Wow, we really hate each other don't we?! I know there are a lot of people out there who would disagree with that statement, but those people obviously don't watch the news. Look at all of the reasons we have to despise each other. All of these instances play out in news stories I have read in the paper or seen on TV in the last couple of weeks.
1. Race-I hate you because you're black, I hate you because you're white!
2. Religion-I hate you because you're a Muslim, I hate you because you're Christian!
3. Culture-I hate you because you don't embrace the old ways, I hate you because you are against change!
4. Political Ideology- I hate you because you're a democrat, I hate you because you're a republican!
5. Geography-I hate arrogant northerners, I hate ignorant Southerners!
6. Education-I hate you because you think you're smarter than me, I hate you because you're uneducated!
7. Economic Status-I hate the rich because they're greedy, I hate the poor because they drain our resources!
8. Age-I hate old people because they think they know everything, I hate young people who know nothing! 9. Gender-I hate women for being weak, I hate men for being forceful and overbearing!
My god, I can't write any more examples. It really is enough to drive a sane man crazy(oops, there's another one!) The talking heads on news shows like to say this resurgence of hatred is brought on by the Internet era. They say all ideas can now be aired to anyone who wants to see them, therefore more people are taking sides and calling for the containment or destruction of the other(the other being anyone who doesn't agree with you totally). The funny thing is that a person can change a lot of the things on the list if they wish. Let's take a look.
1. Race-Until further notice, I'm afraid this one is a keeper.
2. Religion-People convert from one religion to another everyday. I was born a Baptist and converted to Catholicism. Am I a different person? No, but my wife's family certainly likes me better!
3. Culture-This one only exists in people's minds anyway. It consists of the music, art, literature, and customs or one's civilization. Since new music, art, literature, and customs appear everyday, Culture is a fluid concept usually experienced by what decade you grew up in(Go Eighties!).
4. Political Ideology-A lot of people only belong to the two major ones because they know a third-party candidate will only siphon votes away from one of the two, even if that third-party candidate speaks exactly to what the particular voter believes.
5. Geography-The easiest one to change. Who doesn't know someone who's moved to a different region of the country.
6. Education-Also easy to change, but more time consuming to go up(going back to school for your degree), than it is going down(stroke or brain injury).
7. Economic Status-Again, much easier to go down, than up. But there are still people striking it rich, even in this topsy-turvy environment.
8. Age-This one changes no matter what the late night infomercials try to tell you. The person who figures out how to make us age backwards will be rich beyond Bill Gates' imagination!
9. Gender-I'd guess this would be the hardest to change, and the most painful and misunderstood. However, people do change this one all of the time(I did cringe when I was writing the word painful).
So, in my opinion, if we can just figure out how to solve the racial divide, then we can end hatred as we know it. Now wouldn't that be cool...
Well put. Glad to see you haven't lost your talent for writing.
ReplyDeleteI think all I can add is that we hate what we fear and we fear what is different (hence most of your examples). We live in an age in which we are much more frequently confronted by difference. If you lived in a village in England (or China or India or Kenya) in the 1100s chances are good you'd go your lifetime without seeing anyone who was different in any of the categories you list (other than gender). Now there's constant exposure to difference and as you say, the talking heads on TV and many of our politicians capitalize on the differences to score points. My experience suggests that at some point exposure to different people makes on realize that at the center of things, we are all much more similar than we are different so hatred becomes pointless. I live in hope that this is true.
By the way there is a way to change race; it just takes generations. To paraphrase Warren Beatty in Bulworth, we need all the races to intermingle so we end up as one color in a few hundred years.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth.