Teaching Hate

How Hate Shapes the Brain's Response

There’s a song in the movie “South Pacific” that goes:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
To be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught

This movie came out before we all got so interested in brain development and child development. Ironically, it is highly accurate as to the process. The brain is developing most rapidly prior to age 5. The wiring is being put in place very quickly. However, how it wires is determined by experience. There are “Windows of Opportunity” that are present during this time that will close if they are not used and maximized. From ages 0 to 4 is the Window of Opportunity for emotional control and regulation.

Teaching children to hate is child abuse in Western Society, but not in Middle Eastern cultures.

When we hate, no matter what our age, what happens in our brains? There is a process called the “hate circuit.” The parts of the brain it effects are the putamen, the insula, the premotor cortex and the medial frontal gyrus. The putamen is linked to our ability to perceive contempt and disgust. The insula processes our “gut feelings” and emotional reactions. The premotor cortex starts the process of planning physical movement. The medial frontal gyrus evaluates and predicts other people’s behavior.

Another area that is affected is the right superior frontal gyrus which is deactivated during the emotion of hate.

Impact on judgment and reasoning
Hate selectively deactivates the right superior frontal gyrus, a region tied to reasoning and evaluating intentions. This reduces the brain’s ability to make fair assessments of the hated person, while leaving much of the judgment machinery intact. This allows for planning and strategizing but removes the neural “checks” that might temper hostility.

Hate also causes a collapse or reduction in the ability to empathize. So, in summary, if there is hate there is also the inability to judge fairly. There is no empathy for the object of hate. And the person hating is already primed to take action, hostile action towards the object of hate. Overtime hate will rewire the brain and reinforce biased thinking and reduce compassionate thoughts or feelings of empathy. Therefore, if you teach your children to hate a specific sector of humanity, they will. They will hate them enough to kill them and feel justified in the doing. And that’s how you get an October 7th, where Hamas soldiers gleefully tortured, raped and killed innocent Jewish citizens. I don’t recommend going and reading the report on October 7th because it is beyond unsettling, but here is a link if you want to anyway.

One of the interesting aspects of hate, in my opinion, is the loss of perspective. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in this political environment with the word “fascist” tossed around lightly and constantly. The object of using this word being to link all behaviors from the so-called fascist to another much more malevolent group of behaviors. And if people can be programmed to hate, then look what their brains do with that information. That’s how you get the belief that killing is okay and actually something to be applauded.

Unfortunately, I am coming to the opinion that raising a generation of humans that are taught to hate to the point of killing other human beings is not going to be undone easily. I do think those that have been allowed to develop a smidgen of empathy might be reached and perhaps reaching these people will help realign the way the humanity looks at world events. But in the end, there is only Jesus. I become more and more convinced of that truth by the day.