WHY
IS HATE SUCH A POWERFUL MOTIVATOR?
James R.
Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© November
26, 2019
Life
is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
Horace
Walpole (1717 – 1797), English writer
BACKGROUND: THE GENESIS OF IQ
& COMMONALITY OF ITS CRIPPLING GENIUS
We humans jump on ideas that
simplify our pressing dilemmas and meet the demands of our common sense. We
have been doing this with some vigor over the past roughly 150 years. We
apparently need to pigeonhole people into explanatory categories with
mathematics and science to compensate for our confusion and exasperation when
so many vicissitudes seem to be manifested when it comes to people as persons.
This appears especially true when it
comes to intelligence. Sir Francis Galton, the British mathematician, and
founder of statistics, was fascinated with eugenics, behavioral genetics and
intelligence. His book “Hereditary Genius” (1865) focused on
biological breeding and nature rather than on nurture and the cultural
environment. He was especially captivated by the distribution graph popularly
known as the “bell curve.”
Biometrics, or reducing people to
numbers on a statistical curve has been with us ever since. American
biometrician Charles Davenport (1866 – 1944) was persuaded in his research that
certain ethnic groups suffered stereotypical moral failings leading to
criminality and prostitution.
Americans Henry Goddard (1866 –
1957) and Lewis Terman (1877 – 1956) introduced the French “Binet” intelligent
test into the United States where it became known as the “Stanford Binet” IQ
test. IQ stands for Intelligent Quotient and is calculated thusly:
Mental
Age divided by Chronological Age times 100 equals IQ.
[This was the standard test when I
was in grammar school where it was first given to students. The hubris of the
creators of this arbitrary and culturally dependent test was the assertion that
IQ is unlikely to change in an individual's lifetime; that nature dominates
decisively over nurture. I can remember classmates who used their poor test
scores on IQ tests as an excuse for making little progress in life.]
Reducing people as persons to
numbers, statistical or mathematical variables was something of a defense
mechanism to deal with exploding population and all the concomitant problems
associated with that from crowd psychology to the cataclysmic and
incomprehensible explosion in personal, family and societal dysfunction.
It is not surprising that social
engineering would shift to emotional intelligence.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – WHY IT CAN
MATTER MORE THAN IQ
Science journalist Daniel Goleman
(born 1946) erased the scarlet letter of shame across the forehead of many when
he declared, “The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the
thinking brain.”
No longer was IQ an obstacle to a
mind who wished to have a career say in medicine who had been told his (or her)
IQ was insufficient for such a task.
Goleman has launched a series of
books including the 1995 title of this segment. He postulates five components
as primary to Emotional Intelligence:
Self-awareness;
Self-Regulation; Motivation; Empathy; and Social Skills.
SELF-AWARENESS
This is the ability to recognize and
understand ones moods, motivations, and abilities. Also understanding the
effects they have on others. Goleman says to achieve a state of complete
self-awareness, an individual must be able to monitor their emotional state and
identify their emotions. Traits that prove an individual as emotionally mature
include: confidence, the ability to laugh at one’s self and their mistakes, and
the awareness of how you are perceived by others.
Example: By reading the
reaction of someone else, you know how you are perceived by them.
SELF-REGULATION
This is the ability to control ones
impulses, the ability to think before you speak/react, and the ability to
express yourself appropriately. Goleman defines emotional maturity in this
component as being able to take responsibility for your actions, being able to
adapt to change, and the ability to respond appropriately to other people’s
irrational emotions or behavior.
Example: If someone is
screaming at you, you know that they are not always angry at you. You have the
ability to understand they may be angry at a particular situation and feel they
need to take it out on someone. You do not take this personally or react angry
back.
MOTIVATION
This is having an interest in
learning and self-improvement. It is having the strength to keep going when
there are obstacles in life. It is setting goals and following through with
them. Goleman would define an emotional mature individual in this category to have
traits such as having initiative and the commitment to complete a task, and
having perseverance in the face of adversity.
Example: One who chooses
internal motivation driven goals instead of exterior motivation driven goals.
Internal motivation driven goals are things such as earning a college degree or
becoming a healthier person; things that show self-improvement. Exterior
motivation driven goals are things that flaunt wealth or status. This is
setting goals such as having the next newest and nicest car.
Example: If a student fails
a class, they see this as an opportunity to learn and retake the class without
self-doubt. They do not let failure get in the way of their goal.
EMPATHY
This is the ability to understand
other people’s emotions and reactions. Empathy can only be achieved if
self-awareness is achieved. Goleman believes that one must be able to
understand themselves before they can understand others. Emotional maturity in
this category includes people having traits such as perception of others, being
interested in other people’s worries and concerns, the ability to anticipate
someone’s emotional response to a problem or situation, and the understanding
of societies norms and why people act the way they do.
Example: Being able to
understand and cope with someone else’s hardships or sadness. When you fully
understand yourself and why you feel the things you feel, you can understand
other peoples even if they are different than you.
SOCIAL SKILLS
This is the ability to pick up on
jokes, sarcasm, and customer service, maintaining friendships and
relationships, and finding common ground with others. Goleman states that
emotional maturity in this component defines someone who has good communication
skills, good time management, the ability to be a leader or manage a group of
people, and the ability to resolve difficult situations or conflicts using
negotiation or persuasion.
Example: Someone in a
"boss" position usually has a good grasp on handling all different
types of personalities. If two of their employees are having a conflict, they
can find common ground and resolve the issue in a civilized and fair manner.
Journalist Goleman hit on a
compelling theme stimulating the collective conscience of society just as
Stephen Covey (1932 – 2012) did with “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People” (1989), and as Ken Blanchard (born 1939) did with “The
One Minute Manager” (1982).
The flaws in these rather simplistic
solutions to complex behavioral and organizational problems indicate how
readily we jump on the bandwagon to intuitive and deterministic paradigms.
The idea of emotional intelligence
first appeared in a paper given by Columbia’s professors of psychology Joel
Robert Davitz and psychiatrist Michael Beldoch in 1964. Daniel Goleman took it
to another level with “Emotional Intelligence” (1995).
Mental health and leadership has
been the focus of many studies assuming emotional intelligence (EI) as real
intelligence. These studies show no causal relationships to those attributable
to general intelligence and personality traits, seeing emotional intelligence
rather as a construct.
People with high EQ’s (Emotional
Quotient's) seem to have better mental health, job performance and leadership
skills. In other words, they can process emotional information effectively and
negotiate the social environment but the prospects for them belonging to the
genius class appear slim as I next swing towards that muddy terrain where
genius, and yes, often hate reside against suspect emotional intelligence.
PALPABLE HATE IN A CLIMATE OF GENIUS
As a consultant, I once had a client
who was a genius as an engineer, and as a managerial vice president of a high
tech facility developing brilliant strategies and imaginative tactics. His
problem was a director who reported to him whom he saw as a nincompoop and
incompetent.
He railed about this man all the
time while I pointed out to him to no avail that the man was the CEO’s best
friend and hunting and fishing partner. My client had a heart attack. When he
returned, he was relieved of his former position while his nemesis’s continued
to flourish unscathed for his ineptitude.
This little blog and my e-mail site
often receive expressions of contempt if not hate for this or that individual.
Ironically, it is often a national figure or celebrity who they do not know,
and with whom they have no contact.
The source of their displeasure is
the gossip provided by their favorite network news outlet. News sources are
advertising dependent, with these networks religiously giving the slant to the
stories reported that sponsors' expect and pay for, while the poor viewers,
ignorant of the game being played on them, treat this information as the
unvarnished truth.
Actress Marilyn Monroe says, “Success
makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful
to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around
you." Marilyn Monroe, who had very little formal education,
shares this dilemma with one of the great geniuses of our era, Albert Einstein.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
In 1905, the Einstein published his
epoch-making special relativity theory. He also wrote a paper revealing how Max
Planck’s quanta was confirmed by experiments conducted by physicist Philip
Lenard.
This is noteworthy as Einstein was
always quick to given credit to others. Lenard was a scientist who became a
Noble Laureate in Physics, but was destined to identify with the Nazis, and
attempt to discredit Einstein’s proven theory of relativity out of jealousy and
because he was a Jew.
In the competitive climate of German
physics, Einstein demonstrated maturity and emotional judgment throughout his
life:
(1) With anti-Semitism rampant in
Germany, he renounced his German citizenship and became stateless;
(2) Refused to sign a manifesto
which claimed, “Were it not for German militarism, German civilization
would long ago have been destroyed.” Such notables as Max Planck
signed the document;
(3) He visited the battlefields of
France after WWI, and commented: “We ought to bring all the students of
Germany to this place, all the students of the world so that they can see how
ugly war is.”
(4) He was among a handful of
academics who had refused to sign the Fulda Manifesto supporting
the view that German science be at the service of the Fatherland and the
military; instead he became signatory to a counter-manifesto seeking to promote
international peace in the form of organic unity in Europe;
(5) Fame came his way when an
eclipse expedition in 1919 mounted in Brazil and the west coast of Africa
proved his theory of relativity. Despite the acclaim, he disowned the notion
that his theory was “revolutionary” choosing instead to see it as evolutionary
stressing the foundation work of Newton and James Clark Maxwell;
(6) Solvay Congresses of
1921 and 1922 banned Germans from attending; when he was invited as an
honorary non-German, he refused to attend as a gesture of solidarity with his
German scientific colleagues;
(7) Always modest about his own
skill set, pointing out that he was weak as a mathematician and humble about
all the accolades sent his way.
Albert Einstein considered himself
an outsider to his culture and time, despite being awarded the Nobel Prize and
essentially replacing Newtonian physics that had dominated the discipline for
300 years.
As a matter of conscience, he
renounced his Jewish faith and his German citizenship and for a time was
stateless until he became a Swiss citizen.
Einstein demonstrated
self-awareness, self-sensitivity, self-identity, and consummate empathy for
others, as well as self-dignity for himself and other members of human society.
With Einstein, Intellectual
Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence were in balance, a state not always
demonstrated by his equally gifted colleagues, such as Nobel Laureates Philip Lenard
(1862 – 1947) and Johannes Stark (1874 – 1957).
Individual genius and early
brilliance in science are no guarantees of rational maturity and dispassionate
objectivity especially when ideological notions take hold.
In the case of these two men,
anti-Semitism colored their approach to life with a sick focus on a once
cherished friend, Albert Einstein.
Personality
and emotions are inseparable from the way we see ourselves whatever our
profession.
For a scientist, no matter how ideal
the work environment, how well-funded the research, or how independent and
unobtrusive the oversight, there are no guarantee this will shape a mature,
generous, socially engaged and empathetic balanced personality.
Toxic
hate flourishes anywhere, even in what may otherwise appear to be the most
positive of circumstances.
PHILIP LENARD
Philip Lenard was a man of vitriolic
and fanatical temperament with consummate zeal for research. He won the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1905 at the age of 43. Despite his brilliance and success,
he was a great hater of his peer group of scientists that included Wilhelm
Konrad Rontgen (1845 – 1923) discoverer of X-rays, whom he claimed stole his
research.
He made the same accusation of
English physicist J. J. Thompson (1856 – 1940) for winning the Nobel Prize for
the photoelectric effect.
Lenard had general contempt for
English science in general claiming Great Britain was an island race of
self-seeking duplicitous tradesman. He was however respectful of Einstein until
he was universally acclaimed for his theory of relativity.
After WWI, losing a son during the
war to malnutrition, and then a small fortune after the war to inflation,
Lenard blamed Jewish politicians. From that time forward, anti-Semitism became
his featured view of his science and that of other scientists.
Historian Alan D. Beyerchen claims
Lenard’s upbringing and romantic need to be led by a great figure was coupled
with a sickening need to belong to something great as contributing factors to
his conversion to and zeal for Nazism.
JOHANNES STARK
Johannes Stark was only in his early
thirties when he discovered the Doppler Effect in ‘canal rays’
that became known as the ‘Stark Effect.’ He was awarded the
1919 Nobel Prize.
Likewise, in the early days he was
impressed with Einstein. But when he failed to receive a valued academic
appointment, his enmity was fixed on the Jewish cartel led by Einstein’s circle
of Jewish friends in the scientific community.
Thwarted at every stage to control
the German physics community, he became increasingly vitriolic to everything
Jewish. Once a Nazis, he became virulently hostile to Einstein when he
won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, awarded in 1922.
Stark released his venom against
Einstein in his book “The Contemporary Crisis in German Physics” (1923),
attacking Einstein’s methods of self-publicity; for the wild claims of his
theories; while drawing parallels between social and political revolutions in
Germany to justify his anti-Semitism.
German Nobel Laureate Max von Laue
(1879 – 1960), winner of the prize for the diffraction of X-rays by crystals,
wrote a long review of Stark’s book concluding:
“All in all, we would have wished
that this book had remained unwritten, in the interest of science in general,
of German science in particular, and not least of all in the interest of the
author himself.”
Six months after the fiasco of
Hitler’s abortive "1924 beer hall putsch,” Lenard and
Stark published an article titled “The Hitler Spirit and Science,” comparing
Hitler to the giants of the past in science, linking him with Galileo, Kepler,
Newton and Faraday, and claiming Hitler as the genius of the Aryan race.
CONCLUSION
We only have to turn on our television
or surf the Internet to see how pervasive hate is in the national dialogue and
in the international culture.
Envy is promoted by wanting what
someone else has that is desired for oneself; jealousy is the fear of losing
what one already possesses. Both sides of this coin promote hatred.
In the early 20th century, there
were scientists who were intellectually conservative who opposed relativity and
quantum physics, not on the grounds of faulty science, but because it
threatened and undermined their traditional intuitive mechanistic scientific
traditions.
There were also those who envied and
despised Einstein and his group because they saw the new science as a
disruptive Jewish conspiracy designed to derail the world of conventional
physics that had held sway for 300 years.
They also personally despised
Einstein for his pacifist stand during WWI, his support of the democratic
spirit of the Weimar Republic, and for his independent mind and
judgment.
In the German physics community
before WWII, many former Nobel Laureates shared the same anti-Semitic
sentiments as Lenard and Stark, and were primed for the eminent domain of Nazi
science without Jewish scientists.
In fact by the late 1930s, a quarter
of the most esteemed and gifted physicists in Germany, who happened to be
Jewish, were working in Great Britain, the United States and/or the Soviet
Union. Some of these scientists were working on the Manhattan
Project that would produce the first atomic bomb.
If this seems absurd, remember how
petty most of us can be at times without genius. Absent Emotional Intelligence,
juvenility is not only rampant but equally democratic with the moronic and
genius occupying common ground.
One wonders if those with
imagination and clout but little emotional maturity are driving civilization to
the brink of disaster through their hubris, false pride, and contempt for
others not of their ethnicity or nearly as gifted.
They appear to lack the perception
to see the absurdity of their ways, while failing to appreciate the wisdom of
Horace Walpole’s words:
Life
is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
*
* *
