By: Linda Sepadin
They are manipulated through hate-provoking propaganda to become easily enraged. Furthermore, a dangerous "group think" prevails when "everybody you know" sees things the same way.Like an unchecked cancer, hate eats away at all that is good. Feeding on fear. Breeding mistrust. Nurturing contempt. Destroying objectivity. Celebrating revenge. Hatred wipes out reason. War becomes peace, peace becomes war. The corrupt become virtuous, the virtuous become corrupt.When we think of hate, it's easy to shake our heads and believe that we are describing a problem that other people have. The truth, however, is that we all need to be on our guard. For hatred is usually experienced not as hatred but as self-righteous indignation, justified anger and appropriate retaliation. This is the way hate-based thinking becomes acceptable, even respectable. And hate-based actions become viewed as "unavoidable" or deemed "necessary."Thus, the cycle of hate continues and thrives. For nothing brings people together so easily as mutual hatred.I am not an expert on how best to combat hate. But I do know that we must make a sincere effort to do so. We must not let hate cloud our thinking. We must not let it highjack our souls. We must not stumble onto simple answers, thinking that they will help us resolve complex problems. I'm ending this article with a quote from Martin Luther King. Though he had plenty of reason to hate, this is what he said:"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice and author of Master Your Fears: How to Triumph Over Your Worries and Get On With Your Life. She specializes in helping individuals, families and couples overcome self-defeating patterns of behavior. She invites you to visit her website at www.psychwisdom.com. Copyright © 2004
