It seems that everywhere I look these days I see it. It raises it hideous head in whatever situation I seem to find myself in some way. Like the hydra of old, it attacks from multiple angles, its vicious maws coming at us from every side. And our best efforts to combat it seem just as fruitless, two heads springing up where there once was only one. It truly is a monster that plagues us all today. A monster with such a simple name.
Hate.
It has many forms and varying degrees. We see it manifest the world over in scenes of horrific violence. Leaders rise and fall, carried proudly on the shoulders of those who hate the same way they do. Nations come and go, poisonous hatred rotting their soul, strength and solidarity. Lives are lost needlessly because someone could not see past their hate.
Families fall apart, destroyed by lost love and feelings of hate. Leaving in its wake the destroyed lives of innocent victims, new seeds of animosity are placed, small metastases that will grow unnoticed to eventually erupt and destroy once again.
We subdivide, segregate and slander simply because we refuse to see past the red lenses of hate we willfully placed. Groups form, sanctioning actions against those who are outside their circle of uniformity. Words are spread with great speed on the wings of hate, leaving trails for others to find, hoping to indoctrinate yet another disciple into the gospel of hate.
And we are not immune.
I see it here, alive and thriving on the electronic signals of Joe User. Simply skim the titles in the forums. The seeds have taken root, and the branches are reaching out, striving for the necessary sunlight of attention. Perhaps they simply reach out for recognition, perhaps they simply hate for attention. Either way the vitriol spreads.
Some are hated for their political views, by the very people who preach their abhorrence of the hate they see in “the other side”. Some are hated for their sexual orientation, while others are hated for their views on sexual orientation. Some hate because the colored cloth waving over them looks different than the one waving over me. And sometimes the most harshly cast aspersions come from those self-proclaimed champions of freedom. Hate, the single most powerful entity depriving beings of freedom the world over, ironically becomes the tool of choice by those who scream the loudest about love.
So we embrace it. We open our hearts to it, thinking we are immune. Our pride and vanity bring us even more swiftly under its patient and careful yoke. And while we should be making every effort to fight it, we spread it even more forcefully because we are correct, and our hate prevents us from believing that we just possibly may not have a corner on the truth.
Just scan the forums, then come back and tell me I am wrong. I dare you.