Hatred/Oppression: One Hell of a Drug

James Baldwin once wrote that people cling to their hatreds because they don’t know how to deal with pain. In this way, hatred should not simply be understood as a monstrous action to frown upon but a kind of addiction, a numbing salve that helps people cope with suffering. To treat hatred as merely evil and respond by merely looking down upon it is to fail to treat it with the herbs and medicines necessary to transform it. We do not treat drug or alcohol addicts by looking down upon them. (At least, not when we are our best selves.) We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time in the sense that we recognize that addiction is both harmful to addicts’ friends, family and loved ones, and harmful to the addicts themselves.

This is also true of hatred. Inasmuch as one who acts on his hatred -- lets call him the “oppressor” — is an oppressor, he is also a victim. To merely look down upon him would not solve anything, and in fact reinforces oppression, since it reinforces the source of said oppression: lack of a whole self. Indeed, addiction of any kind is often a numbing response to feelings of personal inadequacy.

This insight into the human condition was something that many civil rights leaders could not afford to miss and many spoke and wrote often about such things. But my sense is that today, and overall, in human affairs, we have not internalized these teachings but instead continue to look at evil in absolute terms which often ensures we perpetuate the very absolutist ways of thinking we seek to undermine.

History is full of examples of movements whose pursuit of perfection ultimately became oppressive or tyrannical. The French Revolution began as a fight for liberty and equality, but devolved into the Reign of Terror. Communist Russia emerged out of a fight against terrible and draconian laws that were foisted upon the Russian people by Czars for centuries. Some may be tempted to argue that these movements started out with good intentions but I think that the pursuit of perfection was never a good thing, nor was it ever possible, for it was never human.

Christopher Lasch, in his book “The True and Only Heaven” writes about the dangers of utopian thinking and the dangerous belief in the perfectibility of human nature. He states:

“The utopian mind is incurably violent, for it seeks to impose its own vision of the good society upon the human race, and to use whatever means are necessary to realize this vision. It assumes that there are no limits to the improvement of human nature, and therefore no limits to the use of force in bringing about the millennium.”

This messianic urge to “bring about the millennium” could be seen in both the Soviet approach to governance and anti-Soviet responses, for example in the case of public officials like Joseph McCarthy who, in his determination to defeat Soviet ideas, overreached and abused his power -- the very thing he accused the Soviets of doing.

This too is a phenomenon that emerges whenever a nation or movement tries to eradicate evil: you end up imitating the very thing you hate since your goal to eliminate evil is an absolute, all encompassing goal that demands carte blanche to deploy any tool you deem necessary. It is quite literally impossible to pursue the eradication of evil without becoming evil. Historically, some have dismissed this by saying that the end justifies the means.

But the end does not justify the means as the ends and the means are one.

Consider the wise words of Jesus on this matter:

“Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits & quot; (Matthew 7:15-20).

Small Bite: The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

Big Bite: The True and Only Heaven by Christopher Lasch

Up Next: Chapter 3: Race and State

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