jueves, 17 de julio de 2025

LETHAL ARMAMENT / ARMAMENTO LETAL

(Published in English and Spanish / Publicado en inglés y español) 

A SHORT REFLECTION ON LETAL ARMAMENT AND WAR

K. Cronick

It is not new that invading armies often annihilate the structures and the populations of conquered cities. It happened in Troy, in Persepolis, in Carthage, in Athenry, in Fredericksburg, Virginia (USA in the Civil War) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in Gaza, to mention a few of these tragedies.

The motive for most of this destruction has been the dynastic and territorial ambitions of powerful rulers. In the case of Rome's destruction of Carthage, it was due to vengeance for General Hannibal’s attempted assault on Rome. In some cases, as in the civil war in the United States it had to do with a scorched-earth military policy to destroy the enemy ´s infrastructure. In the Second World War the decision to bomb Japan with atomic bombs was taken to “end the war”, but it has been speculated that another motive for its use may have been to display the United States’ military prowess to the Soviet Union (Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 2025).

Whatever the reasons, many international issues have been decided by force of arms. In modern times territorial ambitions should have been overcome. They are certainly not in the interest of the populations of the territories that are in dispute. It is incredible that one country´s rulers should wish to “possess” another country, especially after the beginning of elected governments where the populations can decide how they wish to be governed.

Another important issue having to do with disputes settled by means of armed struggle, is that war is very profitable. SIPRI (2023) has published a list of the major arms-producing companies together with their arms revenues. This information can be found in the link to the SIPRI reference below. These companies do not patriotically sell their products to their governments at reduced prices. They make enormous fortunes for themselves. And usually these products are produced in one country and used in quite another one. Their top executives are personally protected by body-guards and bullet-proof vehicles. They shield themselves and their families, all the while enriching themselves and generating tragedy wherever their merchandise is used.

It is time to re-examine this heritage. Armed wars should not be necessary. And much less businesses for personal enrichment. Disputes can be handled in other ways. It is long past the time to create a culture of peace.

References

Editors of  the Encyclopedia Britannica (2025, July 15). Why did the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happen?  https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-did-the-atomic-bombings-of-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki-happen

STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SIPRI) (2023).  The SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in the world, 2023https://www.sipri.org/visualizations/2024/sipri-top-100-arms-producing-and-military-services-companies-world-2023


UNA BREVE REFLEXIÓN SOBRE EL ARMAMENTO LETAL Y LA GUERRA

K. Cronick

No es nuevo que los ejércitos invasores a menudo aniquilan las estructuras y las poblaciones de las ciudades conquistadas. Sucedió en Troya, en Persépolis, en Cartago, en Atenas, en Fredericksburg, Virginia (EE.UU. en la Guerra Civil), en Hiroshima y Nagasaki, y en Gaza, por mencionar sólo algunas de estas tragedias.

El motivo de la mayor parte de esta destrucción han sido las ambiciones dinásticas y territoriales de poderosos gobernantes. En el caso de la destrucción de Cartago por parte de Roma, se debió a una venganza por el intento de asalto del general Aníbal a Roma. En algunos casos, como en la guerra civil en Estados Unidos, tuvo que ver con una política militar de tierra arrasada para destruir la infraestructura del enemigo. En la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la decisión de bombardear Japón con bombas atómicas se tomó para "poner fin a la guerra", pero se ha especulado que otro motivo para su uso podría haber sido mostrar la destreza militar de los Estados Unidos a la Unión Soviética (Editores, Enciclopedia Británica, 2025).

Cualesquiera que sean las razones, muchas cuestiones internacionales se han decidido por la fuerza de las armas. En los tiempos modernos, las ambiciones territoriales deberían haber sido superadas. Ciertamente, no benefician a las poblaciones de los territorios en disputa. Es increíble que los gobernantes de un país deseen "poseer" a otro país, especialmente después del comienzo de los gobiernos electos donde las poblaciones -teóricamente- pueden decidir cómo desean ser gobernadas.

Otra cuestión importante que tiene que ver con las disputas resueltas por medio de la lucha armada, es que la guerra es muy rentable. El SIPRI (2023) ha publicado una lista de las principales empresas productoras de armas, junto con sus ingresos por la venta de armas. Esta información se puede encontrar en el enlace a la referencia de SIPRI a continuación. Estas empresas no venden patrióticamente sus productos a sus gobiernos a precios reducidos. Hacen enormes fortunas para sí mismos. Y a menudo estos productos se producen en un país y se utilizan en otro muy diferente. Sus altos ejecutivos están protegidos personalmente por guardaespaldas y vehículos a prueba de balas. Se resguardan a sí mismos y a sus familias, y al mismo tiempo se enriquecen y generan tragedias dondequiera que se utilicen sus mercancías.

Es hora de reexaminar esta herencia. Las guerras armadas no deberían ser necesarias. Y menos motivas de lucro. Las disputas se pueden manejar de otras maneras. Ya es hora de crear una cultura de paz.

Referencias

Editores de la Enciclopedia Británica (15 de julio de 2025). ¿Por qué ocurrieron los bombardeos atómicos de Hiroshima y Nagasaki?  https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-did-the-atomic-bombings-of-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki-happen

INSTITUTO INTERNACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN PARA LA PAZ DE ESTOCOLMO (SIPRI) (2023).  Las 100 mejores empresas productoras de armas y servicios militares del SIPRI en el mundo, 2023https://www.sipri.org/visualizations/2024/sipri-top-100-arms-producing-and-military-services-companies-world-2023

 


lunes, 14 de julio de 2025

FROM HATRED TO EMPATHY: AN ESSAY ON FREE WILL

 

 

“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...[1]


 

FROM HATRED TO EMPATHY: AN ESSAY ON FREE WILL

Karen Cronick

 

INTRODUCTION

In this essay we will consider the nature of two human experiences, empathy and hatred, and compare their psychological, social and physiological characteristics. We will review the factors that cause them, and consider how they contribute to our sense of self, both individually and collectively. We will consider how they have been manipulated by different classes of leaders, and their effects. Finally, we will analyze how the pernicious aspects of hatred can be converted into empathetic relationships.

People’s Sociability and freedom

We humans are uniquely social. We learn almost everything by watching and listening to others. From birth we look at the faces and hear the voices around us -interpreting their emotional charges-, and we imitate them. We begin to smile after seeing our parents do it, and then we imitate the sounds they make. With time, our learning becomes more complex, and then we walk the way they do, and learn to love and hate what -and whom- they do.

We imitate, but we have to ask, does this limit our free will? The problem of human freedom includes our ability to choose, and our moral and legal responsibilities for our acts. Free will can be considered at both individual and group levels. It implies that that our decisions and our actions are not completely determined by external constraints, and that we could have behaved differently in any given situation.

This problem is, in turn, related to the question of what it is that determines what we really want to do. It is clear that our desires are determined and influenced in many ways, by our physiology, by past experiences, and by social constraints. We are taught to be monogamous, for example, and to appreciate certain culturally created foods, ways of dressing ourselves, and artistic expressions. But even these custom-influenced practices and habits change over the years, partly due to “influencers” dissidents, or in Moscovici’s term, “active minorities” (1996). Both custom and the influencers affect us, but in the end, we as individuals choose. We just need the right conditions to do so. We may take charge of ourselves and become active minorities, although most of us may need the example set by these nonconformists.We can judge their actions, and sometimes accept them as appropriate.

Zygmunt Bauman (2024) questioned whether “we the people” are inherently free. He observes that although politically, in a democratic state, the individual is responsible for his or her acts, and considered capable of choice, nevertheless he or she “appears as a historical creation, as does the society to which they belongs” (p. 22). Bauman creates an analogy using, on one hand, the ideal of total social control incorporated in Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”[2], and he situates this model in a structured capitalist society in which an “individual’s access to ‘liberty’ is determined by their social status. In this way he suggests that “moral education, cultural integration, consensus, group values, the ‘principal coordination’, legitimation, […] and the assimilation of our affective environment influences our own attachments and preferences” (p. 53).

Bauman’s appreciation of the limits imposed by culture are perhaps extreme, but as he also points out, human action does not happen by chance. There have always been strong social determinants over belief and action. But, as we will consider in the last part of this essay, there are large spaces for individual doubt and possible social change. There have been important historical moments of intentional change to promote human betterment, such as the invention of written language and libraries, the establishment of democracy in ancient Athens, the beginnings of a religion of brotherhood and love in the 1st century[3], the ideals of non-theological solutions to human knowledge, the possibility of  inherent and legally established human rights in the 18th and 19th century, the legal abolition of slavery in the 19th century, and the establishment of an international organization dedicated to the achievement of world peace (The United Nations), among others. These are intentional accomplishments that arose from a combination of individual thinkers and historical moments of cultural change.

The relation between hatred and empathy

Hatred and empathy create opposing predictions with respect to free will. As we will discuss below, hatred is almost always an induced condition, either at an individual level or as a collective phenomenon. Empathy, on the other hand, is an individual experience, and allows emotional communication that surpasses cultural experiences.

There is evidence for a basic continuum between hate and empathy in which past experiences and culture mold individuals’ emotional reactions to others. But these two “ways of feeling” are very different both in both their etiology and functioning. On the one hand they both are involved in people’s reactions to each other. But empathy is an inborn ability while hate is a learned response.

Empathy has innate, cerebral components which makes it almost instinctual at an individual level. Some people tend to feel it more than others. Hate, however, is not a unique reaction, it is a learned behavior arising from a history of fear, sadness, or even love[4], that has some of the attributes of an emotion. Sam Goldstein (2025) observes that “It is shaped by fear, anger, stress, and social conditioning, developing over time rather than emerging naturally”. Also, a sense of powerlessness is an important component of hatred.

Thus, hatred is not the opposite of empathy, nor is it an emotional alternative to it, although empathy may help alleviate it. These two emotional states have different origins which will be considered below, although both have some important components of learned social behavior. One learns to hate, as the song from Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical comedy “South Pacific” makes clear (the lyrics of the first verse are cited in the pull-quote above).

Hate can be unlearned, but first, it must be understood in its manifestations in language and actions. In the following pages this possibility will be explored. Similarly, one can learn from past experiences with empathy to be more sensitive to its manifestations, and to feel a generalized positive identification with others. Once established, both begin to function like emotions and have motivating properties. But hate does not arise “naturally” from simple imitation response the way empathy does.

EMPATHY

History

Cronick (in evaluation) has considered the concept of empathy from a variety of viewpoints. She points out how it has been characterized ever since the eighteenth century as an ability that allows one to perceive others’ emotions as “mirrored” in their own feelings, that is, the condition in which the emotions of an individual begin to be reflected in those of another person. This experience is often related to compassion in the perceiver. Below, I refer to some of the research nuances regarding the subject.

Stueber (2019) reminds us that the modern concept of empathy is of relatively recent intellectual heritage. It reflects varied research that comes from different disciplines, both philosophical and scientific. Since the Enlightenment, philosophers have speculated about our ability to recognize “other minds”. The author points out that since the eighteenth century, particularly due to the influence of the writings of David Hume and Adam Smith, the ability to feel the emotional processes of our fellow human beings has been central to much academic research, especially with respect to the psychological bases of our social and moral nature. It is clear that it must be considered as a basic component of human agency.

Relation to tolerance

There is a significant, if distant, conceptual relationship between empathy and tolerance. Tolerance does not imply that people are emotionally involved with each other. Tolerance presupposes the abstract awareness of a shared humanity, and this includes a sense of identification, one of the components of empathy. With the Enlightenment, thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and Voltaire began to reflect on the theme of tolerance, especially in the sense of religious tolerance. In the context of Enlightenment philosophy, the ideal developed of a possible coexistence between people and groups whose opinions and beliefs are different. This ideal does not imply acceptance or adoption of these opinions, but it does imply a sense of compassionate rapport.

Characteristics and definition of empathy

According to Riess (2017), empathy is an emotional capacity that is expressed when a person can participate in the affective experiences of another person, that is, take someone else’s perspective (a cognitive process) and feel compassion for them (a motivational process). The author indicates that there are three parallel aspects to this: sharing other people’s emotions, perceiving the circumstances of another, and feeling compassion for them.   

Depow, Francis, and Inzlicht (2021) say that most research on empathy has focused on painful emotions, for example, shared, empathetic sadness. However, in everyday life, empathy most often appears in response to positive and joyful emotions, not just disturbing ones. They say that positive emotions, such as excitement, are experienced about three times more frequently than negative emotions, such as disgust, anger, and fear.

Causes of empathy and its and relation to brain anatomy

Marco Iacoboni (2009) says that there is evidence from studies in social psychology, and also from the neurosciences to consider mimicry and empathy as basic learning tools. People learn associative sequences from watching others. Imitation and mimicry are pervasive and automatic. Children’s constant imitations of their parents and others can be comic, but it is the basis for most early learning experiences, from walking, to talking, to using cutlery at the table. Dancers, musicians and athletes imitate the great-grand masters in their fields. People in the street will all look up if someone in their midst does so: there may be a flowerpot falling off a high window!

But empathy is more than simple imitation, it involves actually interpreting and feeling another person’s emotions. Neuroscience investigations have focused on the physiology of “mirroring” at single-cell and neural-system levels. These approaches give new perspectives to the understanding of intersubjectivity and social behavior.

Riess (2017) refers to the neurobiological origins of empathy. People have an innate capacity that makes them responsive to others’ emotional processes, although some people may be more empathic than others. Riess says that magnetic resonance studies show that there is a cerebral mechanism that permits people to imitate others on an unconscious level in their postures, mannerisms and facial expressions, and to actually feel their joy and pain. This biological “mirror” capacity also is expressed in muscular fibers, for example, if one sees someone else reacting to a pinprick, he or she may retract their own hand. 

Empathy and a sense of self

Jennifer Pfeifer, Marco Iacoboni, John Mazziotta and Mirella Dapretto (2008) say that the mirror neuron system plays an important role in social cognition. These findings suggest that simulation mechanisms may be important in everyday social functioning during human development.

For their part, Uddin, Lucina, Iacoboni, Lang and Keenan. (2007) describe the anatomical and physiological aspects of the development of a sense of “self” and relate it to empathetical experiences. They observe that studies on self-face recognition indicate that the right frontoparietal brain areas that are associated with self-recognition overlap with areas that contain mirror neurons. They observe that these neurons may provide a link between self and other, enabling personal subjectivity and intersubjectivity through an intentional synchrony that supersedes the more unreflective and automatic simulation processes. Thus, they say, “the frontoparietal mirror-neuron areas of the human brain can effectively function as bridges between self and other, by co-opting a system for recognizing the actions of others to support self-representation functions” (p. 154).

This suggests that for humans, and probably other social animals, the self is created in terms of its relationships to others. The self is so identified with its social environment that it constantly needs to differentiate itself from others. The same authors propose that the function of certain anatomical brain areas called midline structures, are the origins of the “social or psychological aspects of the self, such as self-referential judgments […], self-appraisal […] and judgments of personality traits […]”. They add that “It is likely that one function of this so-called ‘default network’ is to act as a constant monitor of the self and its social relationships; thus, we see increases in activity in this network where the social self is invoked, as well as when processing information about the mental states of others (p 155).

In this anatomical reading of the difference between the self and others we see a constant interrelationship. It is clearly related with the idea of culture. But empathy is a profoundly positive and personal means of emotional communication, and the basis for people’s capacity to relate. It has important socialization functions because it not only involves one’s capacity to “feel” what others feel and react compassionately to others’ emotions and needs, but also forms the platform for one’s own sense of self. Thus, children take on their parents’ culture, and learn how to survive in a social world. And yet, because the experience of empathy is immediate, and bypasses cultural structures, it provides the possibility of forming new ways of evaluating one’s self  and other people.

Empathy, esthetics, and sports

With respect to the aesthetic experience of empathy, Seifert and Kim (2006) describe “Einfühlung” (empathy) as an immediate, implicit, and non-rational knowledge that deals with the imaginative projection of oneself towards the objects of artistic contemplation. It is a psychic experience that one “feels entering” (eingefühlt) into what is perceived. Implicit in this process is that the observer (or listener) participates in a process of imitation by interpreting what he perceives in the others, or in this case, an artistic object he or she listens to or sees.

Artistic appreciation is an experience of sociability and empathy, whose scenario is usually collective. It is highly socializing and collaborative. Musicians, actors, painters and dancers act together to achieve a specific product that is related to a musical experience, a theatrical performance, a dance experience, a painting or some other production and may have other people witnessing the event. Both performances, and private artistic experiences usually haves a limited duration, although nowadays, with recordings and videos, the possibility of enjoying it can last longer.

There are, of course, two sides to these productions, the artists’ experiences and those of the audience. Both involve empathy, and both are intimately related to shared experiences. Both have connections with shared, cultural resources such as different musical or artistic genre which particular groups appreciate as part of their own ethnicity and background.

Aesthetics and sports have been used in social projects to reduce violent community and group confrontations. With regard to sports, perhaps the first time they were used to achieve peace was in Greece, in the first Olympics. In revising the idea of the use of sports for social change below, we will review some of the psychosocial aspects of sports competitions that make this possible.

 

HATRED

Definitions

The word hatred is nuanced. A person may say they hate the taste of cauliflower, or a particular song, or algebra or traffic jams. These aversions are personal and are related to particular tastes or bitter experiences. On the other hand, when someone says they hate a specific person, or a group of people, the word implies a learned, intensely hostile and acquired animosity.

Agneta Fischer, Eran Halperin, Daphna Canetti, Alba Jasini et al offer the following definitions for hate: an emotional attitude, a syndrome, a form of generalized anger, a generalized evaluation, a normative judgment, a motive to devalue others, or simply an emotion. Hate, as the authors recognize, is socially unseemly, and difficult to acknowledge personally.

They observe that, it is different from anger. While anger is temporary, and usually aimed at someone else’s immediate behavior, hate “implies appraisals of the other’s general malevolent nature and malicious intent”. The former is temporary while the latter tends to be longstanding. They also observe that: “the concept of hate includes low levels of control, high levels of obstacles, and intense unpleasantness”.  Summarizing, they say that personal hate is characterized by “the attribution of stable and malicious intentions to the target, accompanied by appraisals of danger and feelings of powerlessness”.

Stephen Richer (in Kasparov and Applebaum, 2025) said: “It’s a little bit like the Eye of Sauron. With that—when it’s turned on you, you feel it. You get a lot of ugliness directed your way.”[5]

Characteristics

Hate is a learned, emotional response. Its objects are not arbitrary As Navarro, Marchena and Menacho (2013)  have pointed out:

“Prejudice, group hostility and hatred are everyday experiences. They are expressed in words and in deeds. US white supremacists attack blacks; Jews kill Palestinians, and the latter blow themselves up in a Jerusalem restaurant full of Jewish diners; pro-abortion gynecologists have been murdered by anti-abortion fanatics; the genocides of Rwanda and Bosnia….” (p. 10).

Hate can be a personal or group project. It can surge up in the face of perceived wrongdoing on the part of other people or groups. As a generic, shared emotion, hatred is a strong, negative feeling against another person or group. The hater sees the object of their hatred as bad, immoral, dangerous, or all of this together (Staub, 2003).

Hatred can be experienced emotionally, but can have cognitive implications and also become a kind of behavior. In a cognitive, attitudinal sense, it refers to negative opinions regarding its object. A violent act is also an act of hatred, when it is based on an intense, persistent and negative perception of the other, whom we desire to hurt, destroy, or make suffer.

 Causes

It can arise from aversive experiences, such as domestic or social mistreatment, or the effects of war or other forms of violence. In these cases, hatred can be a direct behavioral reaction to pain as described in classical conditioning, as in Pavlov’s experiments, where dogs learned to associate a bell with food and would salivate upon hearing it, leading to a conditioned response. In simple terms, two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in a person or animal. In a negative sense, the dog would learn to associate the sound of a bell, or any other stimulus with the pain of an electric shock, and cringe or express fear when it hears it. It is a behavioral response at a basic cerebral level. In people, the mental evocation of those responsible for past torments, or anyone associated with them, can elicit rage and hatred. In these examples hatred is not a chosen response, although it is learned.

Another kind of almost automatic learned behavior that has been amply studied is “operant conditioning”. The term originated with the work of psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Research on operant conditioning has produced a very detailed technology that is used in teaching, medicine, psychology, and other disciplines, called "behavior modification."

Operant conditioning is a body of techniques for manipulating the environmental consequences of behavior. The reinforcement of a given behavior tends to increase its frequency and punishing it tends to reduce it. A subject is more likely to repeat behaviors that are associated with positive consequences, and less likely to repeat those that produce negative results. In general, it is an associative learning; Behavioral contingencies can come "naturally" from the environment, as, for example, people wait for the green light to cross the street. The theory of conditioning comes from studies that manipulate environmental contingencies to cause certain consequences artificially.

When these two different forms of conditioning (Pavlov’s and Skinner’s) are involved in the generation of hate responses, people can resist. But they need to know, not only what is happening, but how to avoid being affected. They need to intentionally oppose being manipulated, and this means that they must have both the means and reasons to do so. People need preparation, knowledge, and viable motivational alternatives that come from reflection and problematization. The possibility of resisting conditioning will be reviewed in the next sections.

Hatred as a mechanism of political control

Hatred can be created to enhance power and control. As a collective social response, it is fairly recent historically. In history it has not always been necessary to create sociological hate structures. For many centuries the disagreeable aspects of war and slavery were considered normal power issues, and it was not necessary to justify them. Inequality was also accepted as a social given. It was not necessary for Cesar to defend his mistreatment of the Gallic and Germanic tribes to the Romans when he arrived in Rome as a successful general with slaves and plunder. He was received with enthusiasm. Conquest and its booty of treasure and slaves was expected of the emperors’ generals. Even in the European religious wars in the 17th century, the divisions of the time were not considered on an individual level, except in a given person’s religious conversion from one religion to another. The relationships between Catholics and Protestants were considered to have mostly dynastic and territorial importance. Possibly the traditional European rejection of the Jews may be considered xenophobic. However, the term “xenophobia” came into use only in the 19th century.

It was with the Enlightenment, and the new awareness of human rights, that mass mistreatment was recognized as problematic. And it was also the first time that dynastic and imperial leaders had to convince their populations to support their ambitions. Before that there were armies with soldiers that followed their generals’ orders in a sort of professional ethic of obedience, although history is full of tales of armies changing allegiances.[6]

The relationship between hatred and intentionality

Agneta Fischer, Eran Halperin, Eran Canetti & Alba Jasini et al observe that hatred is tied to intentional action, in that it implies the desire to hurt, eliminate or destroy the hated person or group, even to the point of physically killing or torturing them.

Hatred can be a chosen response, as we will describe below. It can be socially useful in creating an hostile cohesion in which a group´s members are united by their shared aversions. This is generally described in terms of identity politics. In this case it is an expedient for increasing in-group solidarity and for reducing the anxiety that comes from a sense of individual powerlessness. That is, hatred for an outgroup can strengthen ingroup structure and unity.

On the other hand, anger and hate can cause damage both within the individual harboring these emotions, and to the people around them. They create a toxic cycle, that diminishes personal well-being, destroys relationships, and prolongs a legacy of hurt.

It can also be cultivated. People can remember and create a litany of their grievances. Some of these grievances can be imagined, as when one perceives an inexistent affront or aggression. Each new offense, imagined or real, then becomes part of an inner or cultural narrative, entrenching one’s emotional response.

Hatred and identity

As José Navarro, Esperanza Marchena and Inmaculada Menacho (2013) have pointed out, hatred is based on the perception of the other, but it also has a strong relationship with one’s own self-perception and personal -and cultural- history. Certain adversity in one’s own life can trigger and intensify hatred: jealousy, failure, guilt and so on.

It can even arise from a cultural memory in which one’s own group was responsible for the mistreatment of an out-group, such as the memory of slavery among certain white extremist groups. It becomes a collective guilty conscience. As Cronick (2025a) points out, in the Americas the memory of: a) slavery and its abolition, and b) the brutality of the near-extermination of the indigenous population, persists. She says:

All this has left psychological, social and legal traces. It has left social remnants that are still visible [in the Americas], and still influence the formation of attitudes and ways in which today's citizens understand themselves and others.  [The 19th century] was a century that abolished slavery, thus questioning -and changing- millennia of involuntary servitude, and contradictorily, it was also responsible for one of the largest massacres in history with respect to the original inhabitants of these territories.  

Individual and group hatred

In political relationships generalized hatred, or xenophobia, is a common component. It is antithetical to the ideal of democratic debate, and has often been used by unethical political, religious or other leaders to sustain their power base. Finkel, Bail, Cikara,  Ditto, et al (2020) talk about political polarization  based on emotional rather than cognitive differences with relation to political party affiliations. They say polarization focuses less on the triumph of ideas than on the personal rejection of the supporters of opposing political parties. It leads to hatred-based political stances. The dynamics of polarization imply that party militants identify with one political group largely because of their hatred for an opposing one, not because of thought-out reasons. They call this a kind of “identity politics” where “holding opposing partisans in contempt on the basis of their identity alone precludes innovative cross-party solutions and mutually beneficial compromises” (p. 533).

This can be distinguished from for tribalism (which is based on kinship). They say it establishes a kind of religion. It is not directly related to racial identity, but rather is based on a “strong faith in the moral correctness and superiority of one’s sect” (p. 533).

The authors observe that since the beginning of the 21st millennium, this sectarian tendency is reinforced by Internet social media, and even many newspapers and magazines. In their opinion, part of this phenomenon is due to the increased economic dependency that political candidates and large news media have developed on ideologically extreme donors.

Cultural identity and exclusion.  

On the other hand, Navarro, Marchena and Menacho also reflect on the fact that hatred can be theoretically related to the experience of love and even empathy.  As we have pointed out before, humans are neurologically wired to “mirror” the emotions of others, a process related to the experience of empathy and facilitated by the brain’s “mirror neurons”. Hatred and cultural rejection can be a similar experience, in that it can provoke an almost automatic emotional reaction in others, stimulating similarly strong affective states. Once cultural rejection is triggered in one person, behavior associated with it spreads to others. This can create a collective emotional state, such as mob mentality.

However, this imitation of other people’s hatred is not a direct “mirror-image” response as it is in empathy. Hatred must be intentionally incorporated by the affected person. And, as mentioned, usually other motives are involved, such as the need to belong to a given social group.

The Russian sociologist Vladimir Mukomel' (2015), in an article about xenophobia in Russia, mentions the relationship between the trust and distrust that may exist among the people of xenophobic groups.  He says that the present century in in that country is marked by popular distrust, both for immigrants and for the nation’s authorities. He affirms that “xenophobia serves as a surrogate for gratification” (p. 39). He adds that in today’s Russia, “An individual’s interpersonal trust is limited to the circle of people closest to him—the family, relatives, friends, and close acquaintances” (p. 42). These limited circles in which trust exists are felt as fragile, and distrust for outsiders is exacerbated by the government that discourages manifestations of “popular initiative and solidarity from below that are based on generosity, a willingness to provide assistance […]” (p 44).

Hatred as a distractive strategy

A diversionary tactic is something used for distracting other people’s attention from one’s real intentions. In this case we reflect on certain world leaders’ strategic use of cruelty.

In the end, we are witnessing a certain kind of power struggle. Individuals with certain characteristics that allow them to ignore the suffering of others, form social bonds that permit them to pull an ideological screen between their real intentions, and something they present as a valuable political struggle. Certain groups of people are pointed out as enemies of the true nation. These “enemies” are presented as bad influences that must be eliminated. For those of the general population that accept this rhetoric, this manufactured hatred becomes a political endeavor. Meanwhile, the leaders and their followers steal everyone´s else’s wealth and resources.

Once the patterns of social repudiation are established, people feel an increased affinity -if not a certain affection- for those who share their revulsion. This idea of a “surrogate for gratification” is worth exploring in this context. Michelle Peterie and David Neil (2020) observe that rejected groups are “people against which one’s own identity can be defined, either explicitly or implicitly; and [. . .] against which one’s social practices, conventions and customs, values and beliefs can be contrasted” (p. 27). This is, of course a two-way street: it provides both the criteria for rejecting outside groups, and a reaffirmation of certain clan-like characteristics of in-group identity. In this way, “the social processes through which the ‘self’ and ‘Other’ are constituted remain in the foreground” (Ibid. p. 29). The ties that exist within exclusive groups can be reassuring and comforting evidence of in-group identity.

However, both of these identities are forged, in the sense that the beliefs that they are founded on are useful creations rather than coherent value schemes. Groups do not need conclusive proof to accept their beliefs, but usually these attitudes have an underlying, historical and cultural coherence. They come from a history of shared and deliberated traditions. When they become “contaminated” by xenophobic content, it requires more effort on the believers’ part to accept them. For example, the Internet page by Baptists Together (n.d.) lists the beliefs of the Christian far right in the United States and contrast them with less political and more traditional Christian traditions:

1.      Cleaning up’ so-called ‘moral depravity’, which refers to a constructed rejection of values such as alternative sexual identities or the practice of medical procedures like abortion. Baptists Together observe that “the idea of ‘cleaning up’ the morality of society is appealing to many who mourn the national decline in [what they consider to be] ethical standards.” These ethical standards traditionally referred to honesty, loyalty, charity, and shared, faith-related activities.

2.      Protecting the ‘Christian nation’ from the threat posed by Muslims/ multiculturalism/ the liberal elite/ […] antisemitism (or sometimes, conversely, rampant Zionism), white supremacy and ethnic or religious nationalism, with hostility towards migrants. Baptists Together comment: “The recovery of a ‘Christian’ past in the face of the ‘threat’ posed by Muslim immigrants appeals to a fear of persecution [….] We may add that there are many historical antecedents for religious tolerance in which the acceptance of others was a cultural foundation stone on which a whole ethnicity was constructed. We can mention, for example, a) the shared culture in Granada, Spain, between the 13th to the late 15th century, b) the shared French and English traditions in Canada, c) the founding of the European Union, and d) Switzerland’s cultural diversity which is manifest in its four official languages—German, French, Italian, and Romansh.

3.      Conspiracism around a variety of issues including climate change denial, holocaust denial, and anti-islamic conspiracy theories. We might add to this list beliefs about creationism, paternalism, and a general anti-scientific posture. These are alarm-reactions on the part of those who need to protect their beliefs at all cost, even at the price of sacrificing the need for veracity, and even the core Christian adherence to a culture of covenant love.

Other conservative religious factions make similar claims. With regard to the radicalization of Muslim men in Europe, Tahir Abbas (2017) connects masculinity as a traditional, dominant identity with the effects that follow the experience of racial rejection felt by immigrants in Europe “where differences in religion and culture regarding ‘the other’ are problematized and subsequently politicized” (p. 57). He says that the attraction of utopian and totalitarian political solutions “instils a sense of purist identity politics (p. 58)”.

In the context of a nationalist Islamic state, the Islamic National Defense Collete (n.d.) writes that the mixture of doctrine with nationalism in Iran can be understood:

 “[…] when one looks at the Safavid empire due to the fact that Shia Islam was almost an act of defiance against the infiltration of their culture and nation by the Ottomans. Arguably, Shiism is a potent political weapon for Iran as a state, as much as a religious ideology (on a personal level). Thus, within the context of Iranian national identity, Shia Islam is not regarded as primarily a religion but as a historical movement opposing the forces perceived as undermining Iran’s power.”

We could cite other combinations of doctrinal and political identities. But in the context of these two cases (the mixture of nationalism with either Christian or Muslim identities) we find that the creation of exclusive ingroup dogmas brings both coherence and relief to its members. These are reactions to aversive emotional environments, that can only be changed if they are confronted in non-aggressive ways.

Accepting cruelty

Cronick (2025c) has observed that people and groups that form political ties with leaders that use cruelty to establish their political bases may engage in acts of considerable brutality as signs of their loyalty. This leadership strategy is powerful, because the emotional commitment of those who accept these practices becomes great. They need to overcome many personal and cultural restraints to engage in ruthlessness, and their loyalty is thus reinforced by “guilty consciences”. It is no coincidence that under President Donald Trump’s immigration policy in the United States, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE agents) wear masks to hide their identity. And at a world level the forces that violently disrupt popular manifestations also tend to cover their faces.

Powerful modern leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Nayib Bukele, and Isaias Afwerki (Ethiopia) among others create enemies just for the entertainment of their followers. Then they allow these supporters to mistreat the foes they have generated. These acolytes can engage in their own power rituals and domination, but they will do so personally with prisons, torments, and firearms. The top bosses themselves do not need to participate directly in this nastiness, because they have all the dominion that they need just watching how their orders are obeyed.

Cronick (2025c) observes that this cruelty is not even a real political issue for the top leaders. It is simply an instrument for ensuring their followers’ loyalty, and thus achieving more and more power and more illicit wealth, the way a spoon is used to stir a boiling soup. She says that this behavior may involve social and personal pathologies in which leaders and followers form mutual bonds of unconcern for others to obtain and maintain prerogatives and entitlement. There are certain personality characteristics that make this indifference possible.

Individual rewards for belonging to an ingroup

Social Identity theory, originally developed by Henri Tajfel, describes the benefits that group membership has for the members of these groups (Research Net, 2025). The theory posits that individuals may identify themselves with values, basic social identities such as “male” or “German”, and group-social identities related to group membership (a club or a political party). These may be contrasting identities, and people must choose which are appropriate in a given situation. This menu of possibilities increases the individual’s confidence and reduces both anxiety and social isolation. These group identities can lead, however, to individual depersonalization and notable intergroup hostilities.

 CHANGING HATE FOR EMPATHY

 We can ask, how can people, who are physically capable of empathy, tolerate hatred?  It is, as we have been saying, a learned reaction and also a behavior, and it is intentional. The problem is that, although intentional, it often not thought-through. To resist it, people need to be aware of how it develops, and to make counter-intentions, and these processes must be carefully elaborated.

We have seen that intolerance, exclusion, and hate-related reactions are often the result of fear, isolation, identity crises, and even simple misinformation. That is, to repeat, they are often cognitively constructed over learned experiences that have left undesirable consequences. These experiences can be simple operant learning episodes, or they can be cultural elaborations that may extend across large populations, and have long histories.

Operant conditioning

In the last section we discussed how the effects of Skinner’s idea of classical conditioning are not irresistible. But without knowledge of how it works, it can be very effective. Cronick (2025b) has commented on an interesting story in Skinner's autobiography, "A Matter of Consequences" (1983) in which the author recounts an encounter with the humanist Erich Fromm. In 1958, the two attended a symposium. Fromm had previously expressed doubts about Skinner's results, saying that conditioning techniques did not take into account the decision-making and free will of human beings, and told him, "People are not pigeons" in reference to the Skinner’s work using this species. Skinner got miffed and developed a little experiment right there in relation to Fromm himself:

On a piece of paper I wrote 'look at Fromm's left hand. I'm going to mold a karate move' and passed it under the table to Halleck Hoffman. Fromm was sitting directly across from me at the table and talking mostly to me. I turned my chair slightly so that I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He gesticulated a lot when he spoke, and when his left hand went up, I looked directly at him. If he lowered his hand, I would nod and smile. Five minutes later he was moving his arm in the air so vigorously that the watch came off his wrist all the time" (quote taken from Psyciencia, 2015).

In this story Fromm "obeyed" Skinner, but without knowing it. It is a control mechanism, but if Fromm had understood what Skinner was doing to him, he could have refused to participate. Conditioning techniques work in two basic situations: a) when the subject is unaware of the disposition of contingencies, and b) when they are aware of them and accept them. In fact, in certain addiction treatments, patients voluntarily undergo aversive conditioning programs to eliminate their unwanted habits.

Conscious choice

Focusing on positive emotions is usually a conscious choice that comes after people or groups begin to question previous ideas and are exposed to new ways of evaluating other people. It is a healing process, in which emotional pain is evaluated under new conditions of encounter and understanding. The haters not only heal themselves but also contribute to the well-being of others.

The motivation for these emotions may come from personal contacts with members of excluded groups.

In a now well-known and moving story, Daryl Davis (1998), an Afro-American in the United States, wrote about his friendships with certain members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Davis is a musician and author whose book, Klan-destine relationships: a black man's odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan” describes his positive encounters with men who belong to this highly racist organization. He had a middle-class upbringing that included some encounters with racism, but although he was largely protected from its effects, he was curious about the phenomenon. After becoming a country-music professional, Davis began to explore the possibility of contacting Klansmen to discuss their beliefs. One of his first encounters was with Roger Kelly, the Grand Dragon[7] of the local branch of the KKK at that time. The two men begin to meet, and talked about Kelly’s beliefs. He claimed not to be a white supremist, but rather a separationist. That is, he believed the races should live separately. Davis and Kelly found common ground in their opposition to drug use, and Kelly proposed a collaboration to combat addiction. Later Kelly left the KKK.

Their discussion shows that that people can overcome, and come to tolerate opposing views, and that there can be humanity amidst division.  Davis eventually went on to make friends with many more KKK members, and even went to some Klan meetings. Many other members eventually left the organization because of his influence. Davis found that Klansmen have many cultural misconceptions about black people. After forming a friendship with a black man, he says, it was more difficult to maintain their prejudices.

These personal and tolerant contacts opened the door for many Klansmen to both question their prior beliefs and to revise the emotional appraisal of the members of an excluded group. The attitude changes were personal and intentional.

As Cronick (n.d.) notes, “We may need to consider that consciousness is a cultural phenomenon, not in the sense of a mental capacity, but rather in terms of self-perception and awareness of others. The way people perceive themselves makes a difference in what possibilities they see for themselves and how they act. This changing self-perception has cultural roots and has influenced humanity’s ways of relating to the world and to others, and has had a profound political impact.

Also in the context of the United States, Garry Kasparov and Anne Applebaum (2025) discuss what the idea of democracy means today in both that country and the world. In this conversation, Kasparov talks about the need to understand all the underlying currents that make the trend from democracy to autocracy possible. He means that it is important to foment a massive understanding of these dynamics. He refers mostly to the collapse of the traditional political debates between the Left and the Right, and their substitution for identity politics. We have referred already to these identities (race, religion, ethnicity), but Kasparov mentions the traditional issues that have divided the left and the right, such as “the size of the state and whether taxes should be high or low, and whether we should have state health care or private health care. They were the subjects of politics and the substance of political debate”. The danger of tyranny increases when these policy issues are superseded by:

 “… existential issues, cultural ideas, national identity, other kinds of identity. Issues where there’s much less area for compromise, and where there’s much less that the different various parties can do together. I mean, so if you have an argument about taxes, you can find a compromise between the center left and the center right. If your argument is Who are Americans? And should people of only one skin color get to be Americans? And, if people come from another country, and they don’t come through the border in the right way, they should be expelled, or not expelled? I mean, those are much more existential issues, and there’s very little area of compromise. You also have the rise of political movements that challenge the system itself.”

For Kasparov and Applebaum the main, most important issue is the need to raise massive awareness of how the political debate has changed, that is for people in general to be aware that the issues being discussed today are not related to policy and political decision making. Rather they are being used to divide the political spectrum and make true debate impossible.

Teaching empathy

Empathy is an innate ability, but it is subject to socio-environmental and cultural influences. Even people who feel its lack in their own lives can cultivate it (Abramson, 2021) In environments where this capacity is nurtured, these experiences tend to be more frequent. Levett-Jones, Cant, and Lapkin (2019) examined the effectiveness of teaching empathy among nursing students. They found that it was most effective in immersive and experiential interventions based on simulations that employed role-playing. In other words, there was greater learning when conditions resembled normal contexts of social interaction. 

Riess (2017) also notes that research has shown that this vital human ability is mutable and can be taught. Nowadays it is common to find videos on the Internet about learning this skill. There is a television series called "Convicts and Pitbulls" (Drachkovitch & Lucas, 2009) in which inmates in prison learn to care for and love violent dogs, and in the process they themselves learn to feel empathetic emotions. In Abramson (2021) there are self-help recommendations for those who want to develop this capacity in themselves.

In situations where empathy is ignored or suppressed, it tends to disappear. Bleiker and Hutchison (2021) examined empathy in scenarios where there have been political conflicts and wars. They also explored its role in post-conflict reconciliation processes. That is, the authors review both the conditions that decrease the experiences of empathy and those that increase them. Bleiker and Hutchison say that the emotions triggered by conflict often perpetuate existing antagonisms.

The role of art, music, and sports in promoting empathy in violent situations

Bleiker and Hutchison discuss how the active use of empathy can promote alternative ways of reducing conflict. The authors review the role of art, and theatre in particular, in peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. In its usual sense the term "culture" is used with reference to works of art, fiction and music. This meaning, too, has served as a precedent to mobilize consciousness. And these manifestations are always active in social change.

One example of how the arts can create empathy and thus promote de reduction of prejudice and hatred is the work of the author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who influenced how slavery was viewed in the United States before the civil war. She wrote the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (2021) that was first published in 1851. She narrated the story of slaves and their owners in a way that made their feelings accessible to people living in the northern slavery-free states.

In Venezuela there is a program whose original objective was to bring classical music to impoverished neighborhoods where it was seldom heard. It originated in 1975 from an idea developed by José Antonio Abreu, and they called it "The System of Orchestras". Its objective was (and is) to promote the collective and individual instruction and practice of music through symphony orchestras and choirs, as instruments of social organization and humanistic development. "The system" ended up being an instrument of peace in the neighborhoods, and many young people were able to avoid being incorporated into violent gangs due to the influence of this organization.

Some years later a spontaneous movement of street-corner groups appeared that sang rap, without any score. The two musical genders saved many boys from delinquency and other types of bullying.

Music is a language, which goes beyond tonalities and becomes empathy, that is, an expression of one's intimate being and one’s own culture. Especially in improvised music, musicians who share playing a piece cannot hate each other. Ancestral music, unlike classical music, contains specific cultural memories that are incorporated in the particular harmonies and rhythms of the ethnic group that has produced it. 

Music is a universal language. There is a video of the cellist Yo Yo Ma (n.d.) playing along with a musician from a tribe of the Bushmen.   It is a testimony to the plurality of this language that goes beyond local tonalities and rhythms and becomes a powerful instrument of empathy.

Andrés Felipe García (2025) writes about the instrument (and the comparative style) of "la guataca" in Venezuela. He says that playing this type of music:

"It is not a special gift or anything like that, but it is executed from traditions such as knowing, recognizing and using musical-cultural conventions. It means being aware of the perceived sound structure, of the recognition and use of those structures, of conventional forms and those that are not. It implies knowing at what point in the sequence we are located in the evolution of the rhythm, the melody, the harmony or in the formality of the sound discourse" (García, 2025).

This combination of discipline, knowledge, tradition, and innovation can have deep effects on the participants. They become collaborators and co-reproducers of renovations or extensions of their existing cultures.

These effects are not limited to the arts. In many sporting events similar “civilizing” effects are felt. Sports also have pre-established rules, along with plenty of room to improvise. The traditional spirit of the Olympic Games uses sporting events to strengthen peace as its participants interact in social scenarios in which the rules, goals and actions are agreed upon.

The Alcatraz Project in Venezuela, under the tutelage of the Santa Teresa Foundation, began in 2003 with a group of young people that had been imprisoned for participating in a robbery at the Santa Teresa Rum company. The owner of the company, Alberto Vollmer, decided to offer the young people that were responsible for the crime the possibility of working for the company, without being paid, for three months, to reimburse what was stolen as an alternative for spending time in jail. Later they were taught to read and write. Then Alberto Volmer came up with the idea of instilling interpersonal values in them through the sport of rugby, and thus began the project, which eventually had more than 200 young participants.

From these beginnings, the formation of rugby groups began to be promoted as part of a social re-education program for young people and adults with behavioral problems. Young people, members of local bands, participate in the formation of teams, the organization of competitions, and the learning of new rules of interaction. Participants come from gangs, prisons and local high schools. Since its inception, the program has managed to dismantle ten criminal gangs.

According to Corral (2022) The next step in the program was to achieve a ceasefire between existing rival gangs. Vollmer organized the formation of Rugby teams, using members of the bands, and facing them off on the field. This time, however, there were no weapons, and the players had been trained in the rules of the game. It was a remarkably successful program, and evidently filled an important emotional need for the participants.  Currently, they have a school rugby program and a community rugby program, giving a total of two thousand young people sports training and the opportunity to get away from crime.

Just like music, sport has rules and space for innovation and interaction. The participants who confront each other on the field are protected by "fair-play" rules, together with legitimate and non-violent scenarios.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In this essay we have reviewed ideas about empathy and hatred and how the first can help overcome the pernicious effects of the second. We have reviewed the social and political environments that facilitate these reactions, and we have considered social and psychological mechanisms that either enhance or limit them. We have evaluated how they are related to culture, and how people can intentionally choose empathetic responses. All this is related to a general sense of a personal and collective self, and an ample awareness of social being in both individuals and groups.

We have considered how hatred can be substituted for empathy. The benefits are large, both for individuals and groups. When people can choose to live in conditions in which social isolation, ignorance, and violence are reduced, then their possibilities for personal and group development are enhanced. They can make choices based on valid information, and resist domination.

We have reviewed the roles of classical and operant conditioning in limiting choice. Ironically, operant conditioning, when the person is aware of the contingencies and the options, can be an instrument of enlarging free-will. When people are unaware of these conditions, they are vulnerable to manipulation. It is knowledge that should be included in every high-school curriculum.

People need to know that they can learn to be empathetic. Another area of great importance is the need for public policies that foster interaction between different identity groups. When isolated they may become hostile, but as in the case related by Daryl Davis (1998), when an Afro-American could interact with members of the KKK, the effects of hatred were weakened, and friendships were established.

The role of the arts and literature cannot be overstated. When people get together to create esthetic works, they must activate their empathetic capacities. When they do so together, their interaction can produce rewarding experiences. Sports activities have similar virtues: improvisation within the limits of rule-bound activities is a fundamental source of tools for eliminating hate-related reactions.

Understanding the dynamics of group-related initiatives within communities (and nations) is also very important. In an important area for social investigation, and should be encouraged. In a research project that is still in progress, Raúl Rojas (personal communication) is elaborating a classification of community organizations in a Caracas neighborhood, and analyzing them in terms of their contributions to the idea of “social capital”. He is organizing their characteristics, origins, and roles in a given vicinity, and analyzing how they influence values such as reciprocity, trust, and leadership styles. This notable study will be an important contribution to our understanding of communities’ ability to overcome hatred and to substitute it for more positive ways of interacting.

 

 

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Y, Silviya (2024, 23 Aug). ‘Lord of The Rings’: The Eye of Sauron Explained. Indigo Music.  https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Eye_of_Sauron

Yo Yo Ma y el bushman dueto - Search Videos. (n.d. f.). https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=%22yo+yo+ma%22+y+el+bushman+dueto&&mid=86A1C8BACC76508149F686A1C8BACC76508149F6&FORM=VAMGZC

 



[1] From “South Pacific”, the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Lyrics sung by the character Lieutenant Cable. The lyrics continue with: “You’ve got to be taught to be afraid - Of people whose eyes are oddly made, -And people whose skin is a diff’rent 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!”

[2] The Panopticon was a proposal made originally by Jeremy Bentham’s for the design of a prison or a mad-house, in which the inmates could be constantly observed and controlled by a supervisor hidden in a central vault. The inmates were aware of this supervision, and for this reason only engaged in permitted activities.

[3] It must be recognized that the ideals of the early Christian church rapidly deteriorated into those of a state religion of power and control.

[4] As when people imitate those for whom they have affection.

[5] This reference refers to J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, Lord of the Rings. Silviya Y says:  “The Eye of Sauron, generally called the Eye, was a symbol of Sauron the Dark Lord, mainly acknowledged when it was perceived by the character Frodo Baggins while carrying the One Ring. The Eye was projected as a mental image to show Sauron's unceasing vigilance and piercing perception. (Y, 2024).

[6] The word “turncoat”, refers to soldiers who turned their jackets inside out -thus hiding the colors that define them- to switch their allegiance in the middle of a campaign.

[7] Grand-dragon is a ranking in KKK organizational hierarchy. It is the position directly under the “Grand Wizard” the national head of the “Invisible Empire”. The “Grand Dragon” is the ruler over a state known as a Realm.” (List of ranks…., 2025).

 
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