h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started this thread, then thought "how do you even start to approach this subject?".

We might understand hate without condoning it, we might feel hate without acting on it, we might see the results of hate on a TV screen without interrupting our dinner. It's in us all but we place it outside ourselves.

Hating is an aspect of caring. The people who commit acts like these do so because they are driven by caring very deeply for things they consider very important. Those things do not seem important to other people though. People feel out of touch with each other, threatened by each other. That's why they hate. What do we do about that?

Also:

I was brought up to hold Christian views though I'm now an atheist. Doesn't matter I've dumped any belief in the supernatural - I still have that foundation: that way of looking at the world. I think that's at root. Different groups look at the world differently and even though they might try to see a thing from the other person's point of view, their feet are set in concrete because of their up-bringing. That's how it is for Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Muslims, Hindus and Sheiks, Hutoos and Tutsies (sp?), Serbs and Croats, Celtic and Rangers supporters. Also, some people, driven by ..... well, hormones perhaps, actually seem to like a bit of a dust-up. How can someone who has never killed and cringes at the idea of killing someone, understand someone who enjoys it? How can we ever see eye to eye when we don't understand each other and our brains seem to be wired differently?

Why must people hate? I'm sure I don't hate, I'm sure of it. (Repetition for emphasis.) For me, "to hate" or "I hate it when that happens..." is an expression of dismay, used inappropriately, and then amended to "it irritates me when..." Hate is a word for evil and for fundamentalists, deriving from 'fear, anger, or sense of injury' [Merriam-Websters Dictionary].

Yes, it's cyclical. Children grow up with memories of injustices, go to war, and cause injustices on others. In horrible cases in Africa and in the near East, children are given guns and taught how to be soldiers or worse.

But if they can learn to be terrorists and I can learn to be hate-free, then with the right teaching, they can learn not to hate as well. I wish. I am too optimistic, and I irritate some people. Today has been a horrible day and I send all my sympathies to everyone especially those affected on a personal level.

x x Fenny

First, a prayer for all those affected...

()
| |
| |
| |
--



Grief wrote:
"Hating is an aspect of caring. The people who commit acts like these do so because they are driven by caring very deeply for things they consider very important. Those things do not seem important to other people though. People feel out of touch with each other, threatened by each other. That's why they hate. What do we do about that?"

Thanks, Grief, you put that well. John W. Fulton said in the other thread that instead of planning to get even, the US should be asking itself why those institutions are so hated and what can be done about that. It is too easy to villify someone and then imagine that violently killing that villain will make everything better.

Of course, the US (my country) will try to get even. I hope that someone tries to understand what really provoked this attack, though. This never would have happened if there weren't a lot of people in many parts of the world feeling a lot of terrible pain that they see as originating in the US, with the US military and the US corporations. If we don't do some serious soul-searching to find out how we sowed the seeds of this horror, then it will be repeated.

What I've just said could sound bad. I'm not trying to "blame the victim". If there is such a thing as blame, then it is shared equally by every human on Earth (thanks, Brothers Karamazov). When I said "we" in the above paragraph, I meant all of us. Here, I'll personalize what I'm saying for clarity:

I would like to know how *I* contributed to the pain that provoked the hate that we saw manifested this morning on the news. I would like to know what *I* can do in my life to ease the injustices that this act was intended to somehow pay for. I'm really, really sorry that I helped to cause so much pain, on both "sides". And for chrissake, there aren't any "sides"! There's just one big family tree of humanity. What kind of tree is so insane that its branches fight with each other!?



peace, everyone

GTBacchus

Very well put, GT

It is indeed difficult for we who do not hate, to understand hate. I don't think hate is a 'normal' human characteristic, and is instead a result of warped socio/cultural/economic etc factors.

How do 'I' contribute to this sad state of affairs? By turning a blind eye to the evil perpetrated in the world. By remaining indifferent to suffering. By choosing to ignore how my tax dollars are allocated. By refusing to interfere when my neighbour beats his wife and children. By remaining silent as ignorance, stupidity and foolishness continue to flourish. There are a thousand ways that 'I' contribute to the evil, but they all share a common trait - indifference.

And those who perpetrated this attack should not be regarded as hapless victims of their uncontrollable hatred. They must be held accountable for choosing to act, no matter the motives.

Yes, the US is viewed by many as a perpetrator of injustice, but the blame rests just as heavily on all who live in the 'enlightened' West.

We all must accept our responsiblity to the rest of the world. That responsibility does not stop at token charities, or at 'police action', or even massive financial aid, but must extend to pre-emptive intervention in the affairs of those less fortunate, living in the less 'enlightened' nations. The world is a very small place, as this act of terror so horrifically demonstrates.

We can no longer afford to remain indifferent.

Peace starts right here.

I think hate *is* a normal human characteristic. It does not always rise to the surface, though, but it is a response to certain circumstances. The desire for revenge is also a form of hate. I feel a great amount of hate. I want people to be punished for the wrongs they do. I want them to suffer. I want them to be sorry. My hatred grows so strong that I stop caring even for myself. I don't care if I die myself, so long as I can only succeed in hurting those I wish to hurt. They have hurt me, now I want to hurt them back. I want them to feel my pain - I want them to feel even *more* pain than I. My pain is becoming too much for me to bear. I want others to bear it in my stead. I've had enough.

Understand hatred.

I know I hate. Because I am aware of it, I can do something about it. I know my urge is to want to strike out and hurt people for the hurt they've caused me and the ones I care about. I know my urge is to say, 'f**k what anybody else thinks or says about this - this is what I want to do, this is what I need to do, this is what I'm gonna do come hell or high water. I'm going to wipe these f**kers out, and anybody and everybody in any way associated with them. I've had enough of this s**t. I've lived this private nightmare long enough - now's the time to bring it to others.'

That's hatred. It gets carried from one person to another, from one generation to another.

People can stop caring about everything else and still be driven by the intensity/insanity of the devastating rage inside them.

People can be driven to unimaginable lengths by this. They will seek the opportunities to unleash this internal horror into the outside world. They will wait for their entire lives for the right moment. They will teach their children to carry it on after they are gone in case the right moment doesn't arrive in their lifetimes.

People hate because their lives become unbearable. Oftentimes the hatred is the only thing that allows them to still remain alive.

But it's not a good thing. Hatred does beget more hatred. Cycle after cycle it becomes worse.

Understand this. Then do something about it.

I think hate *is* a normal human characteristic. It does not always rise to the surface, though, but it is a response to certain circumstances. The desire for revenge is also a form of hate. I feel a great amount of hate. I want people to be punished for the wrongs they do. I want them to suffer. I want them to be sorry. My hatred grows so strong that I stop caring even for myself. I don't care if I die myself, so long as I can only succeed in hurting those I wish to hurt. They have hurt me, now I want to hurt them back. I want them to feel my pain - I want them to feel even *more* pain than I. My pain is becoming too much for me to bear. I want others to bear it in my stead. I've had enough.

Understand hatred.

I know I hate. Because I am aware of it, I can do something about it. I know my urge is to want to strike out and hurt people for the hurt they've caused me and the ones I care about. I know my urge is to say, 'f**k what anybody else thinks or says about this - this is what I want to do, this is what I need to do, this is what I'm gonna do come hell or high water. I'm going to wipe these f**kers out, and anybody and everybody in any way associated with them. I've had enough of this s**t. I've lived this private nightmare long enough - now's the time to bring it to others.'

That's hatred. It gets carried from one person to another, from one generation to another.

People can stop caring about everything else and still be driven by the intensity/insanity of the devastating rage inside them.

People can be driven to unimaginable lengths by this. They will seek the opportunities to unleash this internal horror into the outside world. They will wait for their entire lives for the right moment. They will teach their children to carry it on after they are gone in case the right moment doesn't arrive in their lifetimes.

People hate because their lives become unbearable. Oftentimes the hatred is the only thing that allows them to still remain alive.

But it's not a good thing. Hatred does beget more hatred. Cycle after cycle it becomes worse.

Understand this. Then do something about it.

Good grief, Grief! That was raw, but it helped me understand. It's pointless to argue about whether we all have hate inside. Some of us may be free of it, or is it just deep down, or is it just that it hasn't been triggered, that we feel no "need" to hate?

How to pray for Peace.

I am posting this in all relavent threads I know of - forgive me if it therefore looks like spam.

We all know what it feels like to be near someone who is full of anger. Fewer of us know the power of being with people who are full of peace.

There is a 2500 year old method of building peace in your heart, and spreading it out to others.

I have written a guide entry called How to Pray for Peace. You can find it here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A631261. Again. This is not my invention, it is 2500 years old.

()
| |
| |

a girl called Ben

If that's spam, then I'm switching to an all-potted-meat diet!

Thanks, Ben

love,

Tony

I still think peace will need a great amount of actual work.

I wish I knew what there was that I could do, of a practical nature, to help.

I greatly fear for what will happen from here on forward. I fear that America will act with great violence and cause many more lives to be lost needlessly. America has every reason to want vengeance. But I fear that America will provoke even more violence back against herself. Americans do not realise how many people in the world truly do *hate* them, and why. I fear that America is not as all-powerful as she thinks she is. She can still be hurt very, very badly ... and that on top of this disaster. I grieve for America. Americans need to find peace - I fear that they are seeking it by the wrong means.

Hi Grief,

What you say may unfortunately be true. I only hope that it is not absolutely true.

From what I have been seeing on this site, and even on the TV, there is a good deal more evidence of a reasoned, tactical response to this attack than I would have expected.

I think that if the US acts unilaterally, it will quite likely result in more global discord, violence and death. If the US is joined by its friends and allies, this may not be the case.

How do you create peace? You can begin by letting hatred go out of your heart. The old blues lyric has it right: 'peace will enter when hate is gone'

What else can you do? You can try to touch the hearts and souls of others, including those who percieve you as the enemy. When you are seen as just another human member of the great family of humanity, you are no longer the enemy, and you have diminished the force of evil and hate.

Peace

Amen, Taliesin.

Americans, and people everywhere, will need to broaden their understanding of who they consider "one of us". It is wrong for any of us to think that, if things are going great in hir own country, then everything is necessarily great. The world is getting too small for that kind of nationalism to make much sense any more. Indifference is dangerous.

No more "us" and "them". It's no good. "We are affluent and they are suffering" is no good. It can only be "we are suffering". Because we are.

It will be easy for many to be hardened by these events, and to retreat into hateful ways of thinking even further. After all, "they" attacked "us", right? No. We attacked ourselves. We, humanity, just flew our own planes into our own buildings. Frankly, that's typical. We cut off our nose to spite our face every day. Now that we have our attention, it's a good time to ask how it is that we've been doing this for centuries, and how can we stop.

Certainly, Mr. bin Laden or whoever did it can't be allowed to continue in his activities, and we must all support the efforts of those who will do their best to stop him. The fact that we all do it doesn't excuse anything or get him off the hook at all. But how about the rest of us? Are we off the hook, just because our hooks are smaller? Shall we all continue in our activities?

I'm quite upset, wondering whose buildings I've been flying planes into all these years, without even thinking about it. Their buildings were far away, and their skin was brown, and it wasn't on CNN, so I don't even know about it! I'm really glad that I'm leaving the US in a few days, to live in the third world. It is my fondest hope that I am able to form a real bond with the people where I go, so I can say "us" and mean it, in the fullest possible sense of the word.

Peace

We're here. We're now. We might find solace in religion or humanity or watching the sunset. We might want to kill people because of religion or the way we think about other people (but perhaps not because of the sunset).

There is no way to stop someone who is clever, determined, willing to wait and willing to die. What gives me faith in the goodness and apathy of humanity is that things like this happen so infrequently.

Perhaps we should worry more about attacks by drunks every weekend (small numbers of victims, large numbers of incidents) and all the wars that the world economy supports (large numbers of victims, small number of incidents, but has there been even a day since 1945 that there hasn't been a war festering in some part of the world?).

Perhaps our biggest failing is to let others hate on our behalf.

I think you mean 'sympathy', Mund!

What is our biggest failing? I don't know. I don't know why all this happens. I think we are all afraid of something.

Morning, Grief!

We're all afraid of something. I hold the cards for very, very big spiders and unfortunately normal heights.

There was a mediocre group called Rare Bird, some decades ago. They had a song with a post-modern theme before its time... Sympathy is what we need my friend... because there's not enough love to go round.

I mean, we are all afraid of something that's profoundly important. I think we may perhaps all be afraid that our lives simply do not matter. Why are we upset by death?

Hi Grief,

You have made some very good comments in here and I hope that the USA and all the other countries including mine the UK, take stock of what has happened and don't act irresponsibly out of hatred for what has happened.

My thoughts are with the relatives and colegues of the people still unaccounted for and as we are all informed by the media and news channels, they are not all Americans, yes it was in the USA that the attacks took place and 90% of the people killed or injured will probably be Americans, but was it aimed just at America?...I feel that it wasn't, the hatred that drove these people to cause this carnage was aimed at free democracy and I fear that if the US Government act by taking revenge out of anger that the rest of the world will act along side them.

I hope for our childrens sake that the powers that be put hatred to one side and act sensibly and restore peace to our world.