Hatred by Willard Gaylin (best autobiographies to read TXT) 📕

life of a laboratory technician. To prevent torture to the helpless, the activists are willing to bomb the facilities of the torturers—the research laboratories of major hospitals—and in the process risk the loss of some of the “torturers” or their “enablers.” Equating human life with animal life, even if a ratio of value is applied, opens the door to the kind of utilitarian arguments that justify murder in the defense of animals.

The preservation of the environment is another focus for purely ideological enmity. Until fairly recently, environmental groups eschewed violence. Over the past few years, however, they have moved into active aggression. The Earth Liberation Front has so far specifically targeted only research facilities, offices, and equipment. But the rhetoric level has been rising, and eventually the groups justify the direct targeting of people. Their setting fire to the construction site for the Microbial and Plant Genomics Research Center at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus in January 2002 is frighteningly reminiscent of the actions of Ted Kaczynski. After the accidental death that occurred, the activists tried to justify the murder on utilitarian grounds, comparing it to the incidental deaths of civilians in a war zone. Once such a philosophical argument has been made, it stands as an a priori basis for any extreme member to extend the violence intentionally. This is the pattern that has evolved in the pro-life activist community as well.

Despite the occasional abuses of the fanatic fringe elements that accumulate around all protest groups, I would not classify the three ideological communities cited above as cultures of hatred. The vast majority of their memberships clearly are not violent. But all three of them have spawned satellite groups that are classic single-issue radicals, for whom the importance of their cause transcends, and worse, preempts other values and virtues. In addition, these radicals are prepared to risk the death of others in their passionate pursuits. All three groups lend themselves to the crusader mentality and, wittingly or not, encourage terrorism by utilizing language that is incendiary and apocalyptic. And all three causes have already produced followers who have executed murderous assaults on innocent people. For these reasons, the leaders of these groups have some moral responsibility for the evil done in their name.

The ideological enemy is conceived as doing evil and, thus, lends an element of righteousness to our hatred; the territorial enemy offers a past reality, if not a present threat, which can be used to justify hatred. The scapegoat, on the other hand, is an enemy manufactured out of whole cloth. Most cultures of hatred combine all three elements in their scenarios of hatred. To the chagrin of devout and decent believers, the forces that have seemed best capable of fusing all the elements into a culture of hatred have been the orthodoxies represented by organized religions.

To summarize: To forge a hate-driven group like Al Qaeda, there must be present a dynamic internal need for an enemy. Then the enemy must be located. The enemy will not be chosen at random. Proximity is important, but not essential. Ideological differences also serve the purpose. The choice of the “enemy” will be dictated by fear, rage, guilt, or envy. With fear, guilt, and rage, some grievance, real or perceived, directs the hatred. With envy, the victim may have no presence in the life of the hater. The victim is purely a scapegoat. These dynamics are brought together most clearly in the context of a culture of hatred, which we must now examine.

THE CULTURES OF HATRED

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A CULTURE OF HATRED

There are two distinctly different types of communities dominated by hate. These communities are equally malevolent, but the difference in their structures point to differing means to prevent or confront them.

The first I have labeled a “culture of hatred”; the second, a “culture of haters.” A culture of hatred is a natural community that breeds and encourages hatred. This is a group with a shared history and usually a shared locale, a country or its subculture. The leadership, the educational institutions, the dominant religious forces—individually or in concert—indoctrinate the members of the community with their venomous attitudes toward the designated enemy. Nazi Germany was a full-fledged culture of hatred. The Palestinians are an emerging one.

A culture of haters is an artificial community created when individuals who share a common hatred join forces in alliance against their enemy. They do not require a shared culture, history, language, or locality. The culture is an artificial one, formed of people with different backgrounds and disparate values. The members of these groups need not be indoctrinated. They come together only because of the shared enemy, with the hatred often being the only shared value. Al Qaeda and the various neo-Nazi movements across the world are examples of cultures of haters.

When considering the special qualities and natures that define different cultures, one is forced to make generalizations. That is dangerous, as one runs the risk of committing the same stereotyping that we condemn in bigotry. Yet in order to do justice to the profound influence cultures have on individuals, one must generalize.

We are not programmed insects. The way we are treated as we grow up will determine the nature of our character and, through that, our conduct. We cannot even determine whether a person is behaving irrationally or “normally” without considering the widely diverse demands of varying cultures. Our environment sets the values that define good and evil behavior. Thus, honorable and virtuous members of differing cultures will behave in ways that will be deemed shameful and immoral by contrasting cultures.

The Americans viewed the Japanese suicide bombers who were so effective and terrifying against the U.S. fleet at the end of World War II as madmen. The Japanese viewed these same suicide bombers as martyrs. Ritual suicide is a respectable tradition in Japan. In America suicide is almost invariably viewed as a sign of mental illness. So, although we Americans will honor the occasional soldier who throws himself on a grenade,