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Then they came for the
Catholics, and I
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didn't speak up, because
I was a Protestant.
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And they came for me,
and by that time
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there was no one left
to speak up for me."
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How have we come to
this? How have we
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come to a time when
we're willing to
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to to hate our fellow
citizens? And
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say that's moral?
And celebrate it?
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How have we come to the
point where we can wish
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for the deaths of our fellow
citizens? Large
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numbers of us? I've heard
hate from people I know.
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When the vaccine passport
came in where I live,
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it was only for non-essential
activities. You can
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go to the library without
one. You can go to the
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grocery store without one.
But you can't go to a
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restaurant. And I spoke to
a friend and he thought
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it was a good idea. And
I thought, oh well, you
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know, because maybe it
can keep people safer.
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But that's not what he said
- no, he said because
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then the unvaccinated will
suffer. They will be
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punished, and that will
encourage them to get the
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shot. Such hate. I didn't
even know what to say.
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There are a number
of interviews on
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YouTube with a Dutch
psychologist
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named Mattias Desmet,
D-E-S-M-E-T. If you search
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for that and his theory
about "mass formation"
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you can also find some
articles summarizing
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it. You'll see what
he has to say.
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He saw this coming before
it happened. He made
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financial decisions in late
2019 because he felt
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that the public was on
the verge of something
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like this. The pandemic
was only the excuse.
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What he explains with
his theory of mass
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formation, which is in
a sense a theory of
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how totalitarianism happens
from the bottom up, is
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that there are four conditions
that lead to people
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joining movements like
this. And these are
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familiar if you listen
to my episodes on
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totalitarianism, where
Hannah Arendt talks
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about similar things, and
with my talk about
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René Girard and scapegoats.
The first of these
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conditions is social isolation,
which has been
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increasing for a variety
of reasons in the
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1990s, and then with social
media even more,
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and now with lockdowns even
more still, to the
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point where many people have
few friends or none.
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The second, he says,
is a failure of
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sense-making, a lack
of meaning in life.
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And we see people expressing
that all the
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time. The third is free-floating
anxiety.
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Free-floating means it doesn't
have a target -
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people are just anxious,
they feel that they're
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precarious or something's
going to go wrong. And
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that's certainly the case
in the economy and the
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incredible competition,
which I've also talked
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about in previous episodes
about the information
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economy and elite
overproduction. And fourth
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and finally there's a sense
of free-floating
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aggression and anger. And
I think it's clear
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that we saw this well
before the pandemic.
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And what Desmet says
is that when all
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of these conditions
are fulfilled,
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that people are feeling
miserable
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and they want to
find a way out.
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If they're given a
target and told,
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this is the source
of your troubles,
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they may turn on that
target. And with a
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feeling of self-sacrifice,
a feeling of elation,
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of ecstasy - he says it's
almost like a hypnotic
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state where people don't
even notice the things
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that are lost. They don't
notice the costs of
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their actions. They don't
notice other harms
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that are happening in the
world, because they
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just focused on that target
that they blame for
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everything that's wrong.
And that's when they
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become capable of great
atrocities, he says.
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This parallels almost exactly
René Girard's theory
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that I talked about in Contagion
and Scapegoat,
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where the strife in society
and the distinctions
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have broken down and people
are blaming each
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other, but then all of a
sudden they turn as one
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on a single target, a group
or an individual,
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and they scapegoat and
destroy and expel
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that target. And then
harmony is restored,
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because they're all on the
same side again. Desmet
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says though that not everybody
signs up for this.
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He says that about 30 percent
join the ecstasy,
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about 30 percent are effectively
hypnotized.
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Another 40 percent go
along - they're not
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ecstatic, but they follow
the lead of the few.
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And the final 30 percent
are opposed. They see
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what's happening and they
fight against it. He
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says there's no pattern that
predicts who will be
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in this group. They come
from all walks of life,
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they come from all political
philosophical
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and religious backgrounds,
but they unite
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against the tragedy they
see unfolding before
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them. And often they too
can become targets.
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I know the people who hate
think they're justified.
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They think they're
justified because
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they think they're
right. They think
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they have the truth -
and maybe they do,
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but then the people during
the Black Death
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also thought they had the
truth when they blamed
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the Jews, and they were wrong.
Who are we to claim
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that we uniquely have
the truth? Those who
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are most confident are
often most in error.
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But even if they do have
the truth, does
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that justify these kinds
of behaviors?
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If we look back in history,
is there any
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time that jumps out as
being a good time
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when it was the right
thing to do to
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blame a few people for
what was wrong,
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to expel a group from
society, to deny them
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participation, to deny their
humanity, to describe
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them as enemies and vermin?
Has that ever been
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the right thing to do? I
can't think of a time.
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The second argument that
they will make is
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that this protects the
community. If we can
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make those few people go
along, if we can all
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get vaccinated, then it
will end the pandemic.
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But even if that were true
- and despite all
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the virtues of the vaccine
that persuaded me
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to take it, it isn't - even
if that were true,
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forcing people is not going
to persuade them to
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come on-side. Some of them
will, but the cost
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to protecting the community
is destroying it.
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If you hate people like
this, if you treat
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them as second-class citizens
and outsiders,
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how do you expect to have
a community after
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that? What happens next
time when you want
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people on your side to
do the right thing?
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They won't join because
you broke it. It's
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better to persuade. It's
better to recognize that
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people have the right to
make their own mistakes.
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It's better to realize that
we as citizens are not
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judge jury and executioner,
to go and decide who's
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good and who's bad. It's
better to have a society
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where we're all treated as
equals and we all have
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access to due process.
But there's the third
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reason, a third reason
that is seldom spoken:
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which is that people hate
because it feels good.
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Because they think they're
so angry that they
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can't keep it in. "Who could
blame me for hating
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people who put my family at
risk," they might say.
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Well, I will. I will, even
though I've made the
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mistakes so many times myself,
and I'm sure I'll
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make it again. But hate is
not bound to targets.
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It's like an energy that flows.
Once you have hate
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it spreads. Other people
mirror it. Other
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people echo it back to
you. It spreads, it
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shifts from target to target.
Girard talks about
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this - how the scapegoat
can first be one group,
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and then another as different
scapegoats
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attract more and more
people, until finally
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the majority fixate on one
target. Desmet says
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this too. He suggests that
maybe the solution
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is to shift the target
- the target of fear,
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the target of anxiety -
away from the pandemic,
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away from the unvaccinated,
and towards
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the rising totalitarianism
that we see.
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Girard's solution is different.
His solution
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in a word, although he doesn't
use it, is Love.
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It is to say that we need
to understand that
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the scapegoat is innocent.
And that's true too,
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in the sense that we're
all flawed, we're all
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guilty, and we're all innocent.
The most frequent
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accusation I've seen thrown
at the unvaccinated
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is that they're stupid. What
kind of society would
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we be if that were really
true? If we would say
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that some people are endowed
with intelligence,
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some people are endowed
with stupidity,
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and the stupid
should suffer.
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Or maybe we're lying
about it. Maybe we
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don't really mean that
they're stupid.
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Maybe we mean something
else. But then why are
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we saying the wrong thing?
And I think that's the
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case. And I think it reveals
a guilty conscience.
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We say they're stupid but
we mean something else.
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But if we really said
something else we
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might look bad, so we just
call them stupid.
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The point is, we can't
afford hate.
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Hate won't protect
us from the virus.
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Hate won't sustain
the community that
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we claim we're trying
to protect.
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Hate will only produce
hate. Hate will only
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produce division. Hate won't
solve the problems
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that cause the anxiety,
the precariousness,
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the misery, the isolation
that many people
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live in today. As Desmet
says, those root
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causes are the things
we need to address.
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But some people don't want
those root causes to
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go away, because they benefit.
And we probably
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shouldn't hate them either,
for the same reasons,
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but the fact is it's in
their interests to find
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something else to distract
us with. Because then
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we might look at the
skyrocketing inequality in
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our society, then we might
look at the actual
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meaninglessness of many
of our lives, then we
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might look at the fact that
progress seems to be
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failing. This is the theory
of John Michael Greer,
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that all this insanity is
because originally God
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died in the 19th century.
And then we replaced God
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with a new God, the God
of Progress, the God of
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Man. And now the God of Progress
is failing too.
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But whatever the root
causes, right now
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what we need to do is
to stop the hate.
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Or I think there could
be atrocities.
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That's not the only mention
that I have seen
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of people calling for
concentration camps
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for the unvaccinated,
concentration camps
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for their neighbors. Desmet
says that it's only
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30 percent that are basically
hypnotized that
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are participating in
Girard's scapegoat
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real ritual enthusiastically.
Another 40
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are going along.
And the reason
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the 40 are going
along is because
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that first 30 are unified,
they have one story,
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they have one project. And
the final 30 percent,
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those who resist, those who
don't want to go along
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with the consensus because
they're so different,
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don't tell a single story.
And so they're
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not as compelling for
those in the middle.
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So those of us who want
to resist this must try
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to at least get along enough
to stop this from
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happening. Because the other
thing Desmet says is
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that although you cannot
persuade the hypnotized,
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you cannot reason with
them. Because if they
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accepted your reasons, then
they would have to
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go back into the hell world
of anxiety and anger
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and a lack of meaning. They
don't want to do that.
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And because they don't
want to do that, they
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stick with the lie, they
stick with the hate.
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But as long as there's
resistance they're
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less likely to do something
terrible.
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He says that mass formation,
the totalitarianism,
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turns really bad. Then
the atrocities happen
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when everybody goes along.
So as long as we resist
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we can hopefully prevent
that from happening.
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Maybe you think I'm
exaggerating. Maybe you
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think I'm panicking. Maybe
you think this time
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what we're doing is justified:
it's a crisis, and
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besides totalitarianism is
about radical ideology.
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What's radical about protecting
the health of the community?
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Totalitarianism isn't about
ideology. There have
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been totalitarians of the
left under Stalin,
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and of the right. The Nazis,
the fascists in
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Italy, the wartime Japanese.
Totalitarianism is
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not about a particular set
of beliefs. It's about
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how we treat people. Do we
respect their dignity,
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their independence,
their rights and
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their responsibilities
and their freedoms
16:50
as individuals? Or do we
treat society as an
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organism, or a machine,
and every person is
16:57
a part of that machine -
a gear in the machine.
17:00
And if the gear doesn't work,
we discard it. Even
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if you were to build such
a machine for a good
17:05
purpose, to protect the health
of the community,
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the machine would then
follow its logic. We
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would have built the
totalitarian mechanisms
17:15
needed to treat us
into parts. Even
17:17
though it was built
for a good purpose,
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that's not how it would stay.
Because that's not
17:23
what it is. The machine
is amoral. The machine
17:25
doesn't care about us. The
machine uses us, and
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if it doesn't have a use
for us it destroys us.
17:33
We have said for generations
now, Never
17:37
Again. I grew up under
the idea Never Again.
17:42
But in order for it
to never happen
17:44
again, we also have
always known
17:47
that it could happen here,
and it could happen now.
17:53
How much evidence do we need? If
we wait until it's conclusive,
17:57
all we will be able to
say is, yes, it did
18:00
happen. We let it happen.
We didn't stop it.
18:05
And then our descendants
a century hence will
18:09
be apologizing for the crimes
that we committed.
18:14
If we want to stop it
happening we have to
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stop it before the crimes.
We have to stop
18:19
it when it's not obvious.
"Treat them like
18:22
the plague-spreading lepers
that they are."
18:27
If it were to happen
here, if it were to
18:30
happen now, wouldn't
it look like this?
18:36
This is Alphonse
for Radio Free
18:39
Beszel. www.beszel.ca.
Good night.