Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
In these times of rabid hatred all over the world when all our mediums, channels and platforms are manifesting extreme bitterness and instances of pathological hate, it’s natural to ask whether hatred is the cardinal human emotion or it’s just a passing phase when a group of people are showing this despicable human emotion. Without resorting to sugar-coating and euphemisms, let me be candid enough to say that hatred is embedded deep down in all of us. This may sound shocking and also discomforting, as we keep talking about love being the primary attribute of humans. Sorry, it's not. Au contraire, hatred is an evolutionary trait of all humans and like happiness, which is an occasional episode in the painful drama of life, love is also an occasional emotion that visits us occasionally. Just think, if love is humans’ foremost quality, why have we still been fighting and sparring over the pettiest issues right from the beginning of human civilisation?
So many wars, battles, killings and bloodshed have taken place thus far and are going on with escalated intensity and will go on till human civilisation ceases to exist. Why? Because, we've unconsciously legitimised hatred and internalised it. And once a trend or trait is internalised, it gets institutionalised in the broader public consciousness. Today, if we get hate mails and messages, we nonchalantly pass them on or those who still have a modicum of sanity and sensibility (left), will delete them. But most of us don't ask why instances of hatred are going on unabated. Because, we've internalised hatred and are now insouciant to it. This is an alarming trend. Furthermore, it's an inexorable rule of nature that all negative things, trends and qualities are much more aggressive and strong. They also spread pretty fast and wide. There's a slightly offensive, but highly effective Arabic saying, “Ifn un shaziq uftaroohan, in az' min b' muntashir” (the stench of faeces spreads faster than the fragrance of flowers). Hatred being a negative trait, it suppresses a noble quality or emotion like love.
Sigmund Freud wrote to C V Jung that. “The predominance of hatred in humans is an existential truth but unawareness of this pathological emotion/response is undesirable.” This is going on at the moment. We've not only internalised hatred but also become indifferent to it to the extent of forgetting its existence in our behavioural responses. The human brain (not mind; it doesn't exist) plays all sorts of tricks and has the clever tendency to justify all that's socially and collectively unacceptable. Because of this systematic functional benumbing, hatred has become so commonplace and even acceptable. Now, hating an ethnic group, community, languages or a particular individual doesn't disturb us. The sense of compunction has gone and qualms have taken a back seat. When the houses of minorities are gutted and women are raped and burnt alive, we see that from the prism of 'otherness' and our deep-seated hatred tries to 'justify' all these horrible acts against humanity, not just against a certain section or group of people.
French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote in his long and seminal essay, Diagnosis and Dynamics of Hatred’, that hatred being an evolutionary and atavistic human emotion, its complete elimination is well-nigh impossible. But it can certainly be mitigated if not sublimated. An individual needs to take a few steps to dilute his/her hatred. Number one, acceptance of the presence of hatred in the consciousness. Number two, ascertaining the root/s of that hatred. Number three, finding the object/target of your hatred and last being, how to get rid of that. Once we diagnose our hatred, it becomes easier for us to dilute or nullify it.
Why do I hate something or someone and what will I get out of this hatred may usher you in the realm of possibilities. Resorting to the classic Occam's Razor Principle, one can opt for the least 'hateful' possibility. For example, if one wants to kill someone, instead of killing that person, a threat or stern warning is enough. Though a threat or warning is not totally devoid of hatred, it's not so intensely criminal as killing someone. This will help avoid taking a spur-of-the-moment decision that may lead to fatal consequences with ripple effects. In this way, hatred can be mitigated to a great extent without causing tangible harm. Once we all learn to introspect and analyse our hatred and its etiology, we can work towards its elimination. We must accept the fact that we're all evolving. So, an evolving being has all the undesirable traits. Knowledge of those traits and trying to flush them out of our system and consciousness is what makes us humans, despite our inherent flaws.
Sumit Paul is a regular contributor to the world’s premier publications and portals in several languages
