Sharks and Wolves, The Peaceful Ones:
On False Blame, Projection, and Unending Violence
Joe Moncarz November 2022
Most of us have come across people who cause enormous damage, but blame their target. Maybe you had an abusive boss. Maybe you were bullied. Or maybe it was your ex. Almost always, such people will justify their abuse by blaming their target for precisely those behaviors that they are guilty of – i.e., projection, which is a psychological defense mechanism. (Cikanavicius 2017; Drew 2022; Kolod 2021) And you might have wondered, “Why can't this person see how much damage they've done? And why do they blame others for it?” Well, the reason is that civilization is a fucked-up way to live, and the elite who run civilizations role model to the rest of us how to deny, shift the blame, project our behavior onto others, all the while making sure that violence will continue. And all the institutions that they create (such as governments, armies, courts, police, banks, schools) are also based on deception and violence. So, as you'd expect, we're surrounded with that sort of behavior. To demonstrate my point, let's look at a few examples.
Cowboys and Indians
The Europeans arrived in the New World, Australia, and New Zealand with arrogance, violence, gonorrhea, smallpox, and the “doctrine of discovery,” which was an idiotic idea that essentially said, “When we arrive, the land is ours. Indigenous people don't count.” With that same logic, if I walk into your house, it's now my house. If I find your car, it's now my car. Your dog is now my dog. Of course, that's ridiculous. But that's what the European nations were all saying – and courts were upholding it. And Europeans got away with it – because of violence.
They got away with it, because they were – and still are – so exceptionally good at being violent, and much, much better at killing than indigenous people ever were. Europeans used violence to kill as many indigenous people as possible, to kill as many animals as possible (such as buffaloes, passenger pigeons, bears, beavers, wolves, etc.), and to kidnap as many indigenous children as possible and force them to attend horrific boarding schools. And yet they blamed the indigenous people! They blamed the indigenous for being “savage,” “inferior,” “barbaric,” and “animals.” Oh, and “uncivilized,” too. (Which I would take as a compliment.) So basically, the Europeans said to the indigenous people, “You had it coming. You deserved it. Because we're so much better than you.”
Thus, the Europeans blamed the indigenous people and projected their own violent behavior onto indigenous people. Yet it was the Europeans who were the savage and barbaric ones. It was the Europeans who were so inferior – in intelligence, in wisdom, in physical health, in personal hygiene, and in knowing how to live well.
Furthermore, the Europeans assured continued violence through their unending quest to steal as much land as possible, by breaking every single treaty they ever signed, and through constant lies and deception. This assured prolonged violence between the Indians and Europeans,until finally the Europeans killed most of them and forced them all to surrender. But the violence continues, not just among indigenous communities suffering from having their ways of living destroyed, but by the thoroughly violent European culture, which has only ever known violence, since violence has been so successful for the elite.
Israelis and Palestinians
Virtually the exact same thing can be seen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the late 1800s, a group of bored and arrogant Jewish Zionists decided that they would go to Palestine and make themselves a country. (They had also considered Uganda, Argentina, and the center of the Earth, where they thought there were still dinosaurs.) They knew that there were already people living in Palestine, but they didn't care. They went with the explicit aim of turning the land into a “Jewish state.” Their attitude was, “We know that you live here, but now it's our land. Fuck off. Go live on Mars.” Naturally, the indigenous Palestinians resisted. The Zionists used an explicit policy of massacres and rapes to drive Palestinians from their homes. It worked. (Pappé 2006) But when Palestinians fought back, they were called “terrorists.” The British, Americans, and Europeans joined in blaming the Palestinians for having the nerve to fight against the invaders.
Israelis have never since tired of blaming Palestinians and projecting their own brutal and barbaric behavior onto the Palestinians. (Ackelsberg 2018; Massad 2021; Matar 2017; Peled 2022) Israeli leaders and citizens have never tired of demonizing Palestinians and claiming that Israelis want peace, but that Palestinians only want violence. And ridiculously claiming that the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the world.” The army that purposely shoots to cripple not kill (to keep death counts down), purposely murders civilians, destroys orchards, destroys homes, runs hundreds of checkpoints. They have the nerve to blame Palestinians for fighting back against eighty years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and “slow genocide.”
Of course, Israeli policies have always assured violence, because violence suits the Israeli colonial aims of killing every last Palestinian and claiming all of the land. (“Israel” 2022) Israel never wanted peace because peace could only be achieved through the sharing of the land, which Israel would never accept. Israel is a military state, its economy relies on the development and sales of weapons, and all young people are sent to the army to brutalize youth and make sure they learn to hate Palestinians. (Glazer 2020; Siddiqui 2021) Israel loves war and loves killing.
Poverty and Crime
A similar thing happens with poor people when they commit crime. The poor are not only blamed for being poor (“You're lazy!”) but they're also blamed when they resort to drug dealing, gangs, theft, and other crimes – which are all entirely predictable results of poverty. (Pizzigati 2017) Governments have plenty of money to end poverty, but they never do, because it doesn't suit the greed of the elite. And of course, the reality is that it's the rich who are the worst criminals, by far. The elite are the ones who created and use governments to perpetuate poverty, to make everyone miserable, who provoke wars, who oppose any wealth redistribution, who use police violence and prison violence to bully the poor, and who use their corporations which make trillions of dollars while screwing everyone on the planet, cutting down every forest they can, dumping toxic chemicals everywhere, causing the mass extinction of life, and assuring societal collapse (as the elite in every civilization do). But when you look inside prisons (which are cruel and ineffective, by the way,) all you see are poor people.
A recent example of this blame and projection is Pfizer CEO Alfred Bourla, who claimed that people who spread Covid “misinformation” (i.e., information which hurts his profits) are “criminals.” He said, “Those people are criminals. They’re not bad people — they’re criminals. Because they have literally cost millions of lives.” He was projecting not only the historical criminal behavior of Pfizer, which has been fined millions of dollars for a long list of criminal offenses, but he was also projecting the criminality of the Covid vaccines, which have been neither safe nor effective, and the “millions of lives” he referred to are the millions of people killed or injured by pharmaceutical drugs and modern medical practice. Yet where are the prison cells full of pharmaceutical executives? Even when they do face prison, such as John Kapoor and Martin Shkreli, they get “rich man” sentences (a couple years, give or take), and they have their millions of dollars to go back to, whereas poor people get life sentences and are penniless when they come out.
It's the rich who are the real lazy ones, too, who make money by not doing anything – just from inheritances (on average, the wealthiest 1% gains 5 million dollars from inheritances), from trillions of dollars of government subsidies and handouts (yet they always complain about the minuscule and always insufficient amount of money the government gives to the poor), from not paying workers the true value of their labor, by screwing workers in every way possible, by externalizing costs, and by not giving a shit about safety – and their wealth only comes from the millions of poor people doing the real work, slaving away in the mines, sweatshops, and factories. (Nathaniel and Bruenig 2017; Pizzigati 2012)
But it's the poor who are demonized, who are blamed, and who are locked up in prisons, when the real criminals, the ones clearly and obviously causing the most societal and planetary damage, are the elite and their political henchmen. Sure, dealing drugs, shoplifting, shooting your ex, and beating up a guy for looking at your girlfriend are problems. But they're nothing compared to what the elite and governments do. They start pointless wars that kill millions, they build and use nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, they knowingly sell and use toxic, cancer-causing products for decades while denying the dangers, they know that burning fossil fuels causes climate change but deny it, and so on. It's a very long, exhausting list. The elite make certain that nothing will change because they run every civilization, and for the last six thousand years have used violence to maintain their wealth and power, driving every civilization into the ground through their greed, arrogance, stupidity, and incompetence. But all these psychos are allowed to run free! In every civilization!
Politicians and other jerks
Politicians, government leaders, and other rulers such as kings and queens, have always shifted the blame. That's the definition of being a politician or ruler. (Along with lying, taking bribes, and fancy hookers.) They are, after all, the paid thugs of the elite. Their job is to protect the elite's wealth and always distract the masses. Politicians blame their opponents and blame the people (such as scapegoating minorities) at every opportunity. The truth never matters, because they know that the lie that is repeated the most is the one more likely to be believed. So they blame and blame. They call their enemies “the devil.” They also accuse their opponents, or enemies, of the very behaviors that they are guilty of. In fact, they do this because they know they themselves are guilty, they are afraid of being found out, and they know that lies make good distractions. So they never tire of accusing others of dishonesty, of corruption, of violating human rights, and of anti-democratic behavior, despite the fact that they themselves are the most dangerous elements in society, that democracy has never existed in civilization, and that corruption is a requirement of the profession, because the elite have always run the show. They're just full of shit, as usual.
And finally, whichever side a politician is on, they represent the needs of the elite, which means the continuation of civilization, which means unending misery, destruction, and violence. Every politician, no matter what they say, gives legitimacy to an extremely violent and anti-democratic social arrangement: civilization. Politicians, by definition, make sure that violence will continue.
Animals are animals!
In civilizations, wild animals are always blamed and hated. They're demonized because they represent being wild and free and undomesticated – i.e., life outside civilization. They represent the only healthy and sustainable way of life that humans have ever known – hunting and gathering. They also represent land that needs to be destroyed for agriculture and cities. That's why civilizations have always demonized wild animals – because it makes it easier for people to then wipe them out.
Fairy tales have always demonized wolves (and forests) – yet wolves hardly ever attack a human. Wolves are blamed for attacks on livestock as well, yet that also rarely happens. Our movies frequently demonize animals. There are endless movies like “Jaws,” featuring sharks as the callous killing machines. Other movies have featured grizzly bears, black bears, snakes, wolves, frogs, rats, bats, birds, piranha, barracuda, alligators, crocodiles, spiders, worms, ants, slugs, bees, other various insects, apes, chimpanzees, baboons, lions, tigers, whales, orcas, squid, wild pigs, and dogs as the dangerous killers.
In fact, none of these animals even begins to come close to the violence of humans. For example, sharks hardly ever bite a human, and when they do, it's out of curiosity or mistake, not for food. They have the strongest jaws of any animal on the planet and could easily rip a human to shreds with one bite – but they don't. The second they sense our disgusting human taste, they let go. (Bradshaw 2017) Meanwhile, humans kill one hundred million sharks each and every year – on purpose. (Gannon 2013) Talk about projection. Sharks aren't the dangerous and violent ones - humans are. Furthermore, none of the animals besides humans kills so recklessly, just because they feel like killing, because they hate, and because they can kill. All the other animals don't hate. But humans do. The other animals don't purposely kill other species to extinction, but humans do. All of the other animals contribute to biodiversity and the ecological health of the planet. It's civilized humans who are destructive.
The blaming and projection of animals being dangerous and violent is a way to distract from the truth. The truth is that civilization is the most dangerous and most violent way of living humans have ever known. If we acted more like animals that would be a vast improvement. Parents should tell their kids, “Can you please act more like wild animals and less civilized please?”
Watch out!
As you can see, there's a lot of dishonesty out there, and often it takes the form of shifting the blame and projection. It's a form of distraction to distract others from the truth, and from the true guilty party. These are unhealthy behaviors characteristic of narcissists and psychopaths, but with civilization it has become widespread, endemic, and cultural. Blaming others is the way to get ahead, not just in modern industrial-capitalist civilization, but even way back, 6,000 years ago among the first civilizations. That's because there have always been those fighting for wealth and power, and what has been well-established is that it's the best liars and the most violent ones who get ahead. Civilization is entirely based on deception and violence. That's what civilization is about, and even among ordinary people, this kind of behavior is commonplace. In corporations and governments it's absolutely guaranteed. To believe anything they say is ultimate stupidity.
So watch out, stay safe, and always remain critical. Always ask yourself, “Is this person shifting the blame? Is this person hiding something? Are they hiding their own violence?”
Because actually, civilizations are the cold-blooded, violent killers, not sharks and wolves.
Sources
Abunimah, Ali. (2017 December 26). “Video: Israeli lawmaker insults Palestinians as “insects” and “dogs”.” Retrieved from
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israeli-lawmaker-insults-palestinians-insects-and-dogs
Ackelsberg, Ethan. (2018 May 15). "Israel’s 70-year history of ethnic cleansing." Retrieved from https://socialistworker.org/2018/05/15/israels-70-year-history-of-ethnic-cleansing
Bradshaw, G.A. (2017). Carnivore Minds: Who These Fearsome Animals Really Are. Yale University Press.
Cha, Ariana Eunjung. (2016 May 3). “Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States.” Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/03/researchers-medical-errors-now-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-united-states/
Cikanavicius, Darius. (2017 September 25). “5 Ways Narcissists Project and Attack You.” Retrieved from
https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-self/2017/09/narcissistic-projection#1
Drew, Chris. (2022 July 16). “15 Psychological Projection Examples.” Retrieved from https://helpfulprofessor.com/psychological-projection-examples/
Fitzsimons, Tim. (2021 November 11). “Pfizer CEO calls those spreading vaccine misinformation 'criminals'.” Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pfizer-ceo-calls-spreading-vaccine-misinformation-criminals-rcna5124
Gannon, Megan. (2013 March 1). “100 Million Sharks Killed Each Year, Study Finds.” Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna51013425
Glazer, Hilo. (2020 March 6). “'42 Knees in One Day': Israeli Snipers Open Up About Shooting Gaza Protesters.” Retrieved from https://archive.ph/DqrhN Originally published at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555
Kolod, Sue. (2021 May 5). “How to Spot Projection: Are Those Their Feelings, or Yours?” Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychoanalysis-unplugged/202105/how-spot-projection-are-those-their-feelings-or-yours
Massad, Joseph. (2021 December 30). "Why Israel wants a state of permanent war." Retrieved from https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-wants-state-permanent-war-why
Matar, Dina. (2017 March 26). "Whose “Ethnic Cleansing?”: Israel’s Appropriation of the Palestinian Narrative." Retrieved from https://imemc.org/article/whose-ethnic-cleansing-israels-appropriation-of-the-palestinian-narrative/
"Israel mainly to blame for Palestine conflict, says UN report." (2022 June 8). Middle East Eye. Retrieved from https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-blame-conflict-un-report
Nathaniel, Lewis and Bruenig, Matt. (2017 October 10). “The Wealthiest 1% Inherited An Average Of $4.8 Million.” Retrieved from https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2017/10/10/the-wealthiest-1-inherited-an-average-of-4-8-million/
Pappé, Ilan. (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Oxford.
Peled, Miko. (2022 August 18). "Miko Peled: Israel Blames its Victims for the Violence it Causes." Retrieved from https://www.mintpressnews.com/miko-peled-israel-blames-its-victims-for-the-violence-it-causes/281774/
Pizzigati, Sam. (2012 September 23). “The ‘Self-Made’ Myth: Our Hallucinating Rich.” Retrieved from https://inequality.org/research/selfmade-myth-hallucinating-rich/
Pizzigati, Sam. (2017 October 5). “Why Do So Many Super Rich Despise the Poor?” Retrieved from https://inequality.org/great-divide/many-super-rich-despise-poor/
Siddiqui, Usaid, et al. (2021 June 4). “Infographic: What you need to know about Israel’s military.” Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/4/infographic-what-you-need-to-know-about-israels-military
Cowboys and Indians
The Europeans arrived in the New World, Australia, and New Zealand with arrogance, violence, gonorrhea, smallpox, and the “doctrine of discovery,” which was an idiotic idea that essentially said, “When we arrive, the land is ours. Indigenous people don't count.” With that same logic, if I walk into your house, it's now my house. If I find your car, it's now my car. Your dog is now my dog. Of course, that's ridiculous. But that's what the European nations were all saying – and courts were upholding it. And Europeans got away with it – because of violence.
They got away with it, because they were – and still are – so exceptionally good at being violent, and much, much better at killing than indigenous people ever were. Europeans used violence to kill as many indigenous people as possible, to kill as many animals as possible (such as buffaloes, passenger pigeons, bears, beavers, wolves, etc.), and to kidnap as many indigenous children as possible and force them to attend horrific boarding schools. And yet they blamed the indigenous people! They blamed the indigenous for being “savage,” “inferior,” “barbaric,” and “animals.” Oh, and “uncivilized,” too. (Which I would take as a compliment.) So basically, the Europeans said to the indigenous people, “You had it coming. You deserved it. Because we're so much better than you.”
Thus, the Europeans blamed the indigenous people and projected their own violent behavior onto indigenous people. Yet it was the Europeans who were the savage and barbaric ones. It was the Europeans who were so inferior – in intelligence, in wisdom, in physical health, in personal hygiene, and in knowing how to live well.
Furthermore, the Europeans assured continued violence through their unending quest to steal as much land as possible, by breaking every single treaty they ever signed, and through constant lies and deception. This assured prolonged violence between the Indians and Europeans,until finally the Europeans killed most of them and forced them all to surrender. But the violence continues, not just among indigenous communities suffering from having their ways of living destroyed, but by the thoroughly violent European culture, which has only ever known violence, since violence has been so successful for the elite.
Israelis and Palestinians
Virtually the exact same thing can be seen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the late 1800s, a group of bored and arrogant Jewish Zionists decided that they would go to Palestine and make themselves a country. (They had also considered Uganda, Argentina, and the center of the Earth, where they thought there were still dinosaurs.) They knew that there were already people living in Palestine, but they didn't care. They went with the explicit aim of turning the land into a “Jewish state.” Their attitude was, “We know that you live here, but now it's our land. Fuck off. Go live on Mars.” Naturally, the indigenous Palestinians resisted. The Zionists used an explicit policy of massacres and rapes to drive Palestinians from their homes. It worked. (Pappé 2006) But when Palestinians fought back, they were called “terrorists.” The British, Americans, and Europeans joined in blaming the Palestinians for having the nerve to fight against the invaders.
Israelis have never since tired of blaming Palestinians and projecting their own brutal and barbaric behavior onto the Palestinians. (Ackelsberg 2018; Massad 2021; Matar 2017; Peled 2022) Israeli leaders and citizens have never tired of demonizing Palestinians and claiming that Israelis want peace, but that Palestinians only want violence. And ridiculously claiming that the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the world.” The army that purposely shoots to cripple not kill (to keep death counts down), purposely murders civilians, destroys orchards, destroys homes, runs hundreds of checkpoints. They have the nerve to blame Palestinians for fighting back against eighty years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and “slow genocide.”
Of course, Israeli policies have always assured violence, because violence suits the Israeli colonial aims of killing every last Palestinian and claiming all of the land. (“Israel” 2022) Israel never wanted peace because peace could only be achieved through the sharing of the land, which Israel would never accept. Israel is a military state, its economy relies on the development and sales of weapons, and all young people are sent to the army to brutalize youth and make sure they learn to hate Palestinians. (Glazer 2020; Siddiqui 2021) Israel loves war and loves killing.
Poverty and Crime
A similar thing happens with poor people when they commit crime. The poor are not only blamed for being poor (“You're lazy!”) but they're also blamed when they resort to drug dealing, gangs, theft, and other crimes – which are all entirely predictable results of poverty. (Pizzigati 2017) Governments have plenty of money to end poverty, but they never do, because it doesn't suit the greed of the elite. And of course, the reality is that it's the rich who are the worst criminals, by far. The elite are the ones who created and use governments to perpetuate poverty, to make everyone miserable, who provoke wars, who oppose any wealth redistribution, who use police violence and prison violence to bully the poor, and who use their corporations which make trillions of dollars while screwing everyone on the planet, cutting down every forest they can, dumping toxic chemicals everywhere, causing the mass extinction of life, and assuring societal collapse (as the elite in every civilization do). But when you look inside prisons (which are cruel and ineffective, by the way,) all you see are poor people.
A recent example of this blame and projection is Pfizer CEO Alfred Bourla, who claimed that people who spread Covid “misinformation” (i.e., information which hurts his profits) are “criminals.” He said, “Those people are criminals. They’re not bad people — they’re criminals. Because they have literally cost millions of lives.” He was projecting not only the historical criminal behavior of Pfizer, which has been fined millions of dollars for a long list of criminal offenses, but he was also projecting the criminality of the Covid vaccines, which have been neither safe nor effective, and the “millions of lives” he referred to are the millions of people killed or injured by pharmaceutical drugs and modern medical practice. Yet where are the prison cells full of pharmaceutical executives? Even when they do face prison, such as John Kapoor and Martin Shkreli, they get “rich man” sentences (a couple years, give or take), and they have their millions of dollars to go back to, whereas poor people get life sentences and are penniless when they come out.
It's the rich who are the real lazy ones, too, who make money by not doing anything – just from inheritances (on average, the wealthiest 1% gains 5 million dollars from inheritances), from trillions of dollars of government subsidies and handouts (yet they always complain about the minuscule and always insufficient amount of money the government gives to the poor), from not paying workers the true value of their labor, by screwing workers in every way possible, by externalizing costs, and by not giving a shit about safety – and their wealth only comes from the millions of poor people doing the real work, slaving away in the mines, sweatshops, and factories. (Nathaniel and Bruenig 2017; Pizzigati 2012)
But it's the poor who are demonized, who are blamed, and who are locked up in prisons, when the real criminals, the ones clearly and obviously causing the most societal and planetary damage, are the elite and their political henchmen. Sure, dealing drugs, shoplifting, shooting your ex, and beating up a guy for looking at your girlfriend are problems. But they're nothing compared to what the elite and governments do. They start pointless wars that kill millions, they build and use nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, they knowingly sell and use toxic, cancer-causing products for decades while denying the dangers, they know that burning fossil fuels causes climate change but deny it, and so on. It's a very long, exhausting list. The elite make certain that nothing will change because they run every civilization, and for the last six thousand years have used violence to maintain their wealth and power, driving every civilization into the ground through their greed, arrogance, stupidity, and incompetence. But all these psychos are allowed to run free! In every civilization!
Politicians and other jerks
Politicians, government leaders, and other rulers such as kings and queens, have always shifted the blame. That's the definition of being a politician or ruler. (Along with lying, taking bribes, and fancy hookers.) They are, after all, the paid thugs of the elite. Their job is to protect the elite's wealth and always distract the masses. Politicians blame their opponents and blame the people (such as scapegoating minorities) at every opportunity. The truth never matters, because they know that the lie that is repeated the most is the one more likely to be believed. So they blame and blame. They call their enemies “the devil.” They also accuse their opponents, or enemies, of the very behaviors that they are guilty of. In fact, they do this because they know they themselves are guilty, they are afraid of being found out, and they know that lies make good distractions. So they never tire of accusing others of dishonesty, of corruption, of violating human rights, and of anti-democratic behavior, despite the fact that they themselves are the most dangerous elements in society, that democracy has never existed in civilization, and that corruption is a requirement of the profession, because the elite have always run the show. They're just full of shit, as usual.
And finally, whichever side a politician is on, they represent the needs of the elite, which means the continuation of civilization, which means unending misery, destruction, and violence. Every politician, no matter what they say, gives legitimacy to an extremely violent and anti-democratic social arrangement: civilization. Politicians, by definition, make sure that violence will continue.
Animals are animals!
In civilizations, wild animals are always blamed and hated. They're demonized because they represent being wild and free and undomesticated – i.e., life outside civilization. They represent the only healthy and sustainable way of life that humans have ever known – hunting and gathering. They also represent land that needs to be destroyed for agriculture and cities. That's why civilizations have always demonized wild animals – because it makes it easier for people to then wipe them out.
Fairy tales have always demonized wolves (and forests) – yet wolves hardly ever attack a human. Wolves are blamed for attacks on livestock as well, yet that also rarely happens. Our movies frequently demonize animals. There are endless movies like “Jaws,” featuring sharks as the callous killing machines. Other movies have featured grizzly bears, black bears, snakes, wolves, frogs, rats, bats, birds, piranha, barracuda, alligators, crocodiles, spiders, worms, ants, slugs, bees, other various insects, apes, chimpanzees, baboons, lions, tigers, whales, orcas, squid, wild pigs, and dogs as the dangerous killers.
In fact, none of these animals even begins to come close to the violence of humans. For example, sharks hardly ever bite a human, and when they do, it's out of curiosity or mistake, not for food. They have the strongest jaws of any animal on the planet and could easily rip a human to shreds with one bite – but they don't. The second they sense our disgusting human taste, they let go. (Bradshaw 2017) Meanwhile, humans kill one hundred million sharks each and every year – on purpose. (Gannon 2013) Talk about projection. Sharks aren't the dangerous and violent ones - humans are. Furthermore, none of the animals besides humans kills so recklessly, just because they feel like killing, because they hate, and because they can kill. All the other animals don't hate. But humans do. The other animals don't purposely kill other species to extinction, but humans do. All of the other animals contribute to biodiversity and the ecological health of the planet. It's civilized humans who are destructive.
The blaming and projection of animals being dangerous and violent is a way to distract from the truth. The truth is that civilization is the most dangerous and most violent way of living humans have ever known. If we acted more like animals that would be a vast improvement. Parents should tell their kids, “Can you please act more like wild animals and less civilized please?”
Watch out!
As you can see, there's a lot of dishonesty out there, and often it takes the form of shifting the blame and projection. It's a form of distraction to distract others from the truth, and from the true guilty party. These are unhealthy behaviors characteristic of narcissists and psychopaths, but with civilization it has become widespread, endemic, and cultural. Blaming others is the way to get ahead, not just in modern industrial-capitalist civilization, but even way back, 6,000 years ago among the first civilizations. That's because there have always been those fighting for wealth and power, and what has been well-established is that it's the best liars and the most violent ones who get ahead. Civilization is entirely based on deception and violence. That's what civilization is about, and even among ordinary people, this kind of behavior is commonplace. In corporations and governments it's absolutely guaranteed. To believe anything they say is ultimate stupidity.
So watch out, stay safe, and always remain critical. Always ask yourself, “Is this person shifting the blame? Is this person hiding something? Are they hiding their own violence?”
Because actually, civilizations are the cold-blooded, violent killers, not sharks and wolves.
Sources
Abunimah, Ali. (2017 December 26). “Video: Israeli lawmaker insults Palestinians as “insects” and “dogs”.” Retrieved from
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israeli-lawmaker-insults-palestinians-insects-and-dogs
Ackelsberg, Ethan. (2018 May 15). "Israel’s 70-year history of ethnic cleansing." Retrieved from https://socialistworker.org/2018/05/15/israels-70-year-history-of-ethnic-cleansing
Bradshaw, G.A. (2017). Carnivore Minds: Who These Fearsome Animals Really Are. Yale University Press.
Cha, Ariana Eunjung. (2016 May 3). “Researchers: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States.” Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/03/researchers-medical-errors-now-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-united-states/
Cikanavicius, Darius. (2017 September 25). “5 Ways Narcissists Project and Attack You.” Retrieved from
https://psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-self/2017/09/narcissistic-projection#1
Drew, Chris. (2022 July 16). “15 Psychological Projection Examples.” Retrieved from https://helpfulprofessor.com/psychological-projection-examples/
Fitzsimons, Tim. (2021 November 11). “Pfizer CEO calls those spreading vaccine misinformation 'criminals'.” Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pfizer-ceo-calls-spreading-vaccine-misinformation-criminals-rcna5124
Gannon, Megan. (2013 March 1). “100 Million Sharks Killed Each Year, Study Finds.” Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna51013425
Glazer, Hilo. (2020 March 6). “'42 Knees in One Day': Israeli Snipers Open Up About Shooting Gaza Protesters.” Retrieved from https://archive.ph/DqrhN Originally published at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555
Kolod, Sue. (2021 May 5). “How to Spot Projection: Are Those Their Feelings, or Yours?” Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychoanalysis-unplugged/202105/how-spot-projection-are-those-their-feelings-or-yours
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