Why do some people make your blood boil? Here’s why they might trigger you in this way.
I somehow got caught up in a private group talking about an article about how the more intellectually developed a person is, the more “left”-leaning they become. It was about how intelligence shapes ideology. I interjected that often all of us operate from a sense of security, safety, and certainty, and these desires can easily inhibit the other parts of us that want wonder, discovery, and innovation, all with the risk of failure. It turned out to be a fruitful discussion. However, often talks like these can easily devolve into a talk about how “dumb” they are and how progressive and advanced we are. It’s easy to stereotype “them” as poor, uneducated folk. Often this might be the case, but when we come to “hate” them, we then reveal something about ourselves.
My point is that much of the vitriol online (and in life) comes not because others are utterly alien or foreign to us. The reality is often not what it seems. Our hatred often comes about because we recognize something of ourselves in them. The “enemy” is often a distorted reflection of our own fears, flaws, or impulses. On the surface, the homophobe hates those whose sexual desires are not the same as theirs. Then it turns out it is something about same-sex or non-normative desires within them that they have a problem with. They can’t see themselves like that and therefore repress, deny, and even hate it.
Hatred feels like a safe, simple stance, it requires less reflection and vulnerability than seeing ourselves in the other. It was part of our tribal mentality in order to survive enemy attacks in a world that appeared scarce. It never asks: Why do I feel this way about this person? Do I fall into the same traps as them? Am I as easy to manipulate as them? Do I have the same desires as they do, but don’t want to admit it? It’s always easier to criticize someone else than to work on ourselves.
We often hear of this as “projection.” This is the psychological act of how a person attributes their own unwanted thoughts, feelings, or impulses onto someone else because they don’t want to confront them. So, a person might say, “Those lazy immigrants are always needing handouts,” but then employs them to cut their lawn, clean their house, and take care of their kids, while at the same time trying to dodge taxes through creating a non-profit or tax shelter, or even receiving government subsidies in their business.
But what is it that we really need to confront? What is it that is the issue? It is often the most uncomfortable parts of ourselves, and the most human. Many people take a position and stake a claim because they want to feel sure about their world. All of us create a construct to filter our realities through. This is for our own survival and safety. However, sometimes this becomes unhealthy, especially when we receive any information or experiences that run counter to our views. When we don’t reconcile this to our perspective, we double down on what feels most true to us, even though it does not match reality. When we see others doing the same thing, but on the other side of the position, we often get angry and rush to prove them wrong. But what if that is only a strategy to prove that we were right? It becomes a way to make us feel more secure in our stances. Sure, they could be completely wrong, but is an online response really going to change their minds, or is it simply for us to know where we are?
What if we can respond in a way that is healthy, acknowledging what we are all after?
When Jesus says “love your enemies,” it’s not sentimental advice or just a moral demand. He was not simply telling us to be nice. It’s a recognition that true love isn’t self-love projected outward, it’s love that includes the whole, even those parts of reality (and ourselves) we most want to deny. In other words, Jesus knew that his “enemies” could easily become a projection of who he was. The rigid religious leaders could become the object of his intolerance, of his own rigidity. Even when he called out the Pharisees, the self-chosen pure ones, as a “brood of vipers,” he wanted to show that their hearts were just as “wicked” as those they were critical of. However, he also knew that they were the ones who perhaps needed healing the most.
Real love transcends ego-boundaries. It’s not “me versus them,” nor “me first, then others.” It is all-encompassing, and in including others, it circles back to include the self as well. People often talk about self-love, and loving oneself, but this is even more radical. It says that the self is in the other. Our love should not be self-love or other-love; it should be just love, just as God is love. This love ends up including both others and us. This is not the breakdown of boundaries, but actually erecting healthy boundaries. We are saying, “I see myself in that person, and I will treat them with the respect, dignity, and love that I want for myself.”
I’m not saying that we don’t confront the injustices that occur and help to defend those who are the most vulnerable. But these are two different things. When we can see how we react to others, then we can seek justice out of compassion, empathy, and restoration, rather than vengeance. It is like, Keisha Thomas, woman who was at an anti-Klan rally. She saw that a person was about to get beaten up because of his racial slurs directed at the crowd. Instead of hatred, this Black woman threw herself on him so that he would not be attacked by the mob.
Next time someone infuriates you, ask yourself what their positive intent is. What do they want to get out of this tweet, post, response? Do they want to support their own beliefs because that makes them feel safe and secure? Do they want to be “right” because it affirms the way in which they think? Is it the same urge we need to fulfill in ourselves? How can we respond in ways that produce the real outcomes that we want, both trying to get at our deepest needs?
Then, what if the person we are looking at begins to look like ourselves?
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So true on the ease of hate and the comforting certainty that it provides.