Overheard on Facebook this morning:
A:
I hate him more than I could ever have imagined hating a human. He is so
grotesque, so classless, such an abuser, I would love to punch his lights out
just because.
B:
I’m right there with you, friend. I’ve hated him since I was a kid. Most NYers
have long despised him, but these past two years have revealed so much more of
his slime and douchebaggery and creepiness and corruption and ignorance and
arrogance and just everything.
The participants of this exchange knew as
many as one thousand of their acquaintances could see it.
Hate consumes them. It is hate for
someone who does not know they exist. They
are using their hatred to find common ground and express their kinship with one
another. It is, of course, hatred for
what they perceive as bad, but what other kind is there?
Every tradition that seeks to explore
and understand the well-lived life singles out hatred as counterproductive to
that end: Aristotle, the Stoics, the
Epicureans, Confucius, Taoists, Buddhists, Zen, the Transcendentalists and, of
course, Christianity. Any system that acknowledges that we don’t have free will also inevitably concludes that hatred is irrational.
As Christianity's influence wanes a secular form of Manichaeism is enjoying a resurgence. It is not limited to one side of the political spectrum or even just to politics. Most disturbingly,
it is resurgent in the name of tolerance, intelligence, and warmheartedness. We seem to be awash in it. It is displayed publicly with the expectation of assent and without self-consciousness or shame.
