Soapbox: Hate, revealed

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darth maul

“At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge.”
– Darth Maul

If there is a silver lining to the river of hate flowing through our politics and our media right now, it is this: we no longer need to guess who our allies and enemies are. We no longer have to worry about secret, hidden agenda or subtle, cloaked biases in those who are or would be our leaders, friends, colleagues, coworkers, or community members. Our collective hatred is visible to all now, our feelings and prejudices unmasked for all to see based on who we continue to publicly support as our chosen leaders.

The irony is that by revealing ourselves, our hates, it makes decisions at voting booths and in everyday life easier. When you see a name on a ballot or a piece of legislation from now on, you need only check the search engine of your choice to see what fouled oaths have come out of that person’s mouth, and the intent of the legislation will be clear – and supporting it or opposing it will simply be a question of how aligned it is with your view of the world.

The endgame, however, is that in revealing our respective hatreds of different niches of our society, we have laid the groundwork for its destruction. There is little chance for cohesion or collective action when we openly declare, “I hate you and everything you stand for” to someone else. We put tiny or large fractures in the relationships around us as surely as tapping cracks in a block of concrete. When it comes time to put stress, to put duress on our societal fabric, like the block of concrete, it will crumble.

One could argue, it already has.

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