Amid the aggression and destruction of the recent riots across England and Northern Ireland, there have been many heartening incidents. In many cases, the rioters have been met with counter-protesters, who risked violence and injury to voice their opposition to racism and their support for asylum seekers.
Why are some people capable of cruelty and brutality while others are selfless and compassionate? As a psychologist, I have spent many years examining this puzzle, and believe that the answer lies in the concept of connection – the degree to which people feel connected to one another, and to the world in general.
In Southport, dozens of volunteers turned out in the early morning after the riots to clean up the debris. Local trades people volunteered to rebuild walls and replace windows, while a building developer – Kingswood Homes – organised the rebuilding of the Southport Islamic Society Mosque. Several local firms donated boards, materials, ladders, mixers and bricks.
In Liverpool, the Spellow Hub Library was torched and badly damaged by rioters. In addition to staff and local residents helping to clear up, a local resident, Alex McCormick, set up a GoFundMe campaign to repair the damage. She hoped to raise a few thousand pounds, but so far people have donated over £213,000.
Last Wednesday evening, thousands of anti-racism protesters rallied through towns and cities in response to planned far right riots.
The spectrum of human nature
In my recent book DisConnected, I suggest the best way to understand human nature is in terms of a continuum of connection. A small proportion of people are severely disconnected. They exist in a state of psychological isolation, cut off from other people and the world around them. They don’t feel empathy for anyone beyond a narrow circle of family and friends and others who share their ideology and ethnicity.
Because of their intense separateness, disconnected people feel a strong sense of frustration, which sometimes manifests itself in aggression and destruction. In turn, this may attract them to far-right political movements.
Recent research has found that right-wing populist movements appeal to people with high levels of dissatisfaction with life, and also to people with high levels of fear and insecurity. Right-wing populist parties act as channels for people’s discontent.
Anger and a lack of empathy are a dangerous psychological mix. Disconnected people sometimes externalise their frustration, blaming it on society or on other people. Needing an outlet, they focus on vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers, immigrants and ethnic minorities.
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When they stem from more privileged backgrounds, highly disconnected people sometimes gravitate towards politics. They may vent their frustration and destructive impulses in the political arena, also demonising ethnic minorities and immigrants, and encouraging less privileged and disconnected people to take direct action.
People who feel connected
However, most people feel connected to some degree. In general, human beings are remarkably altruistic. Rather than feeling destructive impulses, most of us feel a natural impulse to help others, to nurture their development and alleviate suffering. This explains why so many people have been appalled by the cruelty and brutality of far-right rioters and feel the impulse to counter it with positive action.
Disconnected and connected people perceive the world in completely different ways . To a disconnected group, asylum seekers and immigrants may seem like enemies who are responsible for society’s problems. To the connected group, asylum seekers and immigrants are fellow human beings who deserve respect and compassion. Connected people are able to empathise with asylum seekers, aware that many of them have undergone severe trauma in their home countries.
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How the Manchester Arena attack showed that altruism is human instinct
In my view, human beings are naturally altruistic. In emergency situations, people often respond with spontaneous heroism, risking their lives for others – something we’ve seen in terrorist attacks. Heroic altruism stems from a deep unconscious place – more specifically, from a fundamental interconnection of being.
There is a strong link between disconnection and negative childhood experiences. As I show in DisConnected, the most severely disconnected people – such as serial killers and fascist dictators – often emerge from abusive, traumatic childhoods.
Other disconnected people suffer a prolonged lack of affection and attention during early childhood. The research of the psychologist John Bowlby found this may cause “affectionless psychopathy” in adult life. For privileged disconnected people, this may be the result of being taken away to boarding school at a young age.
Others emerge from a hypermasculine environment where empathy and emotion are seen as weak and undesirable. This doesn’t mean that everyone who emerges from this background becomes cruel and brutal, but it increases the likelihood.
Cruelty and brutality emerge when something goes wrong in our development. Under healthy conditions, human beings naturally develop empathy and altruism. That’s why, as the last week has shown, kindness and compassion arise so consistently in response to brutality.
