hate is a product of misunderstanding someone to the point that naturally people find it an option. It’s like walking to the store picking out a box of cereal based on taste and ignoring the rest or disliking a brand for what it represents. Humans are creatures of Habit. If we see someone else on their cellphone we are likely to do the same thing or follow suit.
Hate, habit and history
Back in the late to early 1900’s or what history calls the puritan age, there was a lot of hate against witches. Puritans followed the bible like millennials these days use social media.
Due to the Puritans strong belief that witches must be burned, sin must be punished, and the bible must be revered made it easy for groups to turn on one another. One such instance was the Salem witch trials where a certain class of people had the power to point at someone and deem them sinners. This habit stirred an entire town to start witch hunting people. Any habit that breeds hate is a problem especially in groups of people.
Another example of a Habit that stirred hate is the KKK who picked out a skin color and deemed people with that color inhuman, and deserving of being hung. Hate is a powerful motivator. American history has seen so much of it that its a habit for people to instantly hate someone who they don’t understand.
Habits are hard to change, habits are inbred, and habits can be as much good as bad. A bad habit is addictive, problematic, and hard to change. It's even worse in a group setting. Social media has not forgotten this bad habit nor has the habit gone away. Sometimes instant communication with a group can be bad depending on what the group represents.
What brings hate groups together?
Anger without reason and passion divulged into anguish. Groups that choose to hate another person based on color, attitude, dress, knowledge or even no reason often do so because they are in fear of what they don’t understand.
Is it possible to end such hate?
There is the Columbine shooting in history too that caused people to turn their heads at Marilyn Manson and blame him because of the music he wrote.
Not everyone who listens to Marilyn Manson is a killer just like not everyone who has a gun is a killer.
Hate is powerful because it is a culturally driven problem, not a natural problem. We are not naturally meant to hate. If you look at the animal kingdom a cat kills a mouse but the mouse doesn’t hate the cat. It's an order of natural selection. Humans have driven past natural selection among ourselves because we have the special ability of knowledge.
Our culture is what created hate, what bred it like a beast and formed the idea that hate is natural. History condones hate and proves to us that our ancestors hated groups for multiple reasons from bombing Iwa Jima, Nazis, racism, and for territory against the Indians.
In every aspect, we are shown that hate can result with change.
People respond to hate, people react to hate, and people make change because of hate. Hate is not a necessary emotion but it stirs a question of why hate exists in the first place. I find that with our current president people have become quick to hate one another and even quicker to hate on him. However, no one has thought about how to end hate.
You end hate with love. It's easy. You walk up to someone who you may not understand and you try to understand them. You try to see it from their standpoint, and you try to give them a perspective that may not matter. In the end, hate will exist. We will watch it consume leaders, shock our neighbors, and cause destruction. But there will always be those of us who are devoted to love. Devoted to the idea of change, hope, and love.
