Satan and Misogyny You Love To Hate—The Hate Gives You Purpose
Written by Matthew Sabatine
Image credits belong to Victoria_Borodinova | Pixabay
This November, the field of social psychology has given us some fascinating research about hatred and its impact on the meaning of life. Your life’s meaning can be supplemented by hatred, not toward certain individuals, but toward institutions, organizations, establishments, operations, social phenomena or some other body of people acting together as one. It is always debatable whether the other party or collective deserves the hatred and scorn. Even if you have not proven the other party to be evil, I suppose you can still feel confident in your sense of bolstered meaning and purpose. Hopefully, it is still obvious that we are behooved to watch out for negative feelings (e.g. victimization, resentment) as they can compromise or spoil any meaning taken from the experience of this hatred.
According to Mane Kara-Yakoubian, a graduate student in clinical psychology, a sense of purpose can still be kindled by this collective hatred that rises above the negative experiences associated with just having a personal problem with another single individual. Hatred toward abstract entities is more satisfying and appropriate than hatred toward a concrete individual.
This mention or realization about “abstract entities” has caught my attention right now. It makes me reflect on how human history is riddled with a fiery passion for hating the Devil or Satan and any concrete individual(s) or group(s) believed to be in league with Satan. Clearly, Satan must be abstract (i.e., existing in thought) since he has no physical or concrete constitution.
If we are like the Catholics and Protestants in the 1500s, who believed that Satan was the invisible force behind their human rivals, then it becomes easier and more acceptable to defeat our human rivals by whatever ruthless means necessary. Back then, it was an insult to accuse your rivals of being beguiled by the Devil. As religion has retreated from public life in the 21st Century, the Devil is a winsome symbol for those wanting to rebel against authorities and orthodoxies of all kinds.
We cannot know anything about Satan aside from what people already believe and have believed about him.
I believe a personified and abstract evil, that no one can confirm with their five senses, has a social hypnotic power. Whatever is unseen, we can create it in our own image through mere suggestion. The accused appears more guilty when we can convince the jury of the personified image of evil that we have manipulated in our own minds.
Traditional Christians have vilified their human adversaries, such as the Jews, Pagans, and Gnostic Christians since the 1st Century when Satan was first invented. Elaine Pagels discusses this in her book titled The Origin of Satan.
The birth of Christianity in the 1st Century was a time when the Jews were struggling to rebel against and liberate themselves from the oppressive Roman Empire. Since the Jews believed they were chosen by God, who is the ultimate source of good, the Jews assumed they had to be on the right side of history and reality. But the Christians had Jesus, the son of God, who was killed at the hands of the Jews and Romans, who proved their opposition to God by killing Jesus. So, since Satan must be the invisible mastermind behind the killing of Jesus, that means Jesus’ death and resurrection are futile without Satan.
If you read the bestselling 2002 Christian book on sexual purity called Every Young Man’s Battle, you will read that Satan is the one tempting men to watch porn, masturbate, sexually fantasize about women, and cheat on their wives.
This is an interesting one!
Dating, relationships, and marriage is very strange and difficult in the 21st Century, especially with the many tantalizing options on social media. Anyone can become available with the tap of a finger. The male mind is difficult to understand. Why do so many men act like entitled boys and ravenous wolves when they chase after women? Why are men unable to remain faithful to their women? I imagine that so many questions and doubts run through the average woman’s mind. It is all too mysterious for there to not be an invisible, sinister force behind it all. Right? The perceived and imagined supernatural force behind men’s infidelity seems worthwhile to hate...as well as the men themselves who are hypnotized by it.
What we need to realize is this: the mind that invents the Devil, and not the Devil himself, is responsible for the deception.
The Behavioral Activation System (BAS) is a physiological process linked to motivational states underpinning the dedication to tangible or abstract priorities. In other words, this is our driving force behind our pursuits after goals, purpose, and significance. This is relevant to hatred, since hatred introduces an enemy worth thwarting, and the action of thwarting an enemy is the achievement of a goal or purpose which must involve excitement and activation of BAS physiology and motivations.
If we thwart an enemy through hatred as a driving force, we achieve coherence, predictability, and certainty in our view of the world. A facile and unsophisticated “us vs. them” view of the world will help to calm the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) that is sensitive to punishment and non-reward.
So, you may enjoy the purpose and significance you feel behind hating misogyny from men, today. Perhaps that hatred is even more exciting when you also believe that the Devil is the invisible engineer behind it.
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