The Human Condition: Hate is poison

By Daniel Schnee on March 23, 2022.

Recently I had a humorous conversation with a Liberal friend of mine. She was shocked to discover I am deeply Conservative, since she and I hold similar views on various social issues.

It dumbfounded her that I am not a terrible person, since that was her basic view of Conservatives. Ignoring the fact that her own assumption was bigoted, I pointed out that I am actually for many of the same things she is, but there are nuances to my position that such bigotry blindly ignores.

For example, I am a passionate believer in the equality of all people: we can be different and have equal opportunities to thrive. Equality drives innovation, and the resulting diversity significantly increases the quality and depth of humanity’s arts, science, sports and so on. Equality is a spiritual blessing, and the more of it the better.

What I passionately oppose though is equity, which is a different phenomenon. If equality is about opportunity, then equity is about outcome, which is antithetical to being equal. Equity posits that having equal outcomes is true equality, which is illogical. This is because equity is cosmetic; hiring a few people from underrepresented social categories to give the appearance of equality (“tokenism”), regardless of qualification. Equity is racism itself masquerading as social justice.

We have become so infused with negative energy though that my fight for equality is called racist because equity is the buzzword of the day. Our politics have become so aggressive and heated that we can’t talk about equity without yelling, think about it without hating … we can’t even be happy without a desire to believe only the most negative things about each other no matter how true any of it is.

Our news as well is a who’s who of “who to hate,” making it fun to be outraged, which is not healthy. It is a basic fact of medical anthropology that our nervous systems are not designed to be ceaselessly loaded with hate, even if we enjoy it. We are, in a sense, learning to enjoy traumatic stress, and the intensity of it all is making us mentally and spiritually unsound.

This also creates great economic opportunities for the less scrupulous broadcast news and media outlets. Such organizations profit from our hatred, and we are slaves to their broadcasting when we tune in to hate and scoff. It is classic cult behaviour, teaching us that everyone else is an enemy.

So why is it my Liberal friend and I get along so well, though we are on opposite sides of the political fence? Because we have come to understand a fundamental truth about human existence: hate never enriches life, it destroys it. I don’t hate her, because I don’t want to hate her. And I don’t want to hate her because I want to have a happy life. Joy unites people.

I remember how much people in Alberta hated former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, thanks to his energy policies and deficit spending. I eventually encountered him on the set of a national news program, one of the nicest guys I have ever met: highly fascinating, extremely intelligent and utterly fearless. Blindly despising him would have kept me from one of the best conversations of my life.

Hate is poison. Let’s get well…

Dr. Daniel Schnee is a cultural anthropologist and jazz drummer.

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