In past essays on the adversarial nature of both ideologies and consciousness I described how fear was essential in creating and maintaining consciousness and in motivating people to act in support of their ideology. I presented my case for consciousness being a permanent state of mild dissociation resulting from a number of traumatic events and how the fear of re-experiencing those events keeps the mind active and aware. I also described the role that ideology plays in encouraging the inflicting of traumas on children and shaping their minds so that the child's adversary is made to be the same as that of the ideology. In edition 6.2 of this newsletter I described the interrelationship between love and hate and how they are two sides of the same coin. In this newsletter I will dig a little deeper into what I call the core motivating forces behind human behavior: love, hate, and fear.

Fear is a powerful motivating force, but fear, like all emotions, wears off when a person is confronted with the same scary experience over and over. Humans become used to things that once made them very afraid, accepting them as a fact of life, and the intense emotions that they felt at first are reduced with each exposure. Even things as frightening as suicide bombings, artillery barrages, and torture lose their impact the more times a person is exposed to them. But according to the Fireaxe theory, we need fear to reaffirm our sense of self, and so when we become accustomed to something that we were afraid of in the past, we seek out something new to take its place.

Many people have charged that the media, our leaders, and other prominent figures are the root sources behind the constant barrage of fearful imagery that we receive on a daily basis. It is said that we would be more peaceful people if we were not exploited by others with fear. It is true that people use fear to motivate the masses, but that is only part of the story. The other part is that people have a need for fear and that they demand new adversaries to take the place of the old ones. Fear sells. Stories of love and hope are boring unless they are stories of how love and hope can overcome hatred and despair. And in such tales, the more daunting and intractable the hatred and despair is made out to be, the more rewarding the final victory is. Politicians, preachers, and the media have learned what we want and they give it to us. Some do it to exploit us, but most know that if they don't, we will change the channel, church, or regime.

But do we really seek fear? Not directly. What we are really seeking is deliverance from fear, but we cannot have the deliverance part without the fear part, and so we are drawn to fear in the hopes that we will overcome the cause of that fear. I think that the reason we seek deliverance is due to the fact that we are suffering from something that I call the "permanent psychological deficit". This deficit is a persistent state of fear and inadequacy in the mind of the individual. We can't actually get rid of that fear, but we can make it go away temporarily by going through a process where we experience a surrogate fear and either vanquish it or are delivered from it. Thus our lives are spent living through an endless series of struggles in order to achieve the victories that we crave. It also follows that the deeper our permanent psychological deficit, the more meaningful our struggles and victories must be to fulfill our need, and so some of us will take on formidable challenges in the hopes of achieving a great victory. These are only temporary solutions to the problem of continuous need, but we really have no choice because they are our only solutions.

In the introduction to this newsletter I referred to us becoming "rage-oholics", and when you consider the permanent psychological deficit and our quest to seek and destroy foes it becomes clear why hatred plays a prominent role in modern life. Victories aren't meaningful unless we are emotionally invested in the struggle. The stronger we feel about something, the more intense the highs and lows of the struggle become, and the more gratifying it is when the object of our hatred is handed defeat. This is perhaps the only reasonable explanation for why we can become so emotionally invested in events that would otherwise have no impact upon us or in people who are merely fictional characters in a book or movie. Emotional involvement, though irrational, is the key. Dispassionate analysis of a situation doesn't bring with it the same highs and lows. When we tune in a news event the last thing that we want to see is two lawyers discussing the legal details of a particular case, we want to see the extremist fanatics on either side screaming catchy slogans at each other. We don't want to see two boxers sparring and dancing, we want to see them slugging it out. And we don't want to hear about successful diplomatic efforts, we want to see bombs dropping. When we don't get what we want, we change the channel. I'm not saying that we don't appreciate peace, it just isn't entertaining.

Love and hatred are powerful emotions, they are also two sides of the same coin. Hatred is what we feel when something we love is under attack. The stronger our love for someone or something, the stronger our hatred towards that which is trying to tear that love down. When the thing that we love the most of all is under attack, our emotional investment is at its peak and our fears are at their greatest. It is in this struggle that we are the most motivated, at least potentially. Too much fear can have an incapacitating effect, rendering someone incapable of action. But those who are not too afraid are highly motivated by extreme fear, and are capable of doing anything to rescue what they love from destruction. This powerful drive is what ideologies tap into in order to make their members do their bidding.

Ideological indoctrination is all about love. Believers do not need to talk about hate because hate will go hand in hand with love. All that one needs to do to indoctrinate someone is to make them love the core ideals of the ideology. In Judaism the core ideal is Jehovah and his commandments. In Christianity the ideals are expanded to include Jesus and his revisions with Catholicism adding the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the pope to the holy order. Modern ideologies generally share freedom and equality as their central ideals and differ on the exact definitions of those terms. Members of these ideologies are made to love these concepts. On the surface this sounds absurd. How can someone come to love an abstract idea in the same way that they love real people and things? The answer is that one can explain that everything that someone loves in life for real is made possible by the ideals of the ideology. Christians are made to believe that all things good come from their god, that he created the universe, and that he can reward them with eternal bliss after death. Members of western democracies are made to believe that all their wealth, safety, and prosperity flow from a democratic system of government and a capitalistic system of economics. The difficulties of proving that life under a different ideology wouldn't be as good are generally swept under the rug. It is something that is simply assumed or explained in simple, emotional ways, such as: without a god, life would be pointless and depressing; or, without freedom, we would live under the yoke of a terrible dictator. Convincing someone that their ideology is superior isn't a high priority since loyalty is almost automatic when one is raised under a particular ideological system, and it really doesn't matter which system it is. So simple arguments suffice.

Few preach hate. It doesn't sell well. Hitler didn't preach hate. He preached nationalism. He told his fellow Germans that the Fatherland had been violated by foreigners, which was essentially true, and promised them that his party could return Germany to its former glory. He played upon what Germans once loved but had lost: their strong military tradition which had been squashed after their WWI defeat and their powerful economy which had been destroyed during the hyperinflation of the 1920's. Nationalism and restoration of their beloved country resonated with the German people, and as Hitler led them to one success after another, the desire to spread their new ideology grew out of control. We all know the rest of the story.

Christian preachers don't preach hate. They don't hang a big picture of the devil in front of the church for worshippers to throw stones at and spit on. Instead the central fixture of every Christian church is a cross. There are few symbols that capture the relationship that I have described between love and fear as well as the Christian cross. The cross is where Jesus, the most beloved figure in Christianity, was tortured to death. It is a symbol of the divine under attack and fills Christians with feelings of the fear of persecution and the promise of deliverance. Christian preachers don't need to preach hate. All that they have to do is preach the love of Jesus and the gospel. When those beliefs come under attack, the hate, and motivation to resist, manifest in their congregation on their own.

George W. Bush doesn't preach hate, he simply goes on and on about how wonderful freedom and democracy are and how those beloved ideals are threatened all across the globe by the forces of tyranny and oppression. There's no need to preach hate. That emotion comes along for the ride when Americans see their way of life under attack. As a result Americans have become more and more emotionally invested in how world events turn out. It would probably be better if we were more intellectually involved in world events, but it seems that you can either have one or the other. Americans do hateful things around the world, and we do them in the name of love.

I think that the magnitude of the permanent psychological deficit for the average person in the world is gradually growing larger. It seems that over time people have become more and more dependent on experiencing fear and deliverance as a way of life and that their need for deeper emotional investment in those experiences is growing stronger. Overall this makes people more motivated and productive, and the world is becoming very modern all over. However, it also makes people more destructive. People need more, risk more, and have more to lose in conflicts whether they are directly involved or not. But I don't think that this is necessarily a steady upward trend. I think that in groups of people, small and large, emotional investment in issues can increase rapidly, spreading like a contagion and feeding upon itself, only to explode or burn out and return to normal. Like any addiction the need for victory is manageable, you just need to restrain from binges. So I wonder, will we?