On April 16th 2007, 33 people died as Seung-Hui Cho took all the pent up rage built up over years and unleashed it in a hailstorm of bullets focused on his Classmates at Virginia Tech College.
Why?
Because he didn’t feel good enough. That insecurity and primal fear was exacerbated by the taunts, mockery and exclusion from the social hub of the people around him.
Now all of us at some time or another feel the sting of not feeling good enough. We deal with it in a variety of ways. Some recognise it’s a problem in our thinking. Others distort their perception so that, in their mind it is a sign of their persecution. The the one insinuating that they might have done something wrong is either picking on them unfairly or deluded. Some feel it and use it as motivation to achieve and prove everyone wrong.
But some people focus that fear on those that aggravate it.
Racial Prejudice And Scapegoating
If you were looking for one person that epitomised hatred of a race or group, then Hitler would be the ideal choice. Yet I think Hitler gets an undue amount of blame for the Holocaust. And I think the reason for this is that it is easier and more comforting to frame Hitler as being, a freak occurrence, one mad, bad dude than to accept that he personified and exagerrated flaws that we all share.
The Germans had been persecuting Jews long before Hitler was ever born. If you look back through history, Jew’s were disliked and isolated from the rest of the German population in the Jewish Quarters. More than once flushed with arrogance, in the height of a boom Germany expelled the Jews for making too much money – at their expense. Only to later invite them back, needing their entrepreneurial spirit, when the economy hit the skids. It was from this concentration of commerce that almost all of the huge Investment Banks today developed. The Rothschild’s, Warburgs, Goldman Sachs and so on began in this tiny German community.
Anyway, my point is that, it was not one man that hypnotised and mobilised a nation to atrocities. Hitler merely happened to meet with a zeitgeist of deep depression and hopelessness. His pointing the finger at the Jews as a cause was accepted because it fitted in with their cultural prejudices and because it took the blame and responsibility away from themselves.
If you wanted to allocate blame for the Second World War, it was caused as much by the Victors of the First World War as it were by Hitler.
When you win, so comprehensively that you can do as you wish with the Loser, the most dangerous thing you can do is to take all you can. Because then you leave them with nothing. Any creature who feels it has nothing left now has only one choice. All out attack.
The punitive measures placed on Germany after the First World War, left it’s citizen’s feeling hopeless. Inadequate and unable to make a difference.
Now there is a formula for selling diet, self help programs and similar products. It’s basically to tell people that it’s not their fault for where they are at right now. It’s because of your genes, hidden fats, your parent’s behaviour or whatever problem your solution solves. It works because it gives people a lifeline to grab onto that doesn’t make them feel bad about where they are and it gives them hope.
Hitler came along and gave them that excuse and so they happily went along with what seemed to be the only way out of their plight.
The Columbine school, Virginia Tech and Dunblane massacres, the Al Qaeda movement and other terrorist organisations and a million and one other ways we hurt other people to a lesser degree all are rooted in the same base. Because the one lashing out, in words or bullets, doesn’t feel good enough.
The true reason why Jesus, Buddha and so on said to love others and treat them as you would wish to be treated was not about chalking up points on a chart somewhere.
It’s for two reasons.
One, if you don’t, you end up with some loose cannon brooding revenge on you.
And secondly because the only time you derive pleasure from hurting another is because it causes momentary relief from your despair and sense of inadequacy.
The point of this ramble?
The Quickest Route To Peace Is Under Your Control
Whenever you are afraid or hate another it’s because, in some way, you do not feel adequate. It’s not that you hate what they do, say or what they stand for. It’s that what they do, say or what they stand for makes you feel ‘not good enough’.
We naturally want to feel good. So when we feel bad we seek in some way to restore our balance. The easy way to do this is to blame others and insist they are wrong and must change. It’s also out of our control. And so ultimately leads to frustration and a sense of helplessness.
The only true solution is to honestly uncover what it is about them, or what they do, that makes us feel so inadequate and overcome that fear.
We all feel inadequate at times. It’s a natural and ongoing stage of human growth. It is the failure to accept the truth that turns people into monsters. And at times we have all been monsters who would rather blame someone else then feel inadequate. We might not have let it develop to the stage where we take out our machine guns, but we have all snapped, resented and seethed at others. From there to murder is only a matter of degree of intensity and time.
So next time when you feel animosity to a person, group or situation, if you want to regain control of your emotions, take the time to consider what about them makes you feel inadequate. Heal your personal sense of inadequacy and you’ll find the animosity has gone.
Honesty is the quickest route to happiness.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
People that do the attacking first are usually the ones that feel inadequate and this is there way of bring others down to there level or below. I feel bad, so let me make someone else feel even worse and I’ll feel better. In order for them not to take your happiness from you, you must look at the attackers action and why their behavior is the way it is. You can only feel sad for them who are out to hurt others, because they lack in selfesteem, which in turn makes them feel inadequate. Always remember not to take others action personal. Your reaction to there actions is the key.
I love fact that we have this inbuilt mechanism that reflects back to us like a mirror through negative feelings those areas we must work on if we are to be peaceful. What is even more beautiful is that we can convince others that all is OK but never ourselves (if we really listen that is) and so true resolution of our problems is felt deep, deep inside and as you say honesty (with ourselves) is the quickest way to this – not always a great view in the morror though! Thanks Rob.
i love the fact that we have some people some where to help us learn to live happily.
Thanks so much,
continue sending me more
Geoffrey Bamwanga
Mbarara university of science and technology
p.o.box.1410,
Mbarara ,Uganda
Thanks for sending these facts about life.they’re real good and help a lot.
Esther,
Ghana.
True Debbie. I remember a quote which relates a little to what you say ‘What others think of you, is none of your business.’
Exactly Ruth. If we only trusted ourselves we’d never have a problem. The only problems we have are because we trust what others say over what we know deep down.
Thanks Geoffrey and Esther.