Give Hate a Chance Part II

Let us consider further the positive aspects of hate – or perhaps we should use a less severe word, like dislike.  Under the sovereign dogma of ‘multiculturalism’ we are told that we are not allowed to hate anyone or anything for any reason.  Wife beating, pederasty, female genital mutilation, child slavery… increasingly saying anything bad about these patterns of behavior is not only frowned upon it can get you a stiff jail sentence.

Of course, this is insane.  If we don’t want the world to go to hell, we simply MUST be allowed to dislike other people and other cultures.

Consider how you developed, and how you got to be the person that you are.  Dislike – hate, even – was a vital part of that process.  As you were growing up there were likely times when you were rude, or destructive, or didn’t hold up your end of the bargain.  And you were punished – you didn’t get invited to the party, or get the hot date, or the new business opportunity, etc.  And – hopefully – you learned from that, and grew and improved as a person.

Imagine that as you were growing up, that no matter what you did, nobody ever criticized you or ostracized you or punished you in any way.  You would today not even be a wild animal (wild animals do have their rules, learned the hard way) – you would be a monster.

Now imagine a culture that nobody could ever criticize, where bad behavior did not result in losing any opportunities for business or travel etc.  That would be equally insane, would it not?  How can the world progress, if criticism cannot be allowed?  It’s madness.

The current president of Egypt (Abdel Fattah al-Sisi) recently gave a quite remarkable speech on new year’s day 2015.  (I regret that I can only find these few translated paragraphs – if someone knows where I can find the full text in english please let me know).  Here is a copy of the excerpts:

I am referring here to the religious clerics.   We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before.  It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.  Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world.  It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.

I cannot speak to whether al-Sisi is a great man, or even always a very nice man.  But these excerpts at least are profoundly intelligent.  Instead of screaming that all infidels must be killed because one person out of seven billion was a jerk, he asks: why today do so many people hate and fear Muslims?  Could, perhaps, some of that be our fault?  Have we strayed from the path these last two centuries?  Where might we be lacking, and how might we change?

This is the thinking of a sane individual.  And it occurred in reaction not to people that professed love of all things Islamic, but in reaction to people that expressed great displeasure of many things Islamic.  Hate is not always negative, but can be a very powerful force for positive change.

So where did this madness of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘political correctness’ come from?  In part it must be because thinking is hard.  To hate everyone other than yourself is easy, it takes no thought.  To refuse to hate anyone at all is also easy, and takes no thought.  Sanity is hard – to hate people and cultures who deserve hate, and avoid hating people and cultures that do not deserve it, requires wisdom, knowledge, humility, intelligence…  And there are no guarantees here, no easy formula that will guarantee 100% success.  One must always be aware that one might be making a mistake, always question yourself and be open to changing your mind.  How seductive the simple mantra of never ever hating anything must be….

And reason goes both ways.  If someone doesn't like you, they might have a point - or they might be an asshole.  There is no escaping the need for judgement, and judgment is hard.

But there is another reason for the rise of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘political correctness’.  You see, forcing population growth higher by importing an excessive number of foreign nationals is the most surefire way of the rich getting even richer.  Nothing boosts profits like cheap labor, and nothing makes cheap labor better than 100 people competing for each job.  But if you want to import a large number of dirt-poor refugees, where are they most likely to come from?  From decent countries, that have moderate standards of behavior and have created a high level of prosperity?  Or from awful places, where corruption and child slavery and breeding like rodents etc. are prevalent and the place is a cesspit where people dream only of escaping?  Obviously from the latter. 

But then if the rich are going to invite the scum of the earth into a country, the locals might not want that.  I mean, if you threw a party, would you want some alcoholic weirdo who never bathed and insulted everyone and stole everything not nailed down invited?  I don’t think so.  So the rich simply outlaw any criticism of other cultures – oh we must all love each other, and nobody can complain when we jam in a hundred million Wahhabist nutjobs because I’M making big money NOW…  And deprived of the bracing effect of intelligent criticism, the world slowly spirals into rot and ruin.

The world needs more, not less, intelligent and reasoned hatred.  As I said before, just give hate a chance.