We love to hate.
I know this is somewhat in direct opposition to the Symbiosis posting I just made, but something happened today that set off quite a rant in me.
I heard the news that after a month of negative ads by the McCain campaign, Obama's numbers have slid downward to below McCain's.
It's as if the country was asked to believe the worst accusations about a person and they came right out and jumped right on the task.
One thing that I have really despised about the Bush era in general, but some of their biggest supporters in particular, is their constant and persistent call to find something to hate about "the other side". It's somehow even better if it's not true, all it has to do is appeal to what people want to believe, not what they can be convinced of by facts. And just as hordes of people obediently forward emails of stories that are unbelievable at first glance, they usually don't take the time to dive into the stories they hear to determine whether they have any semblance of truth in them.
The sad thing about this is how easy it is for good people to fall prey to the siren song of hating your fellow man. I had a good friend years ago. He was a free spirit, probably lived outside of the law in some respects, had a healthy dose of disrespect for authority, and was fun-loving and funny. The last time I talked to him he told me, "I've been listening to a lot of talk radio lately. I really hate liberals." What I didn't say that day, partly because I was stunned by the statement, and partly out of respect and a desire not to have a fight with my friend was "What do you mean you hate liberals, you ARE liberal." Seriously, this guy was one of the most tolerant and liberal people I've ever known. Where did this sudden blindness to all that he believed in and loved turn into this hatred for "liberals"?
People are not shy to speak up about their hatreds. They feel vindicated and justified in thinking and believing that other people are somehow worthless and reprehensible. I'm talking about the divide in America, not about how Americans feel about other people in the world or how they feel about us. The bad thing about this trend is that I hear many people of faith spewing out this hatred, feeling perfectly justified in doing so, and not at all able to see the hypocrisy of being told by their religion to love one another, but feeling free by their associates to hate any and everything about those "others".
When we see radical Islamic fundamentalists espousing hatred toward America, we feel alarmed and repulsed. How can these supposed men of the cloth preach such tenets that are obviously contradictory to their religion? Yet we are blind to the hatreds we hold ourselves. Why is it so clear to see hatred in others, and so hard to recognize it in ourselves?
This is a trend that has to be recognized and reversed. Everyone hears how those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. I think it's much worse than that. I think that many that are perfectly aware of history are more than willing to repeat it, because they think "This is different." We look back on the 1930's and we dissect the rise of Nazism and smugly say, those Germans were sure stupid to follow Hitler. We even have this parable crafted for children about standing up to oppressive tyrants. You've probably heard variants of "I stood aside, because they weren't coming for me" stories. The punch line was when they came for you, no one was left to stand for you. Hitler had the perfect tool to recruit millions to his cause. He gave them what they wanted: something to hate.
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