End Hate

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Are we free to hate?  If so, why?  We have freedom of speech, but hate speech is a crime.  

Hate is acceptable except for under the most extreme circumstances…  Why do we do it?  Because we can.  Because we can’t help it.  Because we like to.  We’re human beings with human emotions and one of those emotions is hate.  The problem is that hate is normal.  We all do it.  We really don’t think about it.  We always worry about the hate of others.  That is… unless their hates match our own.  We all feel justified in our hate.  It fills us with a sense of superiority and control.  What useful or positive purpose does hate serve under any circumstances?  It just seems a bit hypocritical of us to condemn only certain kinds of hate.  Can’t we just somehow decide as a species that hate is not a behaviorally correct attitude?

We can never bring an end to war or bigotry without ending the hatred first.  As long as we continue to allow ourselves this acidic emotion we are no better than those haters we criticize.  We can’t end hate with hate.  We can’t end war with war.  We can’t end torture with torture.  We can’t end terrorism with terrorism.  We can’t end bigotry with bigotry.  Sometimes you fight fire with fire…  most times you use a hose.  

You can’t end hate with hate.  

A great deal of the racism in the world is based on fear and ignorance.  Therefore we can separate fear based racism from that which is based on hate.  From which point I would argue that not all racists are haters.  Don’t fret, the aforementioned scaredy cat morans are still bigots along with all the haters.  Racism and bigotry based on fear or ignorance can be cured with education whereas racism and bigotry based on hate cannot.  

Hate is the second strongest emotion.  Hate is the ugliest of emotions.  Hate is judgemental.  Hate is aggressive.  Hate is angry.  Hate is violent.  Hate is the flaw in our make up that creates monsters like Dick Chenery we usually only see in others.  Hate is gasoline to the fiery protest that is extreme dislike.  It’s effects are exponential.  It is a matter of emotional levels.  Hate is a lust to annihilate.  It is the only thing that I would describe as truly obscene.  Hate is rabid.  It is meaness and cruelty.  Hate is smug and arrogant.  Hate is a self justified, unencumbered, gloriously satisfying emotion.  It’s like a drug to some people.  Hate is pleasing.  Hate’s trick is that it feels so damn good.  IMHO, as an emotion, hate has greed and avarice beat by a long shot.

Hate is the antithesis of love.  Love is all there is that is holy in this world.  Hate is all there is that is evil.  Love and hate are black and white polar opposites.  There are plenty of words in the grey area in between to describe emotions that are often mislabeled as hate.  It is a word that is over used.  People use the word hate when they often mean dislike, disgust, disdain, loath, envy, curse, condemn, damn, despise, abhor, detest, ode, emnity, hostility, malice, sicken, abominate, aversion, fear, and even pity.

We use the word love when we mean like.  You don’t love chocolate the way you love your family.  Likewise, you don’t feel about broccoli the same way a bigot feels about the object of his hate.  We’re taught to hate from early childhood.  When we’re young things are either good or bad.  You either love them or you hate them.  Nobody hates ice cream although some are lactose intolerant.  Hate is everywhere…  The baby hates greenbeans…  The boy hates math class…  She hates boys…  Mommy hates going to to gym…  Daddy hates it when Mommy nags…  Gramps hates to be interrupted…  Granny hates when they all track mud in the house.  I hate it when someone takes my last beer.  Some people would say that I hate to throw anything away.  I would have to agree that it often pains me to do so, because there’s already enough shit in our landfills.  Indeed, to the contrary, I would assert that I’ve amassed quite the bounty from the dumpsters of America.  It is my insistance that hate is the incorrect term.  

Unless it is your wish to destroy asparagus…  to wipe it off the face of the Earth…  to obliterate it on sight…  then you don’t really hate asparagus.  Choose a more appropriate word please.  It is intellectual laziness when used incorrectly.  Using the word hate is just too socially acceptable in our society.  We use the word so casually and nonchalantly that we’ve belittled it’s meaning.  Certain forms of hate are still condoned within the realm of political correctness.  If we’re going to have a war on hate I think it should be overarching and not single out any one group.  When we let hatred fester we get European Soccer Fan mentality.

From George Orwell’s 1984:

“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.  Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary.  A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seem to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.  And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame lf a blowlamp.  Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.

Hate is at it’s worst when it’s collective.  Hate never does anybody any good.  All we can be sure of getting out of it are an ulcer or a heart attack.  If hate is the driving force in your life then I pity you.  Growing up an abused child I learned a little something about hate.  In the end, there was a commmon bond between my father and I… mutual loathing.  For some reason greed, avarice, and ambition have never been a part of my character.  I just don’t have it in me.  Anger, on the other hand, is a different matter all together.  It has been suggested that I seek anger management.  I suggest that there is plenty to be angry about.  I’m not talking about ending anger.  Many of us have been rightfully angry for 8 years.  I’m as guilty as the next Kossack for writing and saying things like, “I hate what my government is doing,” regarding warrantless wiretapping, the PATRIOT Act, the lead up to war, torture and abuse.

One is either a hater or not.  It is as simple as that.  I don’t care who you are or what you hate, you are a hater.  We’re (mostly) all haters of one thing or another.  I’m a hater, he’s a hater, she’s a hater, we’re all haters…  Wouldn’tcha like to be a hater too?  We are one fucked up, hateful, warlike species.  Philosophers ponder whether there are such things as love and hate.  Then there is all the self-hatred which may very well be the root cause of all the rest of the hate.  Just like you can’t love someone else until you love yourself, one cannot hate without first hating some part of oneself.

It’s a question of attitude.  My grandmother taught me to always look for the best in people.  When you meet someone do you look for something to compliment or for something to criticize?  (Grandma also said you get more bees with honey.  To which I always wondered “Why would I want bees?  To get honey?  If I already have honey, why do I need bees?  Why would I want to attract flies with sugar anyway when raw meat would work better?)  The ideal is what Yeshua Ben Joseph allegedly proposed, “Love thy enemy.”  There is one thing we could all do to become more Christ like…  quit hating! When I think in a big picture fashion, I envision our solar system as our hood and our crib is this planet Earth.  The milky way is a huge metropolis in an infinite universe.  From that perspective all of our silly squabbles seem petty.  I must have faith in my fellow human beings to get their heads out of their asses.

If..  (This is one humongous if!)  If we could just quit hating each other we could begin the dialog and sharing of ideas that needs to happen before we can fix the world/human race/fill in the blank.  The objective of the rational human being ought to be to make hate socially unacceptable.  At the same time we can’t just sing Kumbaya together and have hate flow out of us on a wave of love.  I realize that the total elimination of hate is a naive and  idealistic pipe dream.  A future society devoid of hate is a utopian fantasy straight out of science fiction.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  This is something that each of us can do within ourselves.  Hate is an unnecessary emotion in a civilized society.  There is no need for it.  It serves no useful purpose.  It is unnecessary.  What good does hate do any of us in the 21st Century?  Hate doesn’t know skin color, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.  It is an equal opportunity mind polluter.  There is a large amount of hate passing between and emanating from all of the divergent political and ethnic groups.

There is only one thing that will do.  We have to consciously decide to make the distinction before we speak or write.  We can’t ban hate.  We can’t make hate illegal.  We need to make hate socially unacceptable.  We could have hate counselling and interventions just like with anger management…  A twelve step program to end hate.  If we want others to quit hating, then we need to stop hating first or we don’t have a moral leg to stand on.  Our hate is as ugly as theirs.  You can find racism in every flavor of the human rainbow.  No matter who the offender, no matter who the victim, hate should be anathema to us all.  

There are many people and things on this planet that continue to disgust me, but from here on out I refuse to hate them.  Hate serves nothing but our own gutteral needs.  Ending hate is that “one small step” towards true peace and harmony for this world.

…Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable–that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.

snip

…there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor–it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

                                                                                                                        JFK, AU ’63