Pervasion of Hate

In The Thin Line, I mentioned that I had deviated from the road I initially planned to travel and that I might take it up later. It's now later and so here are my other thoughts both directly and indirectly related to the South Carolina mother who killed her two young sons.

I've read about the incident on a number of news organization websites. I tend to like to read about sensational stories from a number of perspectives because it's interesting to see which facts are given the most prominence and which ones are relegated to a less important status. By reading articles of this nature, one can often determine the general editorial slant of the publication.

The other interesting facet of news on the web is in reading the comments section and this aspect of the story is what this post will focus on.

Aside from noting the unfathomable nature of a mother killing her OWN children, the vast majority of comments I've read in relation to this story sickens me. They are filled with such vitriol and hate that I literally shudder. The few brave souls that attempt to look at the situation with even a modicum of compassion are lambasted up one side and down the other. The one sentiment that seems to pervade the commenting public is that this woman is Satan's daughter and should burn in hell!

Few people seem the slightest bit interested in what circumstances may have led her to do the unthinkable. They don't care about family dynamics. They don't care about the history and trajectory of her life. All they think they know is that she is evil incarnate and should be slaughtered by society one thousand times over.

While there is NO QUESTION that she must bear a lot of personal responsibility for her ill-advised decision, I submit that our society bears a lot of responsibility as well for the commission of most heinous crimes. In my opinion, the polarization of our nation and the level of hate that pervades plays an important role too.

Many of the perpetrators of school and office shootings as well as those adults who kill some or all of their family feel completely alone in their anguish, anger and despair. They have been emotionally and/or physically beat up by our society from an early age. They tend not to have well-defined support systems and many have been turned away when they seek help from others. At the very moment they beg for a helping hand, too many people slap it away.

Amidst a world that tells them repeatedly that they are a prime example of a worthless human being, they come to believe it. When a person believes they are worthless and beyond redemption, doing the unthinkable becomes not so unthinkable.

What difference does it make? They will be the same worthless piece of trash before AND after they commit a heinous act. So, why not go ahead and do it?

Personally, I lay a lot of the blame for this pervasion of hate at the feet of fundamentalist religion. Zealot Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus have wreaked enough carnage to last this world for centuries to come. Their myopic view of the concept of love -- do as we say or you're nothing -- produces far more hate and loathing than anything else!

While there certainly are atheists, agnostics and pagans who are just as hate-filled, religion has institutionalized hate to the greatest extent and has used all its various weapons to impose this pervasion of hate on the mores and beliefs of society, at large.

Karl Marx wrote that religion is the opiate of the masses. This is true, to some degree, but what I find more disturbing is that religion too often also is the bludgeon of the masses. It's used to beat people down until many come to believe that nothing really matters. When a person reaches that point, their belief too often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.