Hate and Fragmentation

Continuing with the reflection on hate, we shall go into what causes it.

Why do we hate? Evidently we know what hate is, for we see that it encompasses human affairs throughout the world, manifesting itself as brutality, conflict, callousness and indifference. Clearly enough, hate is a dominant aspect of our reality as it is today. In the presence of hate, as was alluded to previously, communion becomes impossible.

Human beings today have been divided on the basis of nationality, the colour of their skin, the languages that they happen to speak, and the thousand and one ideologies into which members of society have bought, whether so-called religious or otherwise. From our very early years, we are taught not only to accept these distinctions as fundamental, but also to take pride in them: we are inculcated into nationalism, narrow religious fervour and naive ideological enthusiasm. Along the way, we are also conditioned to become incurably idealistic optimists - or pessimists - unable, in our blind zeal, to directly perceive reality as it is. We come to look at the world through the thick screen of our ideals. In fact, we can hardly even call them 'our' ideals, for we evidently did not arrive at them through independent inquiry. Either we have been conditioned into them at birth, or we accept them on the authority of people who claim to have the complexities of life figured out, who claim, in effect, "We know, you do not know. If you want salvation (a better future), come join us. Otherwise, beware! Our Way is the only Way." Most of us are so thoroughly confounded by life, struggling to find meaning amidst all the degeneration, sorrow, anger, hurt  and antagonism both  around and within us that we flail our arms out in our desperation to be saved. In such a situation, is it any wonder that seductive ideologies, which soothe and aggrandise one's wounded sense of self, become so extraordinarily important?

An ideology gives to its adherents a stable sense of who they are; it enables one to define oneself. We could say that ideology enables the 'construction' of the Self.

Without a group to belong to, what are we? Would we even be said to 'have' a Self in such an eventuality? For instance, this writer belongs, by accident of birth, to the community of Marathi-speaking people in a country called India. He was raised in what sociologists would recognise as a Hindu socio-cultural environment. If one were to ask him who he was, his default response would be the name which he was assigned at birth. His name has been inextricably tied up with these descriptions of identity, and to his sense of who he is. The same holds for every human being who has been raised in a society.

From our very birth, then, we seem to be trained to think in terms of categorisation, of division and fragmentation, of in-groups and out-groups, 'us' and 'them'. As we grow and take cognisance, discomfited,  of the disorder in the world, its many iniquities and monstrosities, we seek to do something  to remedy the situation. This leads us to innumerable ideologies: so-called religion, revivalism, communism, capitalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, environmentalism and so on. Even today's ostensibly irreligious world is deeply engaged in newer forms of zealous idolatry: proponents of these systems seem to believe that more widespread acceptance of their ideas is a good thing, and to that end engage in propaganda based invariably on a sectional and incomplete interpretation of history, that is, with reference to the past. They also seek to convert disbelieving infidels to their systems, through fear, favour or other such tactics that they have perfected. They seem to think that the world would be a far worse place were it not for the system they adhere to. But one is doubtful of this. The world is messy enough as it is. Would the absence of ideologies really deal a death blow to our lives? One is also sceptical of acting thus with reference to the past. Surely life, with its living, dynamic quality, lies in the present, and no amount of looking for patterns or constructing narratives can secure our future.

Further, and most importantly, all these purportedly effective methods and systems have not succeeded in bringing about a revolution in human consciousness. Yes, they were all conceived as a reaction to some disorder that their proponents perceived in society, with the explicit and stated aim of remedying that disorder. While superficially many of them may have succeeded to an extent, they have in fact accentuated the divisions between human beings, by the importance they attach to labels and fragmentary identities. One group has its method, another has a distinct method: and there is constant struggle and quarrelling between advocates of these innumerable methods to ameliorate social conditions, with the result that the ideal, the method, the system become all-important, and any drive to fundamentally transform humanity is lost in the squabbles. Clearly, in all this, there is no affection, no love. Hatred and doctrinaire closed-mindedness often lead ideologues to demonise the 'other' and to justify this hatred through elaborate rationalisation.

If one has been following the affairs of the human world rather closely, one sees that idealism engenders violence. This is a rather uncomfortable conclusion for those of us who have - sincerely or self-interestedly - given ourselves completely over to systems. One may agree or disagree here, but one thinks that mere logical or verbal argument about this is besides the point.

The question then becomes this - can those of us who are at all serious about the state the world finds itself in resolve that we will not perpetrate division, with all its destructive consequences, any longer?  This will entail that  we inwardly negate all the conditioned identities ingrained in us that prevent communion. It will involve giving up the smug security of belonging to a close-knit in-group that reinforces one's conditioned beliefs and prejudices. If we are unwilling to do this, we may find a worsening of the already rife disorder that the world is in.

To conclude, on observation, one finds that ideology, and more fundamentally, division, is one of the factors of hate. Can we find it in ourselves to negate the whole process of hate? If we do not, then the most well-intentioned efforts to improve the world are bound to fall flat.

If one desires to have order externally, one must have order internally. How can a mind that is in disorder ever hope to create order in the world? Think about it.

On Hate

From what one gathers about the happenings in the world, one observes the pervasiveness of hate, of division amongst human beings. At all levels in life, opportunists holding the reins of social influence seek to emphasise the faultlines between people and their identities, at the expense of the common humanity we share. How easy it is to do this! A single propagandist statement repeated sufficiently and persuasively enough, even though we may initially dismiss it as divisive, may over time come to seem true. It is by such stratagem that ideologues gain power over their followers. They appeal to a certain primal desire of human beings to feel secure and obtain positive reinforcement amidst a certain group of people who share their beliefs, as distinct from the out-group.

 

If the writer is to be honest, he must admit that he at times resents, and even hates people. Hate is destructive: it puts paid to a balanced state of mind and all relationship with others. Hate is self-enclosing: a person who hates cannot be brought round by another to reason in that disturbed state. Each time one regains sanity, one has hitherto resolved to oneself to never hate again, but this has never worked. The fact is that a mere verbal pledge of non-hate cannot settle the issue.

Looking at the phenomenon of hate, it is obvious that most of us living in this society have come to see it as a disgraceful state, to be overcome as soon as possible. We condemn hate, and this very condemnation prevents us from understanding it in its entirety. We have, most of us, been told: by our elders, by our belief systems and by other systems of authority – that to hate is wrong, and to overcome it we must cultivate its opposite, which is love. Yet, the more we seek to cultivate love, the more superficial, contrived and utterly meaningless the entire exercise becomes.  There is artificiality in this: I dislike you, but I have been told that this is wrong: therefore I develop ‘tolerance’, which is nothing but the expenditure of mental effort to prevent one’s actions from producing socially undesirable consequences. In this is involved a deep inner conflict, and therefore it is not love. Can love be cultivated in opposition to hate?

Thus, returning to the point, how is one to deal with hate, which one sees is objectively a most potent poison, without either suppressing it or giving it expression? I don’t know.

But we may ask: are we capable of looking at hate as it arises, without judging it as undesirable, or taking pleasure in it?

Yes, for those of us who have not been conditioned to condemn hate, the other default response is to  actually take a sort of perverse pleasure in it. Hate, particularly when overt,  can be pleasurable, in that one revels in the evident discomfiture of the object of one's hate. Even if one feels the pain inherent in hatred, it is quite possible that one has got used to such a state, and resists when efforts are made to get out of it. So pleasure, revulsion and familiarity prevent the direct perception of the fact that one hates.

  

Coming back to the question, can one understand the process of hate within oneself without labelling it as desirable or undesirable, and carrying this observation through with utmost seriousness? After all, does not the transcendence of hate demand a total understanding of it?