Hi there!
It’s been a while since I wrote in this space. I wish I could say the reason I haven’t written is because the world has just been sailing along peacefully, but that isn’t true. However, maybe a cease fire in Gaza and the fall of a dictator in Syria qualify as progress these days.
I haven’t written anything because I didn’t think I had much to say. Personally, I have had more than my share of blessings lately and so I just felt like it was ingenuous of me to write about how frustrated I was with the world. My blessings are mostly luck anyway; I’m grateful nonetheless.
But here I am, back writing again in 2025.
Coincidentally, guess who else is back in 2025…yep, it's him again!
But wait, this isn’t a rant about our once and now current President. He won, fair and square. More people wanted him to be President than did his opponent. I’m not going to whine about elections.
Nope, this post is about a TV commercial I’ve been seeing. Maybe you’ve seen it:
https://www.fcas.org/standuptoallhate/
The commercial plays a lot on sports telecasts. The first time I saw it, I thought “yeah, yeah, those people should stop all their hatred”.
The commercial is non-partisan. It uses a bunch of sports figures to make the point that HATE , the most vile and potent of emotions, is really messing with us. And much as I’d like to argue hate is just on one side of the political spectrum, it’s not true. I’m ashamed to admit it, but for a lot of 2024 I held a lot of hate in my heart for those people I thought were posing a great danger to our country. That’s when I realized it:
The commercial was talking to me. That commercial was talking ABOUT me.
I’m not a hateful person. Ask anybody who knows me; I would bet that “hateful” is not one of the words that they would use to describe me. I think of myself as a good person with the best hope for everybody. Yet I found myself using hateful language to describe people who didn’t agree with me.
I still disagree with them. I won’t stop opposing policies and actions that I think are harmful to our country and our world. But I must get rid of my hatred.
Recently we celebrated Martin Luther King Day. MLK was arguably one of the two or three most important, influential people in the history of the United States. He knew what it was like to be hated, and he fought for the most important basic human rights that we Americans say we hold dear. He knew that hateful people opposed him. Heck, he was killed by hate. Yet here is what he said about hate:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
I think the most difficult thing a person can do, emotionally, is to not hate his enemy. When we think of the worst people doing the worst things (like a Hitler), it is the most natural thing in the world to react with hatred. We label those we hate as “the enemy.” It is far easier to motivate people to act when they have an enemy at whom they can direct their anger, blame, and revulsion. Many an election is won motivating the hate that comes naturally to all of us.
Where does hate get us?
Well, to be perfectly honest, sometimes hate gains power. Hatred is a great way to draw a crowd, to garner cheers, to monetize eyeballs. People want to feel like they belong, and the best way to get a group together is to focus their emotion on somebody who is different. Think of the kindly villagers in the Frankenstein movie. Their fear motivated them to take up pitchforks to kill. (ok, I know Frankenstein isn’t real, but you get the point).
Nonetheless, power built on hate is like a house built on sand. The only way to preserve the house is to continue to pile up more sand. Hate begets hate. There’s no end to the waves that come crashing against the sand. If you hate, others will hate you back like waves crashing into the house. Eventually, the house still falls and all you are left with is the “sand” of anger and bitterness.
Yes, I understand the cost: terrible people left unchecked will cause untold millions to suffer…the innocent are harmed. We can’t “love our enemy” because our enemy will kill us.
I am not suggesting inaction or passivity. I’m suggesting that even when fighting what we think is unjust or wrong, we do it without hatred. We hate the acts of the terrorist, but your hate isn’t going to stop him. We hate the politician who demonizes the powerless, but hating her won’t change the minds of her supporters. We hate Stan Kronke, but hating him won’t make our city better or bring the Rams back to St. Louis.
I’m done being hateful and I’m done propagating hate. Hatred doesn’t help; it only creates more outrage and hatred. Rage is fuel for those who would do us harm. When we lash out at a politician’s supporters, an entire religion or citizens of a hostile country, we unite them against us and become the thing we hate: we become hateful. We make ourselves the thing we say we want to stop.
I’ll leave the hatred to others. They think they are winning, but they are not because love wins. If we lose power but we have love in our hearts, we are able to keep fighting for what we believe knowing that our cause is just. If others are oppressed because of the hatred, we can only change the minds of the oppressors by resisting them without hatred, or they will not hear us. Love may not solve all the problems in the short run, but we know that hating just gets us more hate.
Mahatma Ghandi is credited for inspiring MLK. I think one of his quotes is very relevant to us as we try to deal with our flawed, hate-filled world. If we can embrace this sentiment, in the face of all the adversity, we will have achieved great things:
“Our greatest ability as humans is not to change the world, but to change ourselves.”
I’m done with the rage machine. I’m done with hate. I’m just interested in making the world better by loving more.