Feeling a little hateful lately?

I don't know about you, but I've been feeling a little hateful over the past few days. In some ways, it's ironic. I just wrote a blog post complaining about a celebrity psychiatrist's hateful response to a campaign against hate. In other ways, my hateful response over the past couple of days is very human.

Brian Nguyen

I watched with horror as I saw images of UC Davis students being sprayed with chemical weapons. The sounds of the crowd shrieking combined with the very powerful and now iconic imagery of young students (children, really) being overpowered by a single swaggering police officer shaking a can full of  chemical weapons. 


Looking at the chemical wielding police officer I become filled with rage. He does not appear scared, threatened, or otherwise in harms way. He appears to want to be in control. He appears to want to exert power over the young men and women. Maybe he wants to feel good. Maybe, in the energized thrill of the moment, the thin line of civility some of us cultivate disappeared. Maybe his own personal rage, hate, and sadism came unglued. 


I look at him and I'm angry. I look at him and I want to see him punished. I want to see him punished because I want to know there is justice in the world. I want to know that we live in a civil society, where inconvenient protests happen, and people without power can use the transformative tactics of non-violent protest to push an overlooked viewpoint into the minds and hearts of the public.


I want to believe. I want to believe I am not like him.


I don't want to believe is the murderous rage that wells up within me. While I might like to ignore what I'm feeling inside, I can't. I'm transported, right now, back in time to an interview I had with the director of training for what was to become my post-doctoral fellowship. He asked me many difficult, challenging, frustrating questions. Two provocative ones come to mind. Both were questions that asked the same thing of me.

"You elected not to wear a tie to your interview with me today. I'm wondering what you think that says to me about you, and what you had hoped that it would say to me about you. I'm going to tell you this now, Jason. If you don't have an answer for that question we'll end the interview right here. If you don't have an answer to that question there is no place for you in this postdoc."

I survived that question. Then he came up with this one.

"Tell me about a time you experienced murderous rage toward a patient."

Joe asked these two questions for two very specific reasons. What's germane here is his second reason. After working closely with him for my post-doc, I learned that one of the most important things to him was that his post-docs know themselves. He wanted to know that I could look at myself. He wanted to know that I could look deep, not turn away, and openly take in the totality of my experience. Even open up to the dark, twisty, and scary places.


So I take in my experience. I don't look away. I watch the video and I allow the rage to pass through me. I sit without movement and experience what is that I am experiencing.

I am moved. Are you? Where are you moved to?

Megan Garber at the Nieman Journalism Lab wrote a smart article called Image as Interest: How the Pepper Spray Cop Could Change the Trajectory of Occupy Wall Street. Megan reminds us that Susan Sontag argues that photographs are

"invitations--to deduction, speculation, fantasy." They invite empathy, and, with it, investment.

 Take a few moments to look at some iconic, moving, and difficult images. Think of them as an invitation.

What do you see? It is easy for me to have great compassion and empathy for aspects of each of this pictures. Thich Quang Duc self-immolated himself on June 11, 1963 to protest the brutal repression of Buddhists by Catholics. "Tank Man" standing alone before the repressive regime of Communist China. Kim Phuc, running down a road after a South Vietnamese Air Force napalm attack. General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing the Viet Cong soldier Nguyễn Văn Lém. Dorli Rainey, 81 years old, pepper sprayed by police in the United States. Two nameless boys (one 18, one under 18) executed for engaging in gay sex in Iran.


And then there is Lt. John Pike. His swagger. His pepper spray. I can have compassion for the young men and women being assaulted with a chemical spray. Can I have compassion for the police officer?


Many see this image and are invited to anger and hate. I am, too. Compassion? Why would I want to do that?

Compassion and nonviolence help us to see the enemy's point of view,to hear their questions, to know their assessment of ourselves.
For from their point of view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses
of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit
from the wisdom of the brothers and sisters who are called the opposition.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think Dr. King was inviting us to look at our own shadow. Our own dark places. The places we find unbearable. When we look closely, we can protect ourselves from the darkness. We can stop our own slide into sadism. We can be transformed. We can be more.

Do it for yourself. Look deep and find your own shadow. Choose love. Choose compassion.

Toys from another country

There is something to be said to seeing the world through another set of eyes. What's more amusing that watching commercials from another country? Here are a few that keep me laughing. If you look carefully you'll gather some glimpses in how children are socialized into adult behaviors in other parts of the world.

Have any fun examples of your own to share?

Christian Terrorist

So those of you who closely follow my Twitter stream have likely discovered that I'm now on Tumblr. I use that space to keep track of things that I'm reading and thinking about. I've been reading a lot about the notion of compassion recently. One of those articles was by Martha Nussbaum.

In 2002, Hindu extremist organizations in India spurred attacks that killed over 2000 Muslims. "Approximately one-half of the dead were women. Children were killed with their parents; fetuses were ripped from the bellies of pregnant women to be tossed into the fire." p. 358 

Nussbaum, M.C. (2008). The Clash Within: Democracy and the Hindu Right. Journal of Human Development, 3, 357-357

If you are interested in hearing Martha Nussbaum deliver this speech, click here on this link. It's a poor quality video--you'll need to skip about 6:30 minutes until there is actual talking.

My Tumblr is linked to Twitter, so whenever I post something there a tweet is generated and sent out into the universe. Generally I think this is a good thing: I read some obscure things; many people don't read obscure things; the bits and pieces of what I read might spur others to think about things they wouldn't otherwise consider. All good, right?

The Nussbaum tweet quickly brought me to my new title, and the title of this blog post, Christian Terrorist. How did this happen? 

indiaandislam Sandeep Singh 

@ 

@jaypsyd Hey Terrorist of CHRIST ..Why not have a Debate on New Testament "the 

BOOK OF HATE " Vs the BOOK of LOVE GITA

Of course, why send one Tweet when you can send two.

HinduIDF Hindu IDF 

@ 

@jaypsyd Hey Terrorist of CHRIST ..Why not have a Debate on New Testament "the BOOK OF HATE " Vs the BOOK of LOVE GITA

1 hour ago

Probably what happened is that someone set up a program to search for any mention of the word Hindu on Twitter. My tweet, mentioning Hindu extremism, got the person's notice. What I should have done was ignore the tweet. It would have been easier. However, I have documented difficulty not responding to things such as this. I always think I'm going to be helpful.

jaypsyd Jason Mihalko 

@ 

@HinduIDF I'd be happy to have a real dialogue with you, but let's start by not assuming I am Christian. Polarization gets us nowhere.

11 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

It's hard to have a complete thought in 140 characters. I probably came on too strong.

HinduIDF Hindu IDF 

@ 

@jaypsyd When U call Hindu militants ? & wht is the Problem when we call Christian Militants ? wht Polarization ? Just debate ? rt ?

jaypsyd Jason Mihalko 

@ 

@HinduIDF The quote made reference to an extremist organization, not all Hindus. I would never group all people into one category.

11 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

Things went downhill pretty fast.

ProudArya Puneet verma 

@ 

@jaypsyd @HinduIDF These are abrahaminic faiths that polarize. You may as well be a marxist pseudo-Hindu trash.

rajdeepsardesai Rajdeep Sardesai 

blocked @jaypsyd . A true bigot who believes 2000 muslims were killed in 2002 gujarat riots.

HinduIDF Hindu IDF 

@ 

@jaypsyd U Stupid Lawyers is more authentic than Government of India & Other resources provided Indian's ? Racist Bastard..that is wht U R

rajdeepsardesai Rajdeep Sardesai 

@ 

This @jaypsyd guy does appear to be a bigot. Ill block him now.@HinduIDF @NishkaK

12 minutes ago

HinduIDF Hindu IDF 

@NishkaK True...A racist is a Racist and this Guy is a Racist@jaypsyd and no amount of Data or Books will change his Mind set

14 minutes ago

NishkaK Nishka Krishna 

@ 

@jaypsyd you guys @rajdeepsardesai @HinduIDF r wasting ur time. This person is brainwashed & will just use ur argumnts agnst hapless indics

How did I go from a Martha Nussbaum quote, to being called a Christian Terrorist, to being called a racist bigot, brainwashed, and let's not forget my favorite, pseudo-Hindu Marxist trash?

I mistakenly entered into a geopolitical argument. I'm not Indian, I'm not Hindu, and I'm not Muslim. I'm a psychologist writing a book about compassion who happened to dig up an article about a 2002 riot in India. I was interested in what Nussbaum had to say about compassion. I also wanted to keep track of that quote because I really don't know much about the politics in India. I wanted to come back to the quote so I could learn more.

From what I can best gather, there was an explosion on a train and many Hindu pilgrims were killed. Some say that a Muslim organization planned the attack. Other's have concluded that a cook stove that a pilgrim brought aboard caused the explosion. What international observers have documented is that in the ensuing confusion and violence, over 2,000 Muslims were killed along with many Hindu people.

The quote from Nussbaum was heartbreaking--hate and anger directed toward any human life is always something that breaks my heart. There is not excuse for it, and I see no place for it in our modern world.

So back to being a Christian terrorist and pseudo-Hindu Marxist trash.

I asked for dialogue. I tried, as best I could, to be open to listening to another person's viewpoint. I also asked for references. I asked my twitter dialogue partners to provide me documentation that might support ideas that were being presented as facts. When presented with propaganda, I called it as such, and asked for resources that could be verified.

I responded like a Western academic. Many of you might have done the same. This is not likely a particularly helpful move. Please make a note of it.

What I didn't do was respond with compassion. I didn't hear the fear and anger in the voices of my twitter dialogue partners. In responding to their deliciously ridiculous claims about me, I ended up becoming slightly protective of my own position. An honest thing to do, Not a productive one. I chose to try to teach here rather than listen.

I could have done better. While my twitter dialogue partners were rather insistent that if I didn't see it their way, I was seeing it the wrong way, I didn't need to come from the same stance. I got into a situation where I was on the defensive, being asked to prove I wasn't a bigot, and only being allowed to do if I agreed with what someone else was representing as truth.

There isn't really a good way out of that situation.

Does this make me a Christian Terrorist, pseudo-Hindu Marxist trash, or a bigot? Not really. At least I don't think so. In the end, however, I really need to let other people decide this based on my behaviors and actions.

Dialogue is hard. We all are prone to engaging in the eternal game of "Who is right?" or "My idea is better than your idea". It's painfully difficult to enter into a polarized dialogue where both sides want to see the other as the other.

That's important enough that I want to say it again: It is painfully difficult to enter into dialogue where both sides want to make the other side into "the other". What does that mean? In order to be right, to be important, to be safe, we human beings tend to make what is different from us into "the other." The other is a thing to be hated. A thing to be diminished. A thing to be ignored. To accept the other can be a threat to self. A threat to our own existence.

Did I "other" my Twitter dialogue partners? Not too  much. I was annoyed and frustrated, yes. I failed to take a compassionate stance toward their experience. I didn't hate them, objectify them, or intentionally turn them into an other -- I felt though that I was becoming the other in their eyes.

It makes for some difficult times. We can make another choice and become open to vulnerability--we can be open to the other and in doing so, can help recognize our common shared humanity.