Is Hate A Bell That Can’t Be Unrung?

We all hate something. Some of us hate more stuff than others.

Most of the stuff we hate are things. I hate lima beans and I hate turnips. I hate long periods of grey skies. I hate shoveling snow.

And boring novels. And a lot of other things.

And I’m sure your list is as long as or even longer than mine.

But lately there has been an acceleration in the movement to promote hate between people. This is especially caustic in America where this cause has a very loud cheerleader. But, make no mistake, it exists almost everywhere in the world.

Maybe it’s because our ability to see the whole world a little more clearly has increased we feel we are seeing more of this hate than ever.

The right hates the left. The white supremacists hate anyone who is not white. The rich hate the poor. The Christians hate the Muslims. Palestinians hate the Jews. The Suni Muslims hate the Shia Muslims. The dogs hate the cats. And vice versa.

It’s a endless stream of hatred that is, in its own weird way, warping the world we live in. It reaches everywhere. It affects almost everyone either directly or otherwise. And it’s eating us up.

A lot of people out there are working hard trying to replace hate with love. But this is the most difficult job on the planet right now. Because the hate is so deeply ingrained in people and the hatespeak keeps coming at them from just about everywhere.

Try as I may, I have never been able to understand it. I have never been able to look at another person on this planet and hate them just for being who they are. But yet, if you look back into history as far as you can go, hate has been the preeminent emotion of the human race.

Hate engenders disrespect and disrespect makes it easy for people to make war with each other, kill each other, enslave each other, deprive each other, make life a living hell for each other.

A lot of time this hate was done in the name of religion. which was really a political force. It was also done in the name of greed and conquest. More recently it’s done in the name of ideology.

The United States proudly calls itself the greatest democracy on earth, and yet it fought a civil war over slavery. Its greed has made it one of the most imperialistic countries in history. It has created insurrection around the world in the name of democracy. It has grown rich and powerful thanks to the influx of immigrants that imperialism has created. And now, it treats those same people as enemies, as it closes its borders to those seeking the opportunity that they so proudly promote.

This is hate of a different colour. This is a hate borne out of a totally irrational fear that people who come to America, or any other country facing huge numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, are only intending to destroy the country, which, of course, is absurd.

But then that is the nature of hate, and those who promote it. Hate distracts people from the real purpose of living which is to have the best time we can, be as productive as we can, help where we can and be part of the solution as much as possible.

I don’t really know if the concept of hate is so deeply ingrained in people that it can ever be changed. What I do know is that negative emotions such as hate and greed appear to be consuming the world at a much higher rate than they ever have, and that we can really no longer afford to let this burn out of control.

There has been a lot of talk lately about what we need to do to restore respect for each other and I am certain that in some areas of discourse this is possible.

But flip side of this is that there have been so many haters who have been empowered and enabled lately that the threat they pose to the world is much greater than ever.

The choice is simple. If you can’t learn to love people with different ideologies, you can at least figure out a way to listen and respect their right to differ with you.

Maybe that’s a start. Maybe that’s the beginning of a conversation. Maybe that’s a tiny little light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel.

I don’t know. But if the world is going to correct its course, this has to start somewhere.

Jim lives in St Catharines Ontario (AKA The Quiet Side Of The Lake) and is currently a partner at Bullet Proof Consulting. www.bulletproofconsulting.ca

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