Don’t Label Sides as Right or Wrong Before You Understand Both Sides
By Emerelda
Channel: A. S.
Posted on February 14, 2024
Dear people of Earth,
This is Emerelda speaking. As I shared in my previous two messages: I am a Pleiadian squad leader, roughly a sergeant in Earth terms, who was captured and then tortured and raped by reptilians for nearly a month before I was freed.
To the people who responded with kindness and empathy to my previous messages: from the bottom of my heart, thank you for that. It means a lot.
I would like to share something that isn’t an iron-clad law, but it is a rule of thumb that I find useful. It is the following:
If two sides are in a conflict, you can only determine who is right and who is wrong, and what methods are and aren’t acceptable, once you genuinely understand both perspectives.
Before you genuinely understand both perspectives, you don’t have enough information to determine who is right and who is wrong, and what methods are and aren’t acceptable.
Or to word it in another way: if your side is in a conflict with the other side, and you don’t fully understand the perspective of the other side, then you don’t have enough information to determine who is right and who is wrong, and what methods are and aren’t acceptable.
I mean right and wrong here in a practical, “what should we do” sense and not in a moralistic sense. Let me explain what I mean. Let’s say we’re debating immigration. Then I don’t think it’s helpful to ever label the anti-immigration side as morally good or morally evil. But after you understand both sides, I do think it can be valid to say the anti-immigration side is either practically right (i.e. we should indeed limit immigration) or practically wrong (i.e. we shouldn’t limit immigration).
Now, people love to claim that they understand the other side perfectly well, and people on the other side are just dumb or selfish or delusional or racists or virtue-signallers or whatever. And yes, that makes things very easy, doesn’t it? You understand them, they’re just stupid or evil, and therefore everything your side does is justified.
Of course, in reality, things usually aren’t so black and white.
A great way to understand the other side is to actually listen to them — and listen with the intention of understanding them, not listening with the intention of finding something they say that you can later attack.
How do you know that you understand the other side to a reasonable degree? Well, one great indicator is that you can sum up the strongest arguments for the other side, in a way that people on the other side would agree with. If you’re unsure about this, you can literally just ask the people on the other side: I’m trying to learn, do you think this is a fair summary of the strongest arguments for your side? If not, can you please explain what I am missing, or point me to some good sources? Most likely people would love it if you approached them in such a way.
Alternatively you can imagine that an extraterrestrial has just arrived on Earth, and she knows nothing about a certain debate. It’s up to you to tell her both sides of the argument in a fair and even-handed way, so that she can make up her own mind. How would you summarize both sides of the debate to her? If you can’t do better than say: “the other side believes this clearly wrong thing, because they’re dumb or selfish” then it may be time to do some research or to listen to someone from the other side.
Now, yes, absolutely there are some people who are wrong about something. However, even wrong people usually have one or two genuinely good points, or at least valid concerns that your side probably isn’t addressing. Maybe they’re proposing the wrong solution for their legitimate concern, but they may still have a legitimate concern. Can you perhaps find a better solution for their legitimate concern than what they are proposing?
That’s another indicator that you have a nuanced understanding: you agree that the other side has some reasonable points and has some amount of virtue somewhere and has some valid concerns that aren’t being addressed. Or you can see that people of your side sometimes unfairly stereotype or strawman the other side (“they’re all racists” or “they’re just virtue signalling, that’s all it is”).
Now, what I’ve been saying may sound logical on one hand. And yes, I think it is. On the other hand, it is also completely radical, because almost no one does this. The vast majority of people just learn one perspective, subconsciously label the people on the other side as evil or wrong without understanding them, and then go on a moral crusade. Or at least they quietly judge and label the other side.
For some reason, in Western society on Earth, it’s seen as cool to always confidently state a strong and not necessarily nuanced opinion about whatever topic currently happens to be discussed. I think this is a bit silly, because to a wise person, it’s much more impressive when someone says “I don’t know” than if they just jump on the moral barricades and start crusading for one side or the other.
And look, it’s perfectly okay to say “I don’t know.” It’s okay to not research everything, I get that you don’t have the time and energy for that. I would just like to invite you that until you understand both sides in a conflict, that you don’t label one side as right and one as wrong. Or if you must label, at least don’t hold onto that label too strongly. For example, you can say: “I think this side is right, but I don’t fully understand the other side, so I’m not completely sure.”
I would also like to invite you to not fall into the trap of thinking: “yes, Emerelda, you make a good point, but you don’t understand, in this situation innocents are dying. It’s an emergency. Therefore now is not the time to listen and study. Right now is the time to make bold statements and tell everyone that they must support my cause. Also, because it’s an emergency, everything my side does is justified and necessary.”
But the thing is, it’s likely that the other side ALSO views this as an emergency that justifies everything they do. And so, if you don’t understand the other side, then how can you possibly be sure that your side is right? Of course your side of the let’s say immigration debate feels that they have a pressing emergency, but the other side of the immigration debate also feels that they have a pressing emergency.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take action or have opinions. I’m just saying that before you do that, it’s good to first understand the other side.
After all, don’t you wish that all those wrong people on the other side had actually listened to your side before they started taking action? Well, be the change you wish to see in the world. Plus, as Hakann pointed out last week: listening to others actually does good in and of itself, because it makes them feel safer and therefore makes them more reasonable.
Let’s look at an example. Some parts of the American political left are trying to censor some parts of the American political right. Are they justified in doing that? I am inviting you to answer before continuing with this message.
Three, two, one…
Of course, you’re entirely free to think and act how you wish. I’ll just share my personal view.
Personally, I think a great answer would be: “I don’t know, I need to understand both political sides better before I can answer that.”
If you answered “yes” or “no” to the censorship being justified, then I would like to invite you to reflect on if you actually understand both political sides sufficiently to be able to answer this. I gave some indicators earlier in this message to evaluate if you understand the other side.
To those who would argue that censorship is always wrong, I would like to ask you: suppose that Stalin, or whoever you think is the worst possible political figure, looks likely to win the next election. If he enters office, liberty or democracy might be lost forever and millions might die. Do you think it’s acceptable to censor this person to prevent that?
In this situation, if you’re still against censorship, then you have a very clear moral value, and that’s entirely valid. However if in this situation you would be in favor of censorship, then I would like you to reflect that Trump is this kind of figure to many on the left. Now you can say that the left is completely wrong about Trump, but at least it’s good to understand the left’s perspective. Because then it’s no longer a conflict where one side says that censorship is always wrong and the other side feels misunderstood and like the other side isn’t listening. Then it becomes a discussion where the right-winger says: can you explain to me why you think Trump is so awful?
Again, even just listening to the other side is beneficial in and of itself.
Let’s look at another example: Israel versus Palestine. Everything in the following section is my opinion.
The pro-Israel (or pro-Zionist) side says: the only way we can be safe is through strong action against Hamas. If you try to stop us, you’re denying our right to defend ourselves, you’re denying our right to exist because we’re not secure in our existence unless we do this. You also don’t understand just how much anti-semitism is out there.
The other side alleges: Israel is committing a genocide right now, which can clearly be seen because they’re targeting hospitals and destroying agriculture and because they’re refusing to let in food and water and medicine. Also, Israeli decision makers are clearly calling for genocide and soldiers on the ground are echoing those words. Legally speaking, literally nothing justifies a genocide. There literally is never a justification for a genocide, no matter how bad the other side is, or what they do, or how threatened you feel. Therefore Israel must stop, because so many innocents are dying — and keep in mind that half of all Palestinians are children.
In this conflict, we see the thought pattern that I warned against earlier, which is that Israel labels itself (in my opinion) as good and virtuous and as the victims, and therefore everything it does is justified — without understanding the Palestinian side. Other countries do this too, but Israel is a very relevant example right now.
For example, torture is effectively legal in Israel, and Israel sees that as justified. Why? In my opinion, it’s because they started out by labeling themselves as virtuous and they never learned the Palestinian perspective. In my opinion, that is how they can effecitvely legalize torture, feel that they are justified in doing so, and still see themselves as the good guys.
This is something that I have a strong emotional reaction to, but I’ll try to discuss it in a level headed way.
I’m not saying that no Palestinian has ever tortured an Israeli person, but if Palestine tortured Israelis as regularly and habitually as Israel tortures Palestinians (in my opinion), then you would never hear the end of it. Whereas most people don’t even know that torture is effectively legal in Israel.
Imagine you’re a Palestinian. You’re arrested by Israel and dragged in front of an Israeli military court. You are surprised and ask, why am I in front of this military court? Well, it turns out that an acquaintance of yours got arrested by Israel’s secret police. They tortured her until she couldn’t take it anymore, and then to make the torture stop, she falsely claimed that you are guilty of some crime. And now this court treats that torture-extracted confession as legitimate proof against you. Good luck defending yourself from that.
Here is an Israeli article with the title “Tortured Into Confession: Two Palestinians Recount Hellish Interrogation”:
Here is an Israeli article with the title: “The Shin Bet [Israeli secret police] Breaks You. You’d Be Insane Not to Give a False Confession”:
According to
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/1/30/israels-shin-bet-to-face-first-ever-torture-probe :
“Many Palestinians are jailed based on confessions either they or other Palestinians make during Shin Bet [Israeli secret police] questioning. Israeli military courts almost never examine how such confessions were obtained or whether they are reliable, say lawyers, contributing to a 99.7 percent conviction rate.”
That last article also gives some further context, including context that Israel supporters might want to point to, so you can read the entire article if you want to know more about this topic.
Now, I’m not saying that Palestinians have never done anything wrong. But I do have a pretty strong opinion about torture. Pointing out that some Palestnians do bad things too, which is true, doesn’t prove that Israel is morally right. That’s just the old false binary thinking pattern, where one side must always be good and one side must always be evil, and so if you show that the other side is evil then that automatically makes you good. No, that’s not how it works.
You don’t get to torture and, in my opinion, commit genocide and then claim the moral high ground. If you behave like that, then I think that at most you can argue that it’s a situation where both sides are in the wrong — and the other side being in the wrong doesn’t justify torture and, in my opinion, genocide. Nothing does.
But, sorry, I’ll try to keep my anger in check. I’ll go and take a deep breath.
So in my opinion: Israel thinks it has the right to torture Palestinians, and use confessions extracted through torture as evidence. Yet obviously, Israel doesn’t think that Palestinians have the right to torture Israelis, let alone use confessions extracted through torture as evidence.
In my opinion, this illustrates that if you start out by labeling yourself as virtuous and never learn the perspective of the other side, then you can end up doing some awful things and feel completely justified in doing so. Hence today’s message: before labeling one side as right and the other as wrong, learn both perspectives first.
Also note that once someone assumes that they’re the good guys or that they’re the victims, almost no evidence can sway them from that position, because everything gets interpreted through the lens of “well this is unfortunately necessary for us good people to protect ourselves.” It is emotionally comfortable and egoically pleasing to confirm your worldview and your self-image, after all. Even an international court saying that Israel may be committing genocide isn’t enough evidence to get Israel to stop, because in my opinion everything gets interpreted through the lens of “we’re virtuous, we’re victims, everything we do is justified. Therefore anyone standing against us must be evil in some way.”
Another important thing to note is that once you label the other side as being evil, their resistance starts looking like proof that they’re evil, when it wouldn’t look like that if you hadn’t started out by labeling them as evil. As Norman Finkelstein pointed out: if a Western person says: “give me liberty or give me death”, then that is a heroic and noble person. But if you start out by labeling Palestinians as being evil, then if they say the equivalent of “give me liberty or give me death”, suddenly that is proof that Palestinians are inherently evil, and they can’t be reasoned with, and that military operations are the only solution. I’m not saying that Palestinians are justified in killing Israeli citizens, they’re not. I’m just saying that I would seek to understand both sides before labeling one side as right and one side as wrong.
This principle doesn’t just go for the Israel – Palestine conflict, but in other situations as well. It applies in political debates. It applies if you get into a conflict at work. It also applies if both you and another guy want the same parking spot.
The Israel – Palestine situation also invites us to examine our underlying and unspoken values and assumptions, which is very useful to do if you intend to spend a lot of time on a certain issue. Because on paper, everyone agrees that a human life is a human life. But in my opinion, much of the pro-Israel side seems to silently view one Israeli life as being worth more than one Palestinian life. I know that people don’t want to say this out loud, but in my opinion, if Israelis genuinely thought that one Palestinian life was worth one Israeli life, then they wouldn’t be torturing Palestinians and using those confessions as proof. They wouldn’t be bombing Palestinian hospitals. They also wouldn’t be blocking food and water and medicine from entering Palestine.
However, keep in mind that the “don’t label sides as right or wrong before you understand both sides” invitation also applies to people who are hostile to Jews.
If your position is that Jews are evil, or that killing Israeli civilians is acceptable, then I would like to invite you to talk to some Jewish people and try to understand the Jewish perspective.
If a person does something bad, then the solution is to hold him or her accountable. It’s not to label everyone in his or her group as being evil.
If we’re going to say that collectively condemning Jews is acceptable, then Israel can say that it gets to collectively condemn Palestinians. Women can say that they get to collectively condemn men. People whose ancestors came from Sub-Saharan Africa can say that they get to collectively condemn white people. Europeans can say that they get to collectively condemn North Africans (the barbary pirates took a lot of Europeans as slaves). Obviously this kind of collective blaming isn’t the way forward.
On an energetic level, it’s also quite divisive and therefore stressful for all of humanity if one group goes “you must agree with me that Jews are evil, or you’re an IDF agent.” And the other group goes: “you must agree with me that Israel should get to defend itself in any way it sees fit, or you’re an antisemite.” This fierce energetic division is one thing that contributes to why many people are feeling tired or stressed right now. Although on 14 January we also started sending energy to directly activate your DNA, as I announced a few weeks ago, and many of you are feeling that as well.
Still this energetic division around Israel is also increasing the odds of world war three breaking out. To be sure, the dark controllers want people to have very fierce, extreme opinions about this topic. If you’re proclaiming that Jews are evil, then in my opinion you’re playing into the dark controller’s hands — because then people on the other side go: “those anti-Israel people are crazy, they can’t be reasoned with, we must back Israel unconditionally”. Also, fence-sitters will more likely side with the pro-Israeli side if the anti-Israeli side wants to condemn all Jews.
So, sure, criticize what Israel is doing. I have done so in this message. But I don’t think it’s helpful to criticize Jews. Of course, you have free will, but that is what I think.
Finally, the channeler isn’t a law expert but has noted that his country of The Netherlands seems to somewhat regularly sue people for perceived anti-semitic positions. For example, David Icke was banned from entering the channeler’s country, and Holocaust denial is illegal. Therefore shortly after October 7th, the channeler asked us galactics not to comment on the theory that Israel let the October 7th attacks happen or enabled them, or the theory that Hamas killed some Israelis but also Israel killed some Israelis, or the theory that the Hamas attack was in some ways understandable because of alleged Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque. Because the channeler asked us not to comment on these theories one way or the other, we have not done so, in this message and past messages.
The channeler apologizes for not openly stating that he made this request to us. He promises that if he makes such a “please don’t discuss this” request to us in the future, that he will be open about that.
To be clear, this was the only such request that the channeler made, in the past and present, about this and other topics. Also, we want to note that us galactics also do not lie. At most, we will simply choose not to discuss a certain topic. If we say something, then that is what we mean.
So, that was today’s message. I hope this was helpful.
I very much hope that your situation will indeed improve somewhere during this year or the next, which is likely but not guaranteed. I almost feel guilty, sitting up here and living in comfort, while I know that back there on Earth, some people are currently going through what I went through.
You’re in my thoughts.
I’m not a psychologist. Still, I’m not actually sure that it is possible for a human being, whether Earth human or Pleiadian human, to feel fully connected and fully seen and fully happy, unless you are in a community where you regularly mind read each other and thus are fully seen and loved and accepted.
I can’t imagine how lonely you must feel.
This year or the next, my brothers and sisters and myself may be able to finally physically meet with the people of Earth. This again is quite likely but not guaranteed. We are all very much looking forward to that. It’s not just you who want to meet us, we also want to meet you. I think we will have an amazing time together.
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Disclaimer: I am not denying the Holocaust. I am not denying the right of Israel, or the right of the Jewish people to exist. I am opposed to the murder of Israelis, by Hamas and other groups. I don’t think Jews should be killed or removed from the lands of Israel.
I actively discourage violence of all types. I also actively discourage discrimination of all types, including (but not limited to) discrimination against Jews.
Information in this message is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This message contains humor, parody, and satire.
There is a comment section. Comments do not necessarily reflect my views and opinions.
End disclaimer. Have a good week.
Emerelda
