Proselytism

Proselytism

Have you ever stopped to think and reflect that some categories of human behavior need proselytism to instigate and stimulate or even educate and, at the limit, indoctrinate people to adopt certain social, political, religious, sexual, economic, sports, artistic, or general behaviors?

To be a capitalist, there is no movement in the world to catechize or convince people to be greedy, selfish, ambitious, or anything like that. Quite the opposite.

To be religious, one needs persuasion, preaching, evangelization, elaboration of concepts, doctrines, liturgy, self-denial, study, conversations, discussions, to be welcomed, induced, convinced to be: communist, socialist, evangelical, Christian, Muslim. We have propaganda to buy cigarettes, drinks, branded clothes or a new fashion, certain types of food, and for a range of other things, there is no need for propaganda or persuasion to abandon previous advantages and well-being in order to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the new induced behavior.

The question that naturally arises is: why are certain behaviors natural and others need to be artificially stimulated, encouraged and worshipped?

None of these naturally adopted behaviors generate confusion. Conflicts, mental or psychological fatigue do not generate social costs, do not end in disputes and disagreements and are fully accepted, whereas behaviors that require a lot of effort to be adopted create a high cost for being adopted by society and almost always end up dividing society into antagonistic groups that are almost always in conflict, such as: between vegans or vegetarians and meat eaters; between pacifists and indifferent people; between supporters of political groups; between fans of sports clubs; between religious groups and sects and religions; between immigrants and locals; between regional cultural and ethnic groups.

The naturally and inherently different natures that cannot be changed by simple will are a separate chapter from human differences and considered natural, such as language, skin color, culture, cuisine, and, in short, the identity elements of the native group tend to separate people without necessarily leading to confrontation or litigation, except for a previous history of unresolved ancestral disputes and aggressions between ethnic, cultural and regional tribes and some proselyte selling their genetic, culinary and native superiority without any scientific support to justify their supposed superior qualities, except for the propaganda of identity pride.

As we can see, only bad things need proselytes, they need recruiters, they need followers, they need propaganda, they need convincing, they need preaching. Bad things do not spread by themselves, they always come with the promise of advantages, such as the first dose of cocaine, the first sip of alcohol, the first cigarette pushed into your mouth by an addict.

Roberto da Silva Rocha, professor universitário e cientista político