Chapter 1 South Park’s censored moral
Kyle: I learned something today, Throughout this whole ordeal, we’ve all wanted to show things that we weren’t allowed to show, but it wasn’t because of some magic power that Mohammed has. It was because of the magical power of threatening people with violence. That’s obviously the only true power. If there’s anything we’ve all learned, it’s that terrorizing people works.
JESUS: That’s right. Don’t you see, gingers, if you don’t want to be made fun of anymore, all you need are guns and bombs to get people to stop.
SANTA: That’s right, friends. All you need to do is instill fear and be willing to hurt people and you can get whatever you want. The only true power is violence.
In the original version of the speech, I parody an inspiring ted talk, inspiring all of you here to create your dream life using violence.
But I decided to change.
Chapter 2 science
This moral is almost a law of nature. The strong prey on the weak. It can be seen in nature. It’s been a part of the history of humanity and is still a part of our world today.
Science facts:
Did you know that evidence suggests that we, homo erectus, killed off the neanderthals?
Did you know that that the closest genetive relative of ours is the chimpanzees and that the biggest thing we share with them is cooperative aggression?
Did you know that all of us humans have ingroup Bias? It’s this this that we humans have, it means that any group that I identify with is part part of my in group, and anybody that doesn’t is the outgroup. It means that we always favor the ingroup. If I identify as a cat person, I will unconsciously treat outgroups like dogs lovers like filthy sons of bitches.
Ever heard of the asch conformity experiments? Very simple experiment, one person is the teacher, a group of 5 people have three lines in front of them. The person studied is the last to answer. Teacher asks, which line is biggest? The 4 actors says that they’re the same length. Spoiler, they aren’t. What did the last person answer? Yes that they’re the same length about 90% – 95% of the time. Very interesting experiments on social pressure, because when interviewed individually, the subjects would say that knew that the lines wereen’t same length. I will let your curiosity research this on your own time.
Let’s recap those science facts:
Whatever we consciously or unconsciously identify as will become our ingroup and anything else is the outgroups. We will follow the group even when we know it’s wrong. We will unconsciouly favor them and unconsciously dislike the others. The more the outgroups seem threathening, the more you will cooperatively try with your ingroup to destroy the outgroups.
These traits we share made us survive and become the dominant species on earth, but they also ensured to stay in a cycle of endless violence.
Chapter 3 The conclusion
Whenever I try to problem solve this, I keep coming back to the ash interviewees who knew that the lines weren’t the same length, but conformed anyway. I keep coming back to the concentration camp guards who knew that what they were doing was wrong. I keep coming back to the people who inspired this speech.
There’s downsizing where I work at the moment. When they announced it, I was the only one of around 150 who dared to ask challenging questions and call bullshit. Because it’s the management that created the mess with bad strategic decisions and none of them are getting fired, only the people that followed them. Colleagues came to me individually praise me for doing that and only when management wasn’t around. Those colleagues are the ones that inspired this speech.
I want to stay honest, No the interviewees wouldn’t have gained anything by saying no. Maybe the guards would have lost their jobs or their lives and their families would have suffered. And maybe I will lose my job as a result of my questions.
What if they’d had the courage to stand up and disagree?
And this is what I beg of you, yes all of you here listening. When you know that your ingroup is wrong, please stand up and disagree.
And maybe who knows, we might limit the violence that we humans inflict on each other.