Hate in politics
Is there a role for hate in politics? The question is not easy to answer. First it is necessary to examine exactly what hate is, why it appears, and who is doing the hating.
The short answer is that collectivists of different brands, such as fascists and socialists, are the primary haters. The reason is that their theory of society is based on the assumption that history is a struggle between different collectives - be it classes, nations or races. There is thus a natural tendency to view history as a zero-sum game, where the gains to one collective are a loss to the other. Since peace and order can only prevail when the collective of choice has seized total control, warfare is imperative. And the individuals who stand in the way of the collective are enemies, and therefore to be hated.
It is not difficult to find examples of this ideology of hate among socialists, fascists and others of similar leanings. The fact that an especially severe level of hate is reserved for other collectivists of different brands serve as an additional illustration of this general tendency; two groups that fight four supremacy at the expense of the other have little room for finding common grounds and mutual understanding. The meat grinder that was the Eastern Front in WW2 is a case in point.
So far so good - collectivists are haters, whereas individualists realize that individuals all have different agendas and different wants, and that society can never move beyond a state of Hobbesian warfare without society devising rules of the game that are common to all, and where conflict can be channelled into competition, rather than destruction. If it would be that easy.
For how should one feel as an individualist, when confronted with haters who will not yield or try to find a mutually beneficial solution to a problem? And how should one feel towards those leaders of collectivism, who have been able to let their definition of the collective rule supreme, with oppression and torment for the many the obvious consequence? How should one feel when travelling through Auschwitz or GULAG, when witnessing the results of collectivist totalitarianism? And on a smaller scale, how should one react when confronted with that greedy hate of petty socialists or fascists who do not see people, but enemies and instruments to be fought or used?
My personal opinion is that it boils down to a case of what is virtuous. Society must be based on a set of morals that are common to all, in order to prosper and let people lead their lives. Moral imperatives include the right to life, to property, to due process etc. But the self-proclaimed individualist will still risk falling prey to a hater, and the easiest answer is perhaps to reciprocate. To hate back.
However, a virtuous individualist is someone who for her own sake puts herself to a higher standard than the rest of mankind, and whose code of ethics has as a primary function to celebrate her own will to life and sense of importance. An individualist is by necessity ego-centric in the sense that she realizes that she is the centre of her own universe, and that no one else than herself can stand responsible for her own actions. In this case, to be a hater by reciprocity will be to succumb to reactive behavior, to let the misguided ideology of another be the cause of her own attitudes and feelings. The virtuous individualist should therefore not tolerate to hate merely to hate back.
Not to say that she should be indifferent to the evil and stupidity of collectivists. But for this, she does not need to hate, to despise is quite enough. To reciprocate hate with hate shows that the individual is willing to put her hater to the same standards as herself. To reciprocate hate with less, to despise the hater, shows that the individual does not accept the claim to human dignity and responsibility provided by the hater. To move even further, and reciprocate it with pity, or in the case of Christ, even love, is to move even further above and beyond the hater in strength, virtue and supremacy. But to love ones enemy can only be reserved for those with truly awesome power, otherwise it is far too dangerous.
Is there then a role for hate in politics? My answer is that that hate should be fought, since it is the primary urge of those ideologies whose consequence are evil - it is the base feeling of the cornered animal who both respects and fears his enemy. Sometimes perhaps a hater is so strong and so full of hate that only hate will muster the strength to fight back. But in that case, the sacrifice of the reciprocal hater is great indeed. To move beyond this towards the strength of despising ones enemy is a step in the right direction. If love is an end-state in terms of reciprocal behavior that is too arrogant, perhaps a less humiliating response to hate is mere instrumental indifference - to see the hater as an obstacle to be dealt with, but without need for emotional attachment. In either case, the emotional expression is one of action, rather than reaction. And that is what defines a virtuous individualist.
The short answer is that collectivists of different brands, such as fascists and socialists, are the primary haters. The reason is that their theory of society is based on the assumption that history is a struggle between different collectives - be it classes, nations or races. There is thus a natural tendency to view history as a zero-sum game, where the gains to one collective are a loss to the other. Since peace and order can only prevail when the collective of choice has seized total control, warfare is imperative. And the individuals who stand in the way of the collective are enemies, and therefore to be hated.
It is not difficult to find examples of this ideology of hate among socialists, fascists and others of similar leanings. The fact that an especially severe level of hate is reserved for other collectivists of different brands serve as an additional illustration of this general tendency; two groups that fight four supremacy at the expense of the other have little room for finding common grounds and mutual understanding. The meat grinder that was the Eastern Front in WW2 is a case in point.
So far so good - collectivists are haters, whereas individualists realize that individuals all have different agendas and different wants, and that society can never move beyond a state of Hobbesian warfare without society devising rules of the game that are common to all, and where conflict can be channelled into competition, rather than destruction. If it would be that easy.
For how should one feel as an individualist, when confronted with haters who will not yield or try to find a mutually beneficial solution to a problem? And how should one feel towards those leaders of collectivism, who have been able to let their definition of the collective rule supreme, with oppression and torment for the many the obvious consequence? How should one feel when travelling through Auschwitz or GULAG, when witnessing the results of collectivist totalitarianism? And on a smaller scale, how should one react when confronted with that greedy hate of petty socialists or fascists who do not see people, but enemies and instruments to be fought or used?
My personal opinion is that it boils down to a case of what is virtuous. Society must be based on a set of morals that are common to all, in order to prosper and let people lead their lives. Moral imperatives include the right to life, to property, to due process etc. But the self-proclaimed individualist will still risk falling prey to a hater, and the easiest answer is perhaps to reciprocate. To hate back.
However, a virtuous individualist is someone who for her own sake puts herself to a higher standard than the rest of mankind, and whose code of ethics has as a primary function to celebrate her own will to life and sense of importance. An individualist is by necessity ego-centric in the sense that she realizes that she is the centre of her own universe, and that no one else than herself can stand responsible for her own actions. In this case, to be a hater by reciprocity will be to succumb to reactive behavior, to let the misguided ideology of another be the cause of her own attitudes and feelings. The virtuous individualist should therefore not tolerate to hate merely to hate back.
Not to say that she should be indifferent to the evil and stupidity of collectivists. But for this, she does not need to hate, to despise is quite enough. To reciprocate hate with hate shows that the individual is willing to put her hater to the same standards as herself. To reciprocate hate with less, to despise the hater, shows that the individual does not accept the claim to human dignity and responsibility provided by the hater. To move even further, and reciprocate it with pity, or in the case of Christ, even love, is to move even further above and beyond the hater in strength, virtue and supremacy. But to love ones enemy can only be reserved for those with truly awesome power, otherwise it is far too dangerous.
Is there then a role for hate in politics? My answer is that that hate should be fought, since it is the primary urge of those ideologies whose consequence are evil - it is the base feeling of the cornered animal who both respects and fears his enemy. Sometimes perhaps a hater is so strong and so full of hate that only hate will muster the strength to fight back. But in that case, the sacrifice of the reciprocal hater is great indeed. To move beyond this towards the strength of despising ones enemy is a step in the right direction. If love is an end-state in terms of reciprocal behavior that is too arrogant, perhaps a less humiliating response to hate is mere instrumental indifference - to see the hater as an obstacle to be dealt with, but without need for emotional attachment. In either case, the emotional expression is one of action, rather than reaction. And that is what defines a virtuous individualist.
posted by Hugin at 03:50
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