Whenever anyone talks about terrible people, there is always some enabling fool who wants to jump in with the idiotic, “It’s just human nature” excuse. No matter how terrible an action is, people have been brainwashed into thinking that every human being would have the impulse to cause harm. I am always amazed by that because there are several people who have caused immeasurable harm who have never been harmed, despite the equally frustrating conditioning that the “bad” people always suffer consequences. My thought is this: if the United States empire has existed for centuries murdering, extorting, and exploiting, but other nations have not, then what “humans” are people talking about?
No one wants to accept this, but the empire can only exist because of sycophants and enablers. In reality, nobody has power unless people believe they have power, which is why everyone is laughing at the United States right now. For the enablers and sycophants, there is always a convenient excuse so that nobody has to deal with consequences for being terrible people. The rise of mental health awareness has meant that people now feel entitled to use further emotional manipulation to harm others while hiding behind legitimate disabilities.
Unsurprisingly, most people are not going around harming others, but without having an abuser to support, enablers and sycophants serve no purpose. They know this, so they have made an Olympic sport out of further manipulating others into excusing the inexcusable. More frequently, though, people have stopped buying it when they look around at others living lives without causing undue harm, and start questioning “human nature” excuses. After all, enablers can be undone by anyone asking what harm they have caused. Usually, they become defensive, ironically after they have defended the indefensible.
What abusers are really doing is gaslighting targets into taking responsibility when people know they have no fault in the harm caused. There are a number of stupid phrases that cater to this mindset, like “Don’t hate the player; hate the game” and “If you want to make an omelette, you’ve got to break a few eggs.” Statements like these are conditioning people into normalizing harm, so that instead of engaging with and ending harm, people watch and tell the targets that they brought it on themselves.
In truth, people know that most individuals are not inciting harm by existing, and that the abusers tend to have overconfidence and lack impulse control. Because abusers cannot accept criticism, people have to accept their unhealthy mindsets by believing that we would do the same thing under the same circumstances. If everyone critically analyzed how they behave around others when abusers are gone, they would realize that the energy of some people inspires others to abuse. Without those people, most of those left behind would be engaging without needing to control/dominate/manipulate everyone else.
Basically, an enabler of a bully is just a subtler bully; claiming “human nature” is avoiding the responsibility and failing to have any self reflection. Honesty dictates that it is an act of cowardice to refuse to acknowledge that a situation is wrong for one’s own comfort, and people have been bombarded with guilt based on their inaction. Demanding that people “politely” take abuse makes someone a monster, and obviously, no one wants to accept the responsibility of being a monster, hoping instead that the targets internalize the plaguing guilt. This country knows that forcing the majority to struggle when some people can avoid it is rewarding abuse, but because people have been so strongly conditioned to normalize abuse, not enough people saw it as wrong.
Black people have been conditioned to believe that only we can prevent the abuse by the system, regardless of the fact that we have been made the scapegoats of the country since its inception. Realistically, even if 100% of Black-identifying people voted–there are people who understand they are Black, but claim otherwise due to internalized racism–it would be impossible for us to change the tide of the dominant narrative. Speaking of Black people, if it is “human nature” to attack when attacked, kill when those like you have been murdered, and exploit when in a position of power, how is it possible that under the first Black president, violence against Black people increased?
Clinging to the status quo without knowing the whole of it is emotionally immature, and using “human nature” as a get-out-of-jail-free card is narcissistic at best. No, everyone is not dying to be in a position of power to lord it over someone else. Most people would prefer to have more self autonomy, rather than control over others. In this moment in time, the majority within the dominant narrative are called to get over themselves and be better, because it is not the job of everyone else to prop up delusions. We cannot even afford the resources to do so anymore.
Waiting for policy is lazy because people are not being asked to help everyone they meet. It is human nature to be overwhelmed by the very visible problems in the empire, but it is more difficult to do everything than it is to do anything at all. One thing everyone can start doing is to call out everyone claiming that it is “human nature,” and start demonstrating that most people are either not bothering anyone else, or that people can help others without self destruction. Human nature is what we make it, so we should be working to improve it, not justify evil.
Chasing A Dying Empire 