"People must learn to hate."

 

Barack Obama said this in response to the alt-right, neo-nazi, white supremacist rally in North Carolina a while back.  He was quoting Nelson Mandela.  “People must learn to hate.”  It’s a nice thought, comforting because it suggests that not-hating is the default position; that all we have to do is not teach children/people to hate, and everything will be okay.  But I think they’re both wrong.

 

Babies may not be born hating other people, but I observe that it’s part of our human condition to discriminate.  It’s coded into our DNA.  We continually choose up sides.  We pride our country above others.  We’ll go to war with another to resist them, or to make them more like us.  Our religion is right; theirs is wrong.  We’re proud of our state, even to the detriment of others.  “ABC.  Always buy Colorado.”  That’s a real thing.  Buy locally.  If you live in Colorado, the economy of Colorado is more important than the economy of other states.  Jobs in Colorado are more important than jobs in other states.  Jobs in our country are more important than jobs in Indonesia.  Black versus white.  Small town rivalries.  High school rivalries.  Our football team versus yours.  At some level it always comes down to us versus them.  We just fill in the blank for how we determine who is “us”, and who is “them”.  That discrimination, unchecked by more civilized impulses can lead to hate.

 

This discriminatory predilection has likely been a key survival tool over the last few hundred thousand years and has served us well (unless our evolution flourished in spite of it, not because of it).  Families that were inclined to stand by and protect each other no matter what, likely out-competed and out-survived families that only had a loose connection.  Tribes that fostered loyalty to the group probably out-survived other less-invested tribes.  Religion probably played a great part as well.  An attack on a person of our religion is an attack on all.  And how much more obvious could it be than if your rival for resources happened to be a different color than everyone in your tribe?  In the early days of hominids, there were multiple human species living simultaneously and with ranges that sometimes overlapped.  Isn’t it interesting that only one species survived to this day and none of the others did?

 

But it seems that as well as that natural selection process worked then, our world is now changing faster than our DNA can adapt.  Our wiring is antiquated.  Today we interact with people all over the planet in one way or another.  Our economies are tied together; it’s a world economy.  We can’t succeed if only our country’s economy thrives and no one else’s does.  Our national economies feed off each other.  Our state needs other states to do well so it can, and our nation can.  Our family can’t be the only family that succeeds; it needs to be surrounded by other successful families.  We’re all in this together.  (OMG, I think I might be a “globalist”.  I don’t know what a globalist is, but it’s not a word being used as a compliment right now.  It seems to be an insult; a slur.  When people ask us where we’re from, I like to respond that we’re citizens of the universe.  Maybe I’m a universalist.  That’s probably even worse!)

 

I believe it’s time to be open to a wider range of experiences and a greater group of people than just our own family, own town, own state and country, and that puts us at odds with our innate impulses; us versus them.  Luckily for us though, we don’t have to simply be slaves to our hardwiring.  We have another weapon at our disposal; our intellect.  If we can be perceptive about what’s going on around us, we can recognize our now destructive impulses and choose how we act on them.  We can see the futility of clinging to our racist, xenophobic past while the world changes.  Is the life of a child in another neighborhood really less valuable than one in our own neighborhood?  Is a job in Indonesia really less valuable to the world than a job in our own country?  Are we really so special that no-one else is special compared to us?  Can we recognize our reactionary discrimination and override it when it doesn’t make sense?  We’re driven by our impulses, but don’t need to be controlled by them.

 

I think we have to learn not to hate, and teach not to hate; not allow our natural tendency to discriminate lead us to less charitable thoughts and actions.  I think we’re doing well.  Hate makes the news, but I think it’s a vocal minority.  In our lives, and those around us, we see mostly love and support.  Of course I write all this firmly rooted in a lack of knowledge about such things.  It’s just what I think.