Podcast Transcript | Ep. 35
Normalizing Hate | Ep. 35
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?
[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Back with another episode of order within. Episode number 35 today.
[00:00:57] Today's subject's going to be.
[00:01:00] Something, I call normalizing hate. I'm seeing a lot of this everywhere now. It's become a very common practice. To go about publicly shaming and hating people. For the beliefs that they have. And. It's dangerous. And so I want to talk about.
[00:01:22] The dangers. Of this. Way of behaving. How it's. Disconnecting us from one another. It's really severing our humanity. It's something that's happening in politicians and celebrities. In the media. Social media influencers. It's really happening. In all major industries in many ways, and people in the media.
[00:01:51] Are setting a standard. That's dangerous and destructive.
[00:01:55] And so I am hoping that this episode can shine some light into it and encounter it. And point out that it's not a healthy thing. And so something that's been normalized in the social media age. Is this idea that. Calling out people, shaming people that you don't agree with is somehow. Uh, noble and virtuous pursuit.
[00:02:22] It's not.
[00:02:24] Most of the stuff that I see in social media coming out of celebrities in the media and all these different outlets and people. It's just hatred, meanness, bitterness. Cold we've become so callous. As a society. And social media is a huge culprit of that. It's disconnecting us from one another. It allows us to live these lives where we're passive.
[00:02:52] And mean.
[00:02:54] And dishonest. Or not authentic. We're not living true to who we are. We're not living true to values that are. Honorable.
[00:03:05] It's this comparison world that we've created. And.
[00:03:12] The concept builds around people that you don't agree with. And I, the, I was, I don't even have an Instagram account anymore. I have one for an old business that I used to run and I randomly check it sometimes. And I was following the 18 D girl. The girl that's in the commercials. I'm not even going to.
[00:03:31] I don't even want to give her the privilege of saying her actual name. Just because I'm not trying to support someone that behaves this way, but this is a very common idea, but there was a politician that she doesn't agree with. And she had posted a picture of her on her story. And just called her a bitch publicly.
[00:03:52] Because she didn't support some law that she agrees with or doesn't agree with whatever. It doesn't matter. Like the idea that. When we don't when someone. Has different beliefs or viewpoints or perspectives, even if we think those beliefs, viewpoints and perspectives are ignorant. And wrong.
[00:04:13] It doesn't give us the right to go out and publicly shame people.
[00:04:18] Call them a name. Like that.
[00:04:22] So that concept, that idea of publicly shaming people, calling people, names, being mean to them, cruel to them because we don't agree with their perspectives. Even if their ideas are bad or what we're going to cover in today's show. We're going to go over these concepts. We're going to talk about.
[00:04:37] How hate. Begets more hate. We're going to talk about how this is disconnecting us from our humanity. And then we're going to talk about a different approach. On how we can counter this type of behavior, because for me, It's one of the more damaging destructive. Tendencies that we've developed in a social media driven world.
[00:05:00] And the idea that when we don't agree, we've gotten to the point to where in our society, if you don't agree with someone, if someone has different beliefs than you, then. There's a.
[00:05:12] Destruction towards that human. Like you. There's a. Desire. To take away their humanity to undermine them, to look down upon them as less. And that's the, I think that's the biggest core, the underlying piece to this. Is. We're in a place now where, where we identify as everything we're. So our identity is so fragile and so wrapped up in politics and beliefs and things of that nature.
[00:05:46] That when people don't. Have the same views or believe the same things that we do, we just crumble. And so we go about attacking people. Who have different views? And. My qualm is with celebrities, media, influencers, all this, all these powerful people. These people that have massive followings, like the girl that I was mentioning a second ago, the 18 T girl.
[00:06:11] She has millions of followers and most likely a lot of those followers are young. People, probably young women who are very influential and they're showing she's showing her followers, those young children, those young women. That this is acceptable behavior to do. To go around and publicly shame people to call them names.
[00:06:34] To be mean. Like it's one thing to disagree with someone's ideas and that's completely acceptable. We can go about. Targeting those ideas and attacking those ideas. That's how we can over time.
[00:06:51] Hopefully change people's minds or educate people. You have to educate people. You don't shame them. You don't call them names. Because all that ends up doing. Is creating an eye for an eye mindset. This is what that is. This is the execution of the eye for an eye mindset. If someone doesn't agree with you, then you go out and you publicly shame them and call them names and do all this stuff to belittle them.
[00:07:18] To make them less than to dehumanize them. All because they don't have the same views that we do. It's it's insane. And what it's doing is it's going to continue to create a society. That's mean cold and callous. And it's setting the example. It's showing the example. That's what bothers me about it.
[00:07:40] Is it. It's setting an example for people to follow that's based in hatred. And anger and bitterness. And it's disconnecting us from our humanity. It's causing massive problems and it's creating huge levels of depression, isolation. And disconnect in our lives.
[00:08:02] So much of this comes through too, because there's this moral superiority aspect. And I'm a whole, I'm a firm believer that this comes down to the fact that it has to do with. Our lack of spirituality.
[00:08:17] When you. Now this can happen too in spiritual people too. Right? There's the, I'm better than you mindset. And that's ultimately what this is, whether you're religious or not, or belief in those things or not. That's the mindset is that my way is better and you are ignorant. You are less than, I know more than you.
[00:08:35] You are silly or whatever it is. And so because of that,
[00:08:41] It creates an inferior superior complex. This is again. Rooted in the lack of understanding of our nature.
[00:08:49] From my perspective, we're a human family, all from our creator. Therefore we are United in that sense. And we're brothers and sisters of life. Even if we disagree with each other, even if there are things that people do in the world, that I am deeply saddened by and disappointed by. But at the core.
[00:09:10] We are all still beings of the same creator. And therefore a family. So even if my family. Is doing dumb things and making horrible mistakes. I don't think my family member is a horrible person. I just think they may be lost or they may be confused or they may be wounded and they may be doing terrible things.
[00:09:30] It doesn't justify those things. But it doesn't make them less than human. It doesn't make them a horrible person. Like this judgmental perspective, it's creating. This culture of judgment and criticism. That is damaging us at a core level. We've lost our connection to one another because of this and social media allows us to do that in so many ways.
[00:09:54] And the thing is. People do it a lot. In. Anonymous formats they'll go and create anonymous profiles and then it can be very mean. But that's not even what I'm talking about. If you have celebrities doing this public figures, media figures, all calling people, Nazis or names, bitch. Evil I mean, there's a, I'm not going to go list out all the terrible things that people can call someone, but instead of attacking their ideas and.
[00:10:26] Going at how goofy or dumb their ideas may be. They just attack the people, the character, and it's such a weak way to behave to. It's also very uneducated. It's not helpful. It's not leading someone to a new place. It's not showing them something they don't know already. It's only attacking them and creating more hatred and attacking, uh,
[00:10:47] Pathways. It's.
[00:10:50] The thing that really bothers me about that, is it what it says to young people? And how it can. It's basically is modern bullying. It's media bullying, like doing this stuff is showcasing behavior that says bullying people in public is okay. As long as their ID, as long as it's about their ideas, or if you don't agree with their ideas, or if this person believes a certain type of thing that you should attack them.
[00:11:19] That this concept, this way of operating. Is how we disconnect from our humanity.
[00:11:28] And when we do this. When we do this type of behavior, when we disconnect from our humanity. This is absolutely what enables mass tragedies to happen. In society. At large levels. The same type of behavior was happening. And Nazi Germany with the Jewish people, they were being treated as less than they were being treated as non-human.
[00:11:52] And they were treated as such, they were treated as animals and they were destroyed and annihilated and horrible things were done during that period of time. There are many times. Slavery's another example of that. Less than other humans treating humans. As less than, as not human as animals and being abusive and destruction.
[00:12:12] There's a power dynamic at play here. It's also during the. Uh, all the Gulags, where they round up all the farmers and. Killed a bunch of farmers and in the process of killing a bunch of the most productive farmers there. And I believe this was Soviet the Soviet union at the time in.
[00:12:35] And during Stalin's reign. And they also millions of people died because of starvation. Because yet again. They were the most productive farmers were seen as greedy and evil. And treated as less than, and they killed them because they were successful because they were good at what they were doing. They were farming and they were producing food.
[00:12:58] For entire, the entire population. And then they end up destroying these people and then they ended up starving because there's no one to produce food. This is what ends up happening. When we disconnect from our humanity in this way.
[00:13:10] We are capable of doing terrible things.
[00:13:16] And it happens small. The whole concept comes around. Oh, I'm just doing my job or all I'm just doing what is normal?
[00:13:23] And there comes times when we have to be courageous to stand up. And speak out against things that aren't good. That aren't helpful that don't bring us to a better place. As humans. Our efforts need to go towards things that are making us better as a species that are helping us to be better as a species.
[00:13:42] Attacking people's character. No matter how much their ideas may be bad and how much you may disagree with them is not a good thing for society. It doesn't help us. We have to lead with compassion. We have to lead with education. And so if we're running around name-calling degradating people and separating ourselves in hierarchies.
[00:14:05] How in the world, can we come together to solve problems? It's not possible. It just is going to continue to create more hatred. More bitterness, more envy, more callousness, more coldness. This is what we're doing. This is what our society's becoming. Everything's becoming fake. In authentic. Hateful.
[00:14:26] Judgmental.
[00:14:27] It's a bummer to be truthful. But I don't think it has to be this way. I don't think it's going to be this way. Forever either. I think things are changing. I think people are waking up to this. I think there's a lot of people that are tired of it that are burnt out on it. That are feeling bad because of it.
[00:14:46] And they want to make changes. Which is solid, but we got to get there though. We still got a long way to go. And I think it starts with recognizing this poor behavior and changing through our own behavior. And that's really what comes down to our last section here is.
[00:15:02] We have to take different approach.
[00:15:07] And I think the first part of that is focusing on ideas and not people themselves. So people have ideas that you don't like, or you don't agree with, or you think are bad ideas. Then go after the ideas don't attack the person. Don't attack their character. That's not a good way to change anyone's mind. And if, when you're doing that,
[00:15:26] You're not actually trying to help. You're not, you have no interest in. Genuinely educating people or helping people see another way. You're only interested in proving yourself. Right. Which really, to me. Shows how insecure people are. If you have to go around shaming people and showing everybody how superior you are and how your ideas are just so much better and how you're so much smarter than everyone. And if someone doesn't think the way that you do or have the same beliefs that you do, then they're just some bigot or some Nazi or whatever it is.
[00:15:56] It's childish. And it's hilarious to be honest because that's, that is the. Weakest mode of intellectual prowess. By attacking people's character. If you can't. Go after their ideas and debate their ideas and communicate your ideas in a way that shows. Their ideas to be. To be inferior, not their character, not their humanness, but their ideas. If you can't communicate that. And your only method of communicating.
[00:16:25] Anything is attacking someone's character because they don't see the world the same way as you do, then you're never going to change anyone's mind. And we're just going to continue to create a world that is full of hateful, envious, bitter people. And that's what's beginning to happen. And I'm not going to stand for it.
[00:16:40] These celebrities and media influencers and all these people who have all this power and media. Who do this crap. Should be ashamed of theirselves and I'm out to do something different. That's what we're about here is doing something different, living differently.
[00:16:56] And we don't attack people's character. We lead with questions. We try to understand their position. We look, we lead with curiosity. When we take a different approach, we're leading with curiosity, we're leading with compassion. We're trying to understand why could someone think that way? Why do they believe those things they believe?
[00:17:12] And if I know those ideas to be false or harmful or damaging or whatever, it may be. How can I help them? How can I understand their perspective? How can I understand why they believe the things that they do so that we can discuss those things? So it leads with curiosity. It leads with compassion. You're asking questions, you're trying to understand their position and what got them to that point.
[00:17:33] So that you can get to the root of these ideas. Not judging them. Criticizing them. Calling them names that'll really help someone to change their mind. That'll really help someone. to change their position. Calling them names. Yeah, that's great. I totally respond to people who call me names.
[00:17:53] It's goofy.
[00:17:55] It's so bizarre to me because it's so. Normal now.
[00:18:01] And my last episode. Blame versus responsibility, blame and judgment. Go very much hand in hand.
[00:18:10] So blame passing judgment doesn't solve anything. Judging people. From your high mountain top, it doesn't do anything. It's not our place to do that. That's not our place to do that. We have to lead by example, we have to educate people. And again, you don't judge people. To teach them something. No one likes to be judged, criticized.
[00:18:36] It hurts. It's no fun. But you can learn from things. Sometimes constructive feedback is one thing, but judgment isn't that it's just shaming people. It's criticizing who they are. It's trying to make them feel less than that's exactly what happens all the time now in our society. On social media.
[00:18:55] It's it's very sad. Honestly, it makes me it's very upsetting. So I'm doing an episode on it because I saw, I was planning to do an episode on boundaries. This week. But. I just couldn't I, after I saw that and I it's just, it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I just see it too much now. And on all sides of the media too, this isn't just one side left or right. Your team pick your team.
[00:19:20] It happens on all sides of the aisle. This is exactly why I'm politically homeless, too. I don't belong to a party because they're all nonsense. And they're all phonies in so many ways. It's a bunch of fraudulent activity.
[00:19:34] So leaning in and understanding, seeking to understand our counterparts, realizing that we are all human. And having that commonality that common human family can help. Change this. Because when you recognize that someone is a part of the same family, that we're connected in some way, And a cosmic way. We're all connected.
[00:19:52] You elevate them. Well, that puts us at the same level, even if we're at different places in our journey. There's an element to us at a core that makes us the same. That makes us. The same type of value and beauty that lives within us.
[00:20:07] Because there's that common element. So recognizing that and living from that perspective can help us treat one another with respect. With care. With compassion and seeking to understand and not just attack.
[00:20:22] It's.
[00:20:26] The biggest thing for me. Is leading by example and being compassionate because at the end of the day, that's, what's going to win. Reasonable people over. Because you were, when we do these things, when we look at. Trying to show someone something or. Share ideas with them or potentially change their mind.
[00:20:48] You're going to get the people that are more in the middle. Anyway.
[00:20:52] So by leading with compassion. Leading my example. Leading with curiosity. Setting a new tone. And showing genuine interest in people and their perspectives can go a long way. The power of this is that most people don't feel seen or cared for or loved. And when you take this approach, you're showing them, you are seeing them.
[00:21:18] You are honoring them as a human, whether you disagree with them or not, but you are honoring them as a human. Even though their ideas may be terrible. That first movement that just doing that alone recognizes that commonality. This is one of the things that always reckon. Resonated with me. Uh, would Jesus in his life is that he treated everyone.
[00:21:41] With compassion and care, regardless of their societal position. Most of the time he was dealing with people that would be considered low class, low society status a lot, and he would help them. He would care for them. He was good to them. He was kind to them. He saw them, he saw them as the children of God that they were, they have just simply forgotten who they were themselves.
[00:22:02] And that's what happens in this world. We come into this world and we forget. That's part of the game. We come here to forget and learn and grow and expand our being. But some of us never wake up. We never remember. We never realize that we're here on purpose. We're here with intention. We're here to learn. We're here to grow.
[00:22:23] But we get caught up in it. That's the. That's the aspect of living on earth that makes it fulfilling and rewarding. Is because we can get lost. There is consequences. But at the same time, we're never untied. We're never we're never untethered.
[00:22:41] And that common human family is what binds us. And that comes through our creator. So when we can treat one another with respect and care, As beings of life. We can show that person. That we honor them at a core level, even though we may disagree with their ideas, but we're going to commit to being humans.
[00:22:59] Honoring our one human family and working together to understand each other and see what we can come together on. Maybe we can both learn something.
[00:23:08] And take more of a humble approach. This is the things that we need to be doing to change our society. And we have to lead by example. So new influencers, new media people, new entrepreneurs. New celebrities. These things are crucial for us to model this type of behavior, loving, compassionate, caring behavior. That is crucial for us to get away from this cold and callous society that we're creating that we're moving into this inauthentic society, this false reality.
[00:23:40] The way we change it is through our behavior by leading by example. And so I am very passionate about this. I'm hopeful that as more people become aware of it they see it for what it is. They start to change their behavior. They start to call out. And loving, compassionate ways, just like this. That ate the 18 T girl. I'm not attacking her character. I'm not saying she's a horrible human being. I think it seems like she's a mean person. If you're doing that publicly. I mean, if you're publicly shaming people, like you're probably a pretty mean person inside. How else do you do that? How else do you treat people like that? That you've.
[00:24:22] You don't know, you've never met. Just it's sad to me. And it's just aggravating too when you have people who have that much influence and who have that good of a life like that much resources, and that's what they do with their life. That makes me angry.
[00:24:40] It just seems like a total disregard for the beauty of life and the gift that is life. And so for these individuals who are in these influential spaces,
[00:24:51] It's not going to be forever, man. You're not going to be in those positions forever. If people keep behaving this way. Because I think a lot of people are getting sick of it. I know I am. I know a lot of people that I talk to are sick of it. They're sick of the fakeness. They're sick of the celebrity stuff.
[00:25:06] Truthfully, most people just want to live good lives. Have families lit, whatever that may be and enjoy themselves. Be good to one another live well. That's what most people want.
[00:25:18] So there's a lot of things that are changing in our world. And I think it's going to be very interesting to see how things unfold over the next 10 years. And what ends up happening is as things unfold. But we can't normalize hate y'all this is a it's become a very normal thing to do this type of behavior to publicly attack and shame the mean it's happening all the time on social media and in politics and all that. And it's just, it's toxic.
[00:25:42] It's toxic behavior. And I'm hoping that by exposing it by calling it out and then pointing to alternatives. Like leading with compassion, leading with curiosity, leading by example, and remembering that we're one human family can help connect and bridge that gap that has been created that can help bridge that divide.
[00:26:02] All right, y'all I've got some exciting news. I'll be announcing here soon. I'm building a, I've got a really sharp focus on a new business that I'm going to be launching. It feels great. I'm very excited about it. So I'll keep you posted on that. And how that's going. I'll probably have the announcement coming next week, but I'm not quite sure yet, but I just wanted to give you a little nugget here of it.
[00:26:25] So I hope you all are having a good week so far or halfway through December. It's crazy. 10 days until Christmas. It's wild. But with that being said until next time y'all
[00:26:40] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.