Workshop 6

How to intervene with fanatics of prejudice, Hate and violence?

Arguing with fanatics, as you may well know, is futile; it is like arguing with a well-programmed computer that the necessary datum that makes change possible—humanness—had not been programmed in it. However, bringing blind areas to awareness is not arguing. Rather, it is the best possible path we can take to help the dehumanized supplement their mindset with what is missing there.

We fight with weapons and with words for what we believe is true. In the final analysis, however, what divides us into warring nations, factions, parties, right-wingers and left-wingers, hawks and doves, conservatives and liberals, and other identity groupings is not any “interests” and not anything we believe. It is what we do not think of and are not even aware of because blind areas hide them from us. Mostly, it is the blind area that protects fanatics from seeing and feeling their own and all other humans’ humanness.

DEHUMANIZATION IN SPECIFIC SYMPTOMATIC TERMS

Knowing the symptoms of dehumanization would be necessary for examining political conflict–related texts and diagnosing political actors for dehumanization. The following list of symptomatic Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs is our analytical and diagnostic tool. I call it the Dehumanization Syndrome.

Blind Areas:

Symptomatic Blind Areas are facts, events, and possible outcomes relevant to the subject of conflict/war that the speaker or writer never (sic!) spontaneously gives evidence that they are aware of and thinks about.

The fact that “we” (the nation, the people, the movement, the party) is an abstract term and that, in reality, only individual human beings exist
The dangers of herd mentality, too much collective identification, and too little individual self-identity
The possibility of having too much national pride and of feeling unjustifiably superior to others
The possibility “we” might not be right, or not entirely right, in our conflict with “them”
Fear of sinning against “them”; the possibility that we were in some instances as guilty as “them” or that we could sin against “them” now or in the future
In a war we started, the possibility that “we” lose
The fact that each of them is as human a being as each of us
The differences between each one of “them” and others
The possibility that “they” could change and become less belligerent
Collective good qualities and achievements of “them”
The possibility that there is, or could be, some justice on their side of the conflict with us
The possibility that the views of “bleeding hearts” are legitimate in terms of national interests and that they are sane and decent people motivated by good intentions.
The possibility that a more conciliatory policy toward “them” could be better and a more belligerent policy could be worse for us.
The possibility that “bleeding hearts” could be motivated by genuine patriotic motivation
The possibility that one could sin by neglecting one’s duty to prevent war crimes against “them”
The fact that “we” (the nation, the people) and our government are not the same thing, that opposition to the government is not necessarily treasonous while support of the regime could be
The fact that the enemy population under our rule is oppressed by us
The suffering of people identified as enemies
The danger that “we” become morally corrupted lording by force over the enemy we subjugated
Our leader’s human limitations and faults
The danger of personality cult
The danger of personal corruption of the leader, particularly egomania and paranoia
The danger of physical and Psychological Exploitation of us by our leader
The possibility that the proper tactic in certain situations is not using force or using some other tactics such as giving in or making a reconciliatory gesture (“‘They’ understand nothing but force”)
The expected results of using force: violence breeds violence and motivation to retaliate, the victims, dangers, suffering, and terrible price of waging war
The importance of forces and events out of the “we”–“them” conflict; significant others are only those who are perceived as affecting the conflict (“Good for us or bad for us?”)
The fact that we regard conflicts and wars of other nations with the same blend of neutrality, interest, apathy, and ignorance as other nations regard our conflict (“The whole world is against us”)
The price paid in values of freedom of expression, the right of the public to know, and democracy in general, of hiding information about our “sins” in war and conflict
The moral obligation itself: measuring whatever “we” do to “them” and whatever “they” do to “us” with the same yardstick
The danger of sinning against “them”; the possibility that our “goals” do not justify what “we” do to “them” (“. . . but what did they do to us?”)
The personal moral obligation and the fact that there is no moral judgment other than that of individuals like oneself (“I only followed orders . . .”)
The possibility that morality in war is good for us, that by behaving morally, “we” are strengthened, and by behaving immorally, “we” are weakened
The fact that all is changing: “we,” “them,” and everything else in the war or conflict situation
The fact that past and future have no meaning other than in the perception and thinking of living people in the present.
The fact that history can never “repeat itself” and that only we are capable of discovering some similarities—more relevant or less relevant—in past and present reality

Patterned Beliefs

Patterned beliefs correspond to Blind Areas as stabilizers of the “we good/right, them bad/guilty” mindset when events that Blind Areas could not cover destabilize it.

“We” are good, superior to others
“We” are brave fighters, patriots, heroes
The common good is the supreme value; personal good is less valued; war, blood, death, and victimhood are themselves values
“We” are right (always), in victory or defeat; “we” are never the aggressors but act in self-defense, take preventive measures, obey God’s command, retaliate, and so on
“We” shall be victorious if we stay faithful to our collective values
“They” are bad by nature: savages, animals, idolaters, subhumans, inferior race, inferior culture (snake-eaters, frog-eaters, dog-eaters, pig-eaters, etc.)
Negative stereotypes: “They” are stupid, dirty, lazy, thieves, cheaters, kidnappers of children, seducers of women, blood-suckers, and so on
“They” hate us: “they” are fanatics, nationalistic, fundamentalist, bloodthirsty, etc.
“They” are the villains: “they” threaten us; do acts of cruelty and horror; want to conquer us; subjugate us; destroy\annihilate us; take our lands, jobs, and women; contaminate us with disease and crime; etc.
“They” understand nothing but force; “they” take advantage of our conciliatory moves that “they” interpret as weakness
“Bleeding hearts” support “them” (traitors, fifth-column, backstabbers, etc.)
“Bleeding hearts” are villains (double standard, hypocrite, wolves in lambskin, deserters, elitists, etc.)“Bleeding hearts” are mentally unhealthy (“bleeding hearts,” naïve, stupid, defeatist, cowardly, self-hating, contemptible, with no dignity, leading to national suicide, etc.)
The enemy population under our control is not oppressed; their life is better than it had been before our ruling
The suffering of the enemy’s civil population we control is their fault or the fault of someone else, not ours
“We” are the ones who “carry the burden”; their lot under our control is better than ours
Our leader is great, giant, one and only, father, mother, genius, and so on (expressions of being under the influence of charisma)
Our leader we love and admire; “we” are indebted to them
Opposing the leader is the worst crime, blasphemy, sacrilege
The leader is never wrong (others are always guilty of our misfortunes, not the leader)
Whoever opposes, criticizes, or weakens the leader weakens us
Only force (popular clichés): “Until they have learned their lesson,” “. . . for they should see and fear” (biblical expression about the fear of God), and so on
Not using force is weakness (“They” interpret it as weakness), stupidity, cowardice
If force does not help, more force should be applied
If force has not helped, somebody else is to be blamed, not “us”
Nations not involved in our conflict (“the world”) are essentially immoral and unfair.
(When neutrals criticize some of our positions or sympathize with some positions of “them”) Neutrals are against us, unfair
(When neutrals sympathize with us) Neutrals are “a real friend,” fair
(When neutrals who were “real friends” turn to be sympathetic with “them” in some aspect of the conflict) Stage 1: Our information service has failed. Stage 2: If the nonsympathetic attitude persists, back to “Neutrals are against us, unfair.”
All that “we” do to “them” in the conflict is moral (“Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.” —Lenin)
“An eye for an eye”: the same immoral deed of “them” against us becomes moral as retaliation or revenge
Morality in matters of the state is the state’s business, not the individual’s
The goal justifies the means
There is no morality—should be no morality—in war, only interests of power and survival of the fittest
Might is right
Time is historical. Its significance is perceived in terms of national (or tribal-ancestral) history rather than in terms of human life (“We seek to secure peace for the generations to come . . .”).
Events in the present are less significant in their effect on living people and more significant as historical events
The “‘we’ good\right, ‘them’ bad\wrong” situation is constant: distant past, past, present, and future
No change under the sun; what was good/proper in the past is good/proper in the present

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The symptoms of dehumanization—Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs—help in the analysis of texts and diagnosis of political actors as dehumanized fanatics. The text (e.g., a newspaper article about the conflict) is considered fanatical if all or many opinions fit the Patterned Beliefs, and not one instance of awareness of a Blind Area is found. A person is diagnosed as dehumanized-fanatic if, over some time, all their opinions fit the Patterned Beliefs and no evidence of awareness of a Blind Area was found. If even a single instance of awareness of a Blind Area is found, that is a very strong indicator that the person is not fanatical. The reason for it is, that the primitive dualistic dehumanized belief system is so structured, that even a single flash of human reality destabilizes the entire orientation system and causes cognitive dissonance. If a person diagnosed earlier as dehumanized shows even a single sign of awareness of a Blind Area – that is a strong indicator that some profound change has occurred in their personality.

With the symptomatic Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs, we can diagnose people for dehumanization not less accurately than other mental disorders are diagnosed by their symptoms with instruments of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual and International Classification of Diseases. It would be proper to add to these international standards of assessment and measurement of human mental troubles AHDS—Acquired Humanness Deficiency Syndrome.

ROADS TO HUMANIZATION OF POLITICAL CONFLICTS

In examining Collective Insanity in war and conflict, we have acquired insights that are either ignored or extremely uncommon in the broad culture. Those insights are:

Politics is human behavior, only human behavior, and nothing but human behavior.
The real causes of wars are warriors.
Normal human aggression is nothing like animal aggression—it must be self-justified.
To dehumanize others, people must first dehumanize themselves to become free of the fear of being wrong and sinning as if they were superhuman or angels.
The most burning “interest” of people involved in conflict is to defend their beliefs about and their actions in it.
To maintain their belief system, through which they and their identity group are good and right and their enemies always wrong and guilty, fanatics need blind areas that cover all that could destabilize and compromise their dehumanized view of the conflict.
What divides society into opposing ideological and political camps, the right vs. the left, hawks vs. doves, liberals vs. conservatives, is not what people think but what they do not think about.
Bringing blind areas to awareness undermines the dehumanized belief system.

Politics based on these insights would not be as collectively insane in war and conflict. Wars of aggression are launched only by dehumanized leaders of dehumanized followers. If international politics were guided by people who have internalized those insights, conflicts would not disappear but be humanized. Adversaries and enemies would be regarded as equally human, how else? Leaders of nations would attempt to resolve their dangerous conflicts with other leaders as humans by talking to each other directly or through neutral mediators.

Individuals in open societies who do possess those insights are in a position to begin applying them in their sociopolitical environment. Whatever your position, consider possible ways of application. War is so terrifying, disgusting, humiliating, costly, and tragic! Today is April 12, 2024, and we in Tel Aviv are expecting missiles to drop on us as Iran’s generals promised to retaliate for Israel’s bombing of their embassy in Damascus, killing some of their high officials. I feel a particular need today to appeal to people to do at least something to humanize fanatical warriors.

PRACTICAL HUMANIZATION

Here are some scenarios for applying the above insights. If you take the Dehumanization Syndrome in your hands and begin working using it, you can readily analyze conflict–related texts and media dispatches to identify the symptoms, the rate, the frequency, and the intensity of Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs. If you are in a parental or teaching position, you can pass your insights to more people. Even in a primary school, reading something about your national heroes fighting your foes, you can ask questions about the realities hidden by Blind Areas. "Do you find in this historical text any reminder that to be righteous in that war we must be careful not to kill innocent people? – Can you find a passage in which the author suggests negotiating with the enemy rather than attacking? Do you find there any admission that the other side could be right in some of their claims against us?" Etc.

If you have access to public media, you can introduce the concepts of Blind Areas and dehumanization to the criticism of public narratives on conflict issues. In an academic setting, you can analyze media and monitor changes in the intensity and character of fanatic-dehumanized expression in individual politicians, journalists, newspapers, TV stations, and all other communication sources. You can publish the results as well. That would surely raise the level of public consciousness of fanaticism and dehumanization. Evidence of dehumanization in public media is widely open, and so is its evidence in what people say about politics.

Privately talking politics with people, you may decide to apply the insight that what matters most is not what they say but what they do not say. As soon as you hear the other person speaking in Patterned Beliefs ("We were right as always – they were guilty as always"), you may decide not to argue (!) but adhere to your agenda if only you could bring the other person to listen for a moment. To help fanatics move toward their humanity, your agenda must raise to their awareness only the obvious human facts that in their mindset are covered by Blind Areas. Your agenda must have only two items: One, we all are only human and could be wrong in what we think and do, so you must be careful and must not always be sure that we are the good guys and they are the guilty ones. Two, the enemies are human individuals, each different and each with the same rights we have to be treated fairly and with justice.

That will surely be contrary to normal practice in discussing politics. Skills that facilitate a helpful intervention with fanatics must be developed. However, if you managed not to be diverted into arguing about the issues in conflict and calmly stayed put on your agenda—you have won. You have brought to the other person’s awareness their humanness, which is missing there, and that is the best thing you could do to heal dehumanization.

Even winning in war is subject to Collective Insanity. Today is April 14, 2024. Last night, war was here; 400 war drones and many cruise missiles were launched from Iran to Israel. Television screens worldwide pictured Tel Aviv where I live in a space usually reserved for Gaza and Kyiv, waiting for missiles to fall. Today, we won as never before in world history—and nobody seems to have noticed! Practically all invading forces were downed; not one person was killed on either side! Isn’t that a glorious victory? My nation, living for many years now in mortal fear of existential danger from Iran, which has been instilled and cultivated thoroughly by the entire political culture, was delivered of it in one night. I feel like celebrating because, until today, I had that highly uncomfortable awareness that I am going soon to part with this world leaving my children and grandchildren to live under Iranian threat. And it was a technical victory as well, an overwhelmingly decisive victory with instruments of war that had been developed not for killing and destroying but for preventing death and destruction! All around me, however, people are back to their war fears and wrath as if nothing happened.

Apparently, in the collective mind, glorious victory could only be counted in the dead, wounded, captured, conquered, humiliated, devastated, and so on. As the UNESCO Constitution mentioned earlier, the “ramparts of peace” have not been erected in the inner world of masses of people. For this to happen, Blind Areas must be replaced with human reality in individual and collective mindsets.

With that, my job of identifying the roads to the humanization of political conflicts is finished. I hope for nothing other than to succeed in what I am doing, including finish writing this book and seeing it published. But you may be asking yourself, what next? What if individuals will decide to actualize some possible roads to the humanization of the political world mindset? Is there any chance they would see some meaningful changes in their lifetime?

If you consider working along one or some of the possible scenarios, it may strengthen your resolve to do it if you answer yourself what in reality could be the results. What would be the effect on people in a society where the concept of dehumanization was integrated into the education system? What impact will it have on children if from that age they learn that there were heroes and villains, we heroes and our enemies the villains, there was also dehumanization (they would find a simple term for it, perhaps “social evil”?) What effect would it have if school textbooks taught children to identify Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs in texts they learn in the classroom? What will change if prestigious scientific sources regularly publish their findings about dehumanization in different mass media? What if academic institutes publish their diagnoses of central political actors on dehumanization? What will be the impact on political culture if a critical mass of people is practically humanized, informed of Blind Areas, and able to recognize Pattern Beliefs in political discourse? To what extent would war be regarded as an option for resolving conflicts in a society well-informed and used to detecting the characteristic Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs of dehumanized irrationality?

If you accept the insights acquired here as true to human nature—applying them by bringing dehumanization and its symptoms to cultural awareness should make a significant difference. The rest is up to you.

HOW TO INTERVENE WITH FANATICS OF PREJUDICE, HATE AND VIOLENCE

COLLECTIVELY INSANE PREJUDICE

Because all human beings in reality are born and die as humans like you and me, it should be obvious that dehumanization—treating other people as if they are not as human as us—is Collective Insanity. Because human beings in reality are so endlessly different from one another, and because differences between people are also differences in common characteristics of groups, races, and nations hostile to each other, dehumanization is easy to contract, difficult to spot, and extremely challenging to prevent. Humanism—an attitude and behavior that considers all other people on Earth as equally human—is difficult to practice and defend in a reality of wide individual and group differences.

The “self-evident” truth in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” was unprecedented and shocking at the time. Almost 100 years later, when Congress debated the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, racist congressmen shouted, “Congress must never declare equal those whom God created unequal!” Proponents of Lincoln’s amendment had to deny that they believed all men were equal to obtain enough votes for the amendment to pass.

In the film Lincoln, you may find a hilarious example of an attempt by a humanistic congressman to clarify the difference between the belief that all humans are the same and the idea that they are equally endowed with certain rights. Another congressman accused him of hiding from congress his absurd opinion that slaves are human beings equal to whites. The racist accused, “Your frantic attempt to delude us now is unworthy of a representative. It is, in fact, unworthy of a white man!” to which he retorted, losing his temper,

"How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me (pointing to the accuser) stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits impermeable to reason . . . Yet even you, who should have been gibbetted for treason long before today, even worthless unworthy you ought to be treated equally before the law! And so again, sir, and again and again and again I say: I do not hold with equality in all things. Only with equality before the Law!"

Law is the authoritative guideline for how to behave consistently with one’s moral beliefs, values, and rights without encroaching on others’ rights. Those of us who wish not to dehumanize others may interpret the congressman’s last passage as I do not hold with all people are the same. Only with equality of all people on Earth before my conscience. Knowing that each person in the world is uniquely different, my inner law (conscience) commands me to regard everyone, man or woman, adult or child, one of us or one of “them,” of all races, nationalities, religions, classes, wealth, genders, political parties, social statuses, and so on, with equal respect to their human rights, same as I want them to respect mine.

My understanding of Mahatma Gandhi’s dictum “Love your enemy” is such. Not that I have to love every fanatic of violence and hatred, only that I have to respect their human rights and treat even an enemy, a criminal, and any despicable person as a human person with inalienable human rights. This, to me, is the only possible way to respect human rights and hold all people as created equal.

The law in most countries proclaims equal rights for all, yet most people dehumanize others. Treating all people equally is so much easier said than done! Valuing our own life and the lives of our nearest and dearest cannot be equal to that of others. Love does not usually go with equality, not easily, even as we may try to love our two children equally. In daily life, even within a family, members might have many good reasons to feel dehumanized. Dominant persons might deny other members, if not freedom of speech, their very human right to be listened to.

Life among people who are different physically and mentally, politically and economically, is life in a condition of inequality. It is bound to generate conflicts of power and make people “dehumanize” others. If the term “dehumanization” is used in this context, it is as limitlessly intricate and complex as life itself. However, normal interpersonal relationships are not the grounds on which we shall approach dehumanization and suggest remedies for it. Our issue is Collective Insanity. Dehumanization in relationships among groups of people united in nations and armed forces is something entirely different. It kills.

COLLECTIVE BLINDNESS TO HUMAN REALITY

Collective blindness to human reality appears in conflicts. It includes, to my great sorrow, mainstream social science and political science. Politics, including war, is human behavior, only human behavior, and nothing but human behavior. Sad but true. People do it consciously and, as far as they are concerned, have good reasons for doing it. Social academics care less about people and more about the generalized (global, historical, cultural, economic, etc.) conditions influencing the actors.

It does not cease to puzzle me that when I tell people that the real cause of war is warriors, they react as if it were news. However, it should be self-evident, and they should have known it since long ago. The Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted in 1945 begins with “The Governments of the States Parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples declare: That "since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Must they? Very little of that construction has been accomplished since, if at all.

My interest in the minds of men in the context of wars began when my country won big a war, and, as a result, minds of men around me changed abruptly from a self-defense position to a practical annexation of vast territories and their peoples by force. I could not get over the question “How could they?” “They” referring to many good fellows I knew and our leadership too. How could they do to others what was hateful to them all along their history? I also broadened the scope of asking that question about conflicts and wars all over the world, past and present, particularly about the Holocaust, in which I and my people were the victims. How can normal people justify even the most preposterous ideas about others? Even the worst acts of violence and mass terror, including genocide, without coming into an intolerable cognitive dissonance, a clash with their own highest values of truth, morality, justice, and even sanity?

My realization that the real cause of wars is warriors did not originate from academic learning; it was the result of a war trauma. Traumatized, I became possessed by the thought that I would not be able to continue living unless I understood, but really understood, why it happened to me and my buddies that afternoon. I fully recovered when the real cause presented itself in my mind. It was the Syrian gunner who received the order to shoot, aimed well, and pulled the trigger. That was the origin of my direct-causation approach to war and conflict.

COLLECTIVE BLINDNESS TO THE MINDSET OF PEOPLE WHO DEHUMANIZE THEIR ENEMIES

The solution to the riddle of how normal people can dehumanize their enemies and, with that, avoid clashing with their own universally held concepts of moral and sane conduct will not be found in what they think and what they say. Except for extreme fanatics, they will deny having “a mental fear of and a murderous hatred” of their enemies or regarding them less than human. Since the Nazi Untermensch (subhuman) concept fell into disrespect, normal supporters of conflict do not admit to dehumanizing people literally.

In the last 50 years, no Jewish Israeli of any political stature has said that Arab Palestinians are not as human as Jews or that they do not deserve equal human rights. The point is that in the same period, no Jewish Israeli of any political stature (except those whom the majority habitually refers to as “bleeding hearts”) did say that Arab Palestinians are as human as us and that they should be granted their legitimate rights. The clue to the enigma of how normal people can commit acts of stupidity and horror in war is not in what they say to justify that. The clue is in what people do not say and do not even think about.

The key is in their mental blindness to themselves being human. The same people who in normal life are perfectly aware that they are only human and could be mistaken in what they think and be wrong, or unjust, in what they do to others—become free of the fear of sinning as if they were superheroes or angels as soon as they enter the arena of political conflict. As true believers in the righteousness of their identity group, they can be vehemently prejudiced in civil conflict; in war, they can be bestial. Normal human beings worldwide pray their version of “Lead us not into temptation”; as actual or ideological fighters against their enemies, they see no possibility of being tempted. Human inhuman behavior is possible through self-dehumanization.

Being human is knowing that you are liable to sin and error. That is humanness. We are ordered by our highest authorities, external—God and law—and the internalized authority of conscience, not to transgress against the commands of morality, truth, and justice. Hardliners in political conflicts free themselves of that fear of sinning through the psychological mechanism of self-dehumanization. They dehumanize themselves in the opposite direction, upward and not downward, becoming superhuman rather than subhuman—but not human nonetheless.

Self-dehumanization is the mental mechanism that allows people to live in a fantasy world in which they are the good guys who are always right and others are the bad guys who are always guilty no matter what. To dehumanize others, one must first exempt oneself from the normal human condition of knowing that “sin is crouching at the door” (Genesis 4:7). Upward self-dehumanization does away with the duty of conscientious abstaining from moral blundering and transgression in war. Outside the conflict arena, at home, and in the company of people of the same social identity, the self-dehumanized behave normally. Only in their reasoning about conflict and behaving in the conflict arena do they lose their normal conscience and humanness.

Self-dehumanization must be the necessary precondition for the dehumanization of the enemy. Being human, people who are aware of their responsibility to be moral and justified in fighting and killing must openly examine the reality of war and follow their conscience in any specific circumstances. Such a mindset is exactly, by definition, what fanatics manage to avoid through self-dehumanization. If they were aware that they should openly examine the reality of war, they would encounter an impossible cognitive dissonance with their blind “We always right, them always guilty” mindset that provides them the justification they need no matter what they do.

COLLECTIVE BLINDNESS TO PEOPLE’S MOTIVATION IN WAR

Dehumanization works both ways—self and others. This is what gives wars their horrific reality and provides both sides with the necessary justifications for it. We shall now deepen our view of it by examining how it works in practice. We must identify dehumanization by its symptoms in the reality of conflict and war.

If the dehumanized do not perceive themselves and their enemies as human—how do they? How do they find justification in their conceptualization of various aspects of conflict, such as their values, moral standing, enemy, strategy, civilian population, neutral nations, and changes that occur with time? When I began investigating the subject, I monitored in mass media what the mainstream national leaders in Israel were saying about the war. What they were saying was all in conformity to the “We always right, them always guilty” coordinates of the dehumanized conceptual roadmap. It had little variety. The same sayings were endlessly repeated.

This was nothing new. However, it was then that I discovered enormous blind areas in their minds. They never mentioned that the burning issues I felt should be discussed and answered. Then I realized that what people do not say explains what they do say. Their mental blindness is plenty evident in the absence of humanness in their talk about us and them in conflict. This must be the root of their ability to believe they are right and never realize that they could be wrong.

When we Israelis became the occupiers of a large population of enemy civilians, I expected our people and leaders to be extremely concerned with how to perform the task of governing them in a way that would demonstrate to the world that we are not like those who oppressed and massacred us throughout history when we were a powerless minority scattered among nations. The national narrative then, as now, had been that we are morally superior to others, “second to none” in respecting human rights, fighting only for self-defense to survive attempts to annihilate us. This was the narrative I had inhaled and internalized since boyhood along with everybody else around me.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, I knew that we could be morally corrupted by having to forcefully oppress the occupied hostile population. I expected that the country would prepare itself to perform that formidable task.

Then came the shock: Over days, months, and years full of reports about human rights violations in the occupied territories, I did not find a single national mainstream expression of worry that we may become power-corrupted and do to them what they were doing to us when we were under their rule.

Becoming aware of what was not said was the beginning of my discovery of blind areas in the perception of war in most people and their leaders. This includes the masses, the national mainstream—everybody around what in Israel then was called “the tribal bonfire”—all except those who were regularly regarded by the majority disparagingly and called “bleeding hearts” or “extreme leftists.” Whenever the national spokespersons were challenged about incidents of civilians being killed or human rights being violated, they would say that, as Jews, our moral level of conduct is “second to none,” and we take great care that violations do not happen. However, it is a well-known finding in behavioral science that little correspondence is observed between stated values in the mode of defensiveness against accusations and active values guiding one’s behavior in practice. The fact is that there was not one (!) spontaneous expression of concern about what military rule over the civilian population may do to our moral standing and to the souls of our boys and girls who were doing that job. Not one. The issue was never discussed around the “tribal bonfire.”

Furthermore, the national media showed no awareness of the fact that they, the Palestinians under our occupation, were suffering. During the years of the civilian resurrection (Intifada), many innocent adults and children were killed by our armed forces by mistake. Not one mainstream expression of compassion, of sorrow, of apology for the killing and suffering of thousands of innocent people was found over those years. An Israeli gunner, with one shot, mistakenly killed more than 120 refugees in a United Nations compound in Lebanon. All the official communication about this incident said was that it had been a technical error—not a word of apology, compassion, or sorrow was uttered. The norms of caring to prevent unnecessary damage and feeling compassion for the suffering of innocent people were found to be a blind area. The entire issue of a nation suffering from not being free under our rule has been a blind area in our national tribal mind for more than half a century now. I later examined other wars and conflicts worldwide, past and present. You can find the same blind areas in every war and every situation in which one nation ruled over another. Dehumanization with all its symptoms is universal.

The reality of war entails open possibilities such as feeling compassion for the suffering of people who are not us, worrying about how not to compromise our moral conduct, using less rather than more force in policing the enemy population, initiating moves toward peace, and so on with every aspect of war. In the dehumanized mindset, blind areas cover all such options that do not fit the “We good and always right, them wrong and always guilty” idea and could destabilize that fundamental pillar of the cognitive structure representing the political world in the person’s mind.

Blind areas can obscure possibilities but not “breaking news” about events that do not fit the dehumanized mindset. If these events occur, the fanatics' first response is to conceal them from public knowledge. When they become known, dehumanized fanatics have their complete set of patterned beliefs ready to rationalize all events that fly in the face of their mindset. The universal symptoms of dehumanization are blind areas and patterned beliefs.

For example, with regard to events in which our side commits war crimes, such as the May Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the torture of prisoners in Iraq, or the Bus 305 killing of a prisoner terrorist by Israeli secret security men, when these incidents become known to the public, patterned beliefs are activated. In cases of war crimes, patterned beliefs are as follows: (1) It was not a crime; the enemies deserved it. (2) The perpetrators were “deviants,” not characteristic of us. (3) The perpetrators were good/patriotic boys and girls worthy of our compassion; their crime is understandable given the (incomparably) worse crimes of the enemies against us. (4) We shall investigate the event, the guilty will be trialed, and we shall do our best to prevent such unfortunate incidents in the future. Through the mechanism of blind areas and patterned beliefs, the “We are always good and right” central pillar of the cognitive structure is thus left intact after sinning on our side.

Blind areas and patterned beliefs work hand in hand in all aspects of intergroup conflict to preserve the dehumanized mental structure. The possibility of a desirable change in the enemy is a blind area. Such possibility must be rejected because if they could become better, less threatening, the dehumanized “They are bad” basic coordinate of the conceptual map could be questioned. If the enemy expresses goodwill, makes some conciliatory declaration, or suggests negotiations toward resolving the conflict, the pattered beliefs in response would be “They cannot be trusted,” “They want to deceive us,” and “They shall always hate us.” Since the central pillar of the cognitive structure is that they are the bad guys, the conclusion of whatever happens must keep that belief firmly in place.

What are the interests of people in conflict? Politicians and political theorists would tell you that in politics, it is all “interests,” meaning consciously pursued “national goals” to acquire resources that will make us more secure, stronger, wealthier, great, and so on. Such theories of political motivation ignore the evidence that the first, immediately pursued goal of people and their leaders in political conflict is conditioned by, to quote Erik Erikson again, their “identity panic.” Try to engage a fanatic who ideologically fights “them” in a discussion. Examine the virtual social networks on political conflicts, and feel the rage against all who challenge their opinions. When you listen to people and not only to political theorists, you can feel that their real “interest” is to prove to themselves and you that “we” are good and right and that “our enemies” are bad, and it was their fault. In that, they have been “indoctrinated with conviction” since childhood by the entire culture, their language of discourse, education, history, public opinion, and media. Their entire social universe proclaims it. Their identity and all spiritual assets that constitute self-worth are deposited in their dehumanized perception of themselves and their enemies. Nothing except immediate physical danger to survival could motivate people more than fighting in defense of their identity-rooted values. How else could you explain people’s instantaneous bursting into flames of emotion and aggression when someone challenges their prejudiced concepts about their war being 100% justified? What other reason could cause them to hide in blind areas all facts and possibilities that would humanize their view of themselves and their enemies?

This sums up our description of Collective Insanity in war and political conflict. Normal humans can act against their own supreme values of sanity, morality, truth, and justice by first becoming blind to their humanness that goes with the awareness that they may be wrong and do wrong (“sin”) and then having their mindset ridden with blind areas that prevent them from seeing facts, events, and possibilities other than what fits their “subspecies” cognition and shields them from cognitive dissonance; then, people can dehumanize themselves and others regardless of what happens in reality by meeting challenges to their views with patterned beliefs that rationalize all events in line with the dehumanized belief system.

My strongest argument in support of this psychological theory of dehumanization is your personal experience with people in political conflicts in your time and place.

The discovery of blind areas, specifically that blindness to “sin crouches at the door,” resulting in self-dehumanization, has enormous importance in countering and healing dehumanized fanatics.

Our Problem

Dehumanization, Fanaticism, Racism, Ethnocentrism, Prejudice, Conflict, WAR.

Our Workshop

In the workshop we begin with the realization that Dehumanization, politics, prejudice, conflict, and war are human behavior and nothing but human behavior. The real-direct cause of wars are warriors.

Our understanding of Dehumanization and our interventions with fanatics are NEW, based on the discovery of Blind Areas in fanatical people. To dehumanize others, people must first dehumanize themselves. They dehumanize themselves "upwards" – by becoming mentally blind to their moral imperative as human beings not to commit errors in judgment and crimes in war. Fanatics in war are as free of the fear of sinning as if they were superhuman or angels.

The skills of preventing, confronting, containing and healing Dehumanization, center on bringing to the awareness of people that being human, we must take responsibility for not being wrong in judgment and not become perpetrators of crimes in war with our "enemies", same as with our people. And that enemies or adversaries are individuals, each different.

The workshop gives you a tool for analyzing text and diagnosing persons for Dehumanization/Fanaticism by the symptoms, as is done with any mental disorder. Prospects of prevention and healing by bringing Dehumanization and its symptomatic Blind Areas and Patterned Beliefs to the cultural awareness are discussed and found promising far above what is being achieved currently in Peace Education.

FAQ

Some of my friends are prejudiced against "them". Can you inform me how to deal with them in a way that would help them out of their fanaticism and not destroy our relationships?
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Why is the discovery of Blind Areas so important in confronting dehumanized fanatics?
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Would it really make a difference in social conflict and war if I and some other people apply the discovery of self-dehumanization in education and bring it to the public awareness?
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LINK TO WORKSHOP PROGRAM