A Hunger for Hatred

As anticipated, it took a long time for Malaysia to decide on which party or coalition is supposed to form the government after our 15th General Election. There's so much suspicion and hatred between politicians, mirroring the animosity that the ordinary people feel.

Why do we hate? For some, the sight of a person already induces strong dislike. It could be the person's looks, or the way he or she talks. We make our judgements from snippets of news and gossips that we stumble upon on internet or forwarded to us via social media. And then we latch on to them, like religious dogma. Once we find our villain, we turn on our hate towards the person to its maximum. Any minor thing that we find disagreeable about the person, we magnify it 100 times. Any virtue is conveniently ignored.

Hatred makes us feel so strong. It focuses our energies towards a particular object. It makes us feel righteous. Fascist and firebrand religious leaders know how to exploit that feeling. We want real-life to be like the movies where the bad guy always gets his comeuppance. Conspiracy theories are willingly embraced because, these make interesting topics of conversation.  

We are roused by strong feelings. Hatred is easier to kindle than love. But they are two sides of the same coin. These feelings can easily flip too once a threshold has been reached. Every bickering couple had at one time loved each other to bits. Why do they now start throwing plates at each other? 

So much energy is spent by us in hating and loving. If we are not hating certain politicians, we'll find fault with our bosses, colleagues or spouse. If we don't have anyone to love, we can easily find a politician to hate.  And that hatred provides the fuel for our humdrum existence.

If our livelihood is threatened or attacked by someone, fear naturally arises. And then hatred arises out of  that fear. Hatred is simply destructive energy directed towards the source of the threat. It is but a natural outcome of our built-in fight or flight response. 

If we do not run away out of fear, we are then forced to fight to preserve our existence. This is perhaps the 'justified' root of hatred. You cannot tell the citizens of Ukraine not to hate the Russians if they are invading your homeland, destroying your house and killing your loved ones.

But for most people, more likely it is not our physical existence that is threatened but our ego, pride or identity. We are angry if someone insults our religion, because that is a challenge to our belief and identity, which we hold on to dearly. And if this insult is repeated and recurrent, the anger turns into hatred. Hatred towards the enemies of our faith, is a good fuel to rally people together towards a common cause. 

Hatred ultimately destroys everything. It eats away at one's soul. If we have an outlet for energy to be channelled into creative pursuits, there is no room nor time for hatred. Let's ask ourselves if this hunger for hatred is simply a signal of excess energy. Do not look for someone or something to hate. Let's harness it, so that it can be used to create rather than destroy.