PEOPLE are inherently selfish. And selfishness, if not kept under control, can turn into hatred. As if natural selfishness were not bad enough, human society actually trains people to be selfish!
Generalizations, of course, do not always apply, yet certain attitudes are too prevalent to be rejected as simply aberrations. Are not politicians often more interested in winning elections than they are in helping their constituents? Are not businessmen often more interested in making money, unscrupulously if necessary, than in preventing harmful products from reaching the market? Are not clergymen often more interested in being popular or in gaining money than in guiding their flocks along paths of morality and love?
Beginning With the Young
When children are reared in a climate of permissiveness, they are actually being trained in selfishness, since considerateness and unselfishness are sacrificed on the altar of their childish desires. At school and college, students are taught to strive to be number one, not only in scholastic matters but also in sports. The motto is, “If you are second, you might as well be last!”
Video games featuring violence teach young people to solve problems the selfish way—simply eliminate the enemy! Hardly an attitude that fosters love! Over a decade ago, the U.S. surgeon general warned that video games posed a threat to young people. He said: “Everything is zap the enemy. There’s nothing constructive in the games.” A letter to The New York Times noted that many video games “pander to the basest instincts of man” and added: “They are cultivating a generation of mindless, ill-tempered adolescents.” A video-game fan from Germany was honest enough to admit the truthfulness of this latter statement when he said: “While playing them I was transferred into an isolated dream world where the primitive slogan applied: ‘Kill or be killed.’”
When coupled with racism, hatred becomes ever more sinister. Germans are therefore obviously concerned about the existence of right-wing videos that demonstrate violence against foreigners, particularly against Turks. And well they might be, since as of January 1, 1994, Turks made up 27.9 percent of Germany’s 6,878,100 foreign residents.
Racist feelings nourish what nationalism teaches children from infancy, namely, that hating your nation’s enemies is not wrong. An essay by George M. Taber, a Time contributor, noted: “Of all the political isms of history, perhaps the strongest is nationalism.” He went on to explain: “More blood has been shed in its name than for any other cause except religion. Demagogues for centuries have stirred up fanatical mobs by blaming all their troubles on some neighboring ethnic group.”
Long-standing hatred of other ethnic groups, races, or nationalities is behind many of the problems in today’s world. And xenophobia, fear of strangers or foreigners, is on the increase. Interestingly, however, a group of German sociologists discovered that xenophobia is most marked where few foreigners live. This seems to prove that it is more often caused by prejudice than by personal experience. “Young people’s prejudices are fostered mainly by their friends and families,” the sociologists found. Indeed, 77 percent of those interviewed, even though they endorsed the prejudice, had no direct contact, or very little, with foreigners.
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