On Ignorance and Aggression

On Ignorance and Aggression 

The concept 

    I'm sure we can all think of a time where someone was behaving with a hostile mind set. Not always, but most of the time, the individual is missing a piece of essential information that would make him/her reconsider their actions. For example, a man -let's call him Steve- beats up his friend -let's call him Bill- because Steve was told that Bill made a move on his girlfriend. However in reality it's was Steves girlfriend, that kissed Bill.
   
    Aggression can not always be be defined as a physical conflict. To elaborate, when two or more people disagree, the one who debates with argument, instead of discussion, is the one who demonstrates aggressive behavior.
 
    Most notably, aggressive behavior occurs when ones emotional state of mind, overwhelms ones logical thinking. Emotional thinking results in an incomplete assessment(s) and therefore an ill thought opinion or bias is put in place. In many cases, the aggressive behavior is related to ones fight or flight instinct, and the aggression manifests itself when the individuals beliefs, or ways of thinking, are being opposed or threatened by another individual with evidence and information that the defending individual unintentionally refuses to consider as fact. The defending individuals lack of knowledge -ignorance- is the structure of his/her ideology of "self". 

    

Why this happens

    When an external variable effects us either directly or indirectly, two things happen inside of us. There is an immediate emotional response and there is a slow rational response. Sense the emotional response is so intense, it's understandable but foolish to give in to the temptation of feeding your emotions.

   
    The New York Times Best Seller Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, the author cleverly describes these mental processes by referring to them as System 1 and System 2. One of the most valuable pieces of wisdom in this book is where he contrasts the two systems in detail, to show what each system has control of. System 1 is the emotional response, consisting of impulses and it's job is to recognize things we are familiar with -like seeing a face in the clouds- and to record new stimuli for later experiences. System 2's job is to monitor System 1 and occasionally take over. For a more detailed and accurate explanation I suggest you read the book for yourself, as it is remarkably interesting.

    Sense System 1 is continuously sending observations based on sense -sight, smell, hearing, touch- to System 2, System 2 must analyze these signals and determine what should be kept and what is insignificant. From this process is where every individuals beliefs come from. To demonstrate how this works let's look at a simple example of this process. Let's say a young child is being captivated by the red glow of a stove top. Despite his mothers repeated cautioning, he decides to touch the stove top and instantly two things happen. System 1 sends its experiences to System 2 where it then gets installed in the child's memory. Next time System 1 wants to touch something hot, System 2 steps in and the child remembers what happened the last time he made the mistake. Therefore avoiding injury to himself. 

   

Examples 

    Radical Feminism
    Politicians
    Most authoritative figures
    Religion- most obviously, radical Islam
These are a mere fraction, of what's out there. In some cases, it's an act of manipulation. Look at Donald Trump for example.