Is Hatred a Basic Human Need?
by Humans are much more proficient at hurting people than they are at showing kindness. How did this expertise get so misplaced?
We humans are, to use an out-of-date expression, some mighty queer customers. We have to hate. All over the world, my fellow human beings have demonstrated to anyone who would care to watch that we just plain need to hate.
Why are we twice as adept at hurting as we are at caring?
Not very many days ago, a troubled man from India posted something in an online forum that shows just how isolated we aren’t. He was decrying the level of racism in India, talking about what he called the Indians’ “fetish and bias towards fair skin”. Before you laugh and say there aren’t any white Indians, see if you can get one to talk to you about the caste system. Sure, I know that it was supposed to have been eliminated way back during the British Raj. Just like racism disappeared in the United States at the end of our Civil War, right?
He suggested a deep-cutting and broad system of forced integration, mandatory job switching, and affirmative action. It was meant in the highest spirit of equality, just as our own programs are.
These ideas have all been tried in many places all over the world. Quotas don’t work. So-called “affirmative action” doesn’t smooth over color boundaries; it accentuates them and makes people angry on all sides. I commended him on his sentiments and his good heart, but if there were an easy answer, it would have been used by now.
This kind of thing makes me sad, because it isn’t really about color. It’s about some petty little people looking for reasons to scorn others. You can see it in isolated suburban settings. Even in a small suburban school, where almost all students are of the same race, color, economic level and even religion, some kids are reviled because they have the wrong brand of backpack or lunchbox.
In Northern Ireland, Bosnia and other places, people who look alike kill each other for having the wrong religion. “My god tells me I have to kill all followers of your god.”
There are people in this world whose self-esteem is such that they have to find somebody to look down upon in order to feel good about themselves. It’s quite sad, ignorant, dangerous, and often violent. Is there anyone who believes that the Tutsis and Hutus are a different race?
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