People portray hatred by appealing to intense negative emotions such as contempt, anger or disgust, caused by the belief or judgment that the other, the hated one, is an evil and detestable being. It is like a state of excitement, of fixation on the hated and desires for revenge. It can be directed against individuals, such as Donald Trump; against the leader of the opposition; against a co-worker or against the neighbour opposite; also against black or Jewish people; against the “Macho Man” complex; against homosexuality or transvestism; against mental perversions, such as paedophilia; against ideologies or religions, such as communism or Christianity and even against innocent objects, such as the old computer that is frequently hung up or the cistern in the bathroom that loses water.
Hate is an ungrateful guest, corroding the host. Hatred for ethnic, religious, political and class reasons is the ghost that crosses and threatens the present world. It is the beast that stimulates various sectors of ultra-nationalist, xenophobic and racist populism, which is expressed in physical and verbal aggressions and even in massacres.
Although many hatreds are at an individual level, such as hatred of the ex-partner, in its most intense form they are generally shared by many people. Hatred of Jews has been and is shared in history by Nazis and Palestinians. We all hate paedophiles. Hostility toward a different group increases solidarity and cohesion within the group itself. Many hatred acts and feelings are mutual. The Jewish and Palestinians, Serbs and Croats or Hutus and Tutsis have hated each other. Mutual hatred also often manifests itself between political groups and leaders, co-workers or stair neighbours. Those who fall outside of the justice system and are morally excluded are often hated, denied social rights and good treatment. Hate perpetrators devalue victims and in the end they stop treating them as people. But the worst thing is that once moral degradation is created, it can be transmitted from parents to children, from educators to educated and from generation to generation.
The hatred materialised by xenophobia has recently led to a resurgence of this problem throughout the world. Violence and the rejection of African or Eastern European migrants is common in the old continent. The United States fiercely opposes the migration of Central Americans in search of better living conditions. In South America, a new and intense wave of hatred and rejection has been generated against the millions of Venezuelan migrants fleeing the economic crisis the country is suffering. The history of humanity is full of massacres, genocides, imprisonments, repressions and persecutions of entire populations for ethnic or religious reasons. But this phenomenon had never reached the dimensions and geographical simultaneity of today.
Hate seems to be the international flag of totalitarianism in which governments of countries with surprisingly dissimilar political traditions such as Russia, the United States, Hungary, Italy and Brazil converge. There are also leading political leaders from France, Austria, etc., and secessionist nationalisms from Catalonia, Belgium and other countries. The shield of the multiple hatred of ultra-nationalism includes racism, xenophobia and homophobia.
Those who hate feel led to push others to hate as they do, as the validation of their hatred for others reinforces their self-esteem, prevent them from reasoning through their own insecurities. Hate groups form collective identities through their manifestations and proclamations and through symbols, rituals and myths so much so that the more they degrade the hated the more they magnify their acolytes and despicable members.
Hatred is serious when it takes place from the very government of a country and manifests itself especially in the education of the youngest. It is often based on lies or half-truths about the history of the country, the responsibilities and the causes of present evils that affect part or all of its population. The group that sustains an ideology is considered morally and even intellectually superior to the others. This superiority generates hatred and hatred always harbours the desire for a world without the people whom they hate. The worst thing about certain ideologies is that they also contribute to hatred by legitimising it.
The spread of hatred is global: the consequences of the growth of that beast does not escape anyone however far they may be felt. Hatred does not escape from cultural or sporting activities. The racist and xenophobic cries against black footballers and sportsmen in Europe, is a cause for concern for many social institutions because of the intense growth of these expressions. Also, the UN expresses its concern that various digital platforms and social networks have become media for the dissemination of hatred against immigrants and are used by political leaders to promote anti-immigrant posts, generally aimed at minors.
Hatred, prejudice, supremacism and ultra-nationalism poison the soul of those who harbour them. Unfortunately, the use of these resources are increasingly frequent in electoral and political campaigns, regardless of whether certain political or religious institutions are irremediably attacked. The intensity of hatred can lead to the worst aberrations, for example desiring not only the destruction of their adversaries’ positions, but also their physical annihilation. History is bountiful in the executions of “traitors” of certain political creeds and moral “execution” of adversaries.
Leaders, with their words and actions, often instigate hatred and social exclusion of the hated, often by explicitly pointing them out and considering them as intruders in their country or in their particular group or society. Their followers identify with them and with the ideology they propagate. Their main resource is the demonization of the adversary, which intensifies the sense that their rejection and violence are justified. This reduces the inhibitions of those who hate to act in different ways. What happens is that once hatred develops the leaders who have promoted it can no longer control it and it slips out of their hands as autonomy is gained in the minds of the people whom it has been inoculated, and that cannot be easily changed.
Many “progressive” militants and intellectuals distil hatred against people who think differently to them, as well as all political leaders who do not fill up in their speeches their quotas of hatred and phobias. This lamentable discriminatory position is invading many spaces and is degrading classical or traditional politics and its effects are distancing the population from social interaction. The fear of the effects of hatred on the part of those who share some social or political power, makes it increasingly difficult for people to integrate, participate and promote collective projects of well-being or coexistence. This is another side of the consequences of hatred, and of the corrosive effects of this ballast, not only for individuals, but also on social and cultural collectivism.
Although hatred, by nature, changes and increases, we must also trust that time will always end up cooling it and making those who hate look more at themselves, reflect differently. This can facilitate a change in their feelings and attitudes towards others. For this reason, the fight against hatred, at a cultural and educational level, seems to be the only pertinent means to defeat it.
Hate must be fought with understanding and action, which requires recognising its presence and understanding how it is fostered in people’s protests and propaganda, denouncing it where it originates and explaining its consequences. This disease of the human spirit leads to disunity, broken relationships, lack of mercy, violence, massacres and genocide. We cannot fight hatred if we consider it acceptable or tolerable.
Hate does not disappear simply because external circumstances change. Realistically, there is no magic formula to cure and eradicate it completely, especially in culturally diverse and troubled societies. Unfortunately, it is possible that we may have no choice but to learn to live together with as little of it as possible. The processes that change the feeling of hatred are slow and require understanding one’s roots, reconciling the intense contact between people by working to share common projects and reshaping a history of the past acceptable to both those who hate and those who are hated.