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Dorothy Copus Brush Hate doesn't come easy: We learn it So easy to say. Only four letters. No, not
"love," but the poisonous little word "hate."
How often and easily we toss that word into conversation. "I
hate to do dishes" or some other task. Even children when
frustrated and filled with anger will scream, "I hate you!" Hate is a terrible emotion. Is it easier to
hate than to love? Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist
and religious philosopher in the 1600s, wrote, "All men
naturally hate each other." What a depressing thought. Through the centuries others have expressed
thoughts on hate. Several linked fear and hate. Giambattista,
Pope Innocent X, declared, "Short is the road that leads
from fear to hate." Much later a similar description is
found in Robert Graves writings. "Hate is fear, and fear
is rot that cankers root and fruit alike." Roman historian Tacitus was born before Christ
but lived into the early Christian era. He put a little different
spin on why we hate. "It is human nature to hate those whom
we have injured." Today's headlines are filled with stories
of countries divided by hate. Goethe explained that hatred this
way: "National hatred is something peculiar. You will always
find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest
degree of culture." Russian writer Chekhov had a more frightening
thought, "Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people
as much as a common hatred for something." The saddest and truest part of Lenin's message
was that children must be taught to hate. I cannot accept Pascal's
belief that humans all naturally hate each other. No, babies
arrive in a pure state of innocence. They are taught to hate.
The song "Some Enchanted Evening" says it so well,
"They have to be carefully taught." "Hatred comes from the heart; contempt
from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control,"
said Arthur Schopenhauer. If not within our control, then whose?
During the civil rights struggle we came face to face with hate
through newscasts. Faces contorted with hate, mouths spewing
poisonous words, bodies writhing as they threw objects at their
hated victims. It was a scene from hell brought into our homes.
Whose control were those crowds under? I cannot accept the excuse
that feelings of hatred and contempt are not within our control. Last week I heard a Knoxville poet whose name
I missed, read a very short poem of his. "The tallest wall
in the world is a word." The word "hate" came
to my mind immediately. If we are to maintain our humanity we
must scale that tallest wall. |