The Banality Of Hate
It's so easy to get people to hate each other. Just convince people they belong to a group that is superior to others.
The hate in so many hearts is one of the things most disturbing about our present “climes” and especially the last 2 years of the pandemic. It’s just so clear to see and so in your face. Let me explain.
Hate is not school shootings and white-bedsheet parading men. That is just the tip of the hate iceberg. Underneath, within so many hearts, is hate of the other. And it gets planted in the most banal ways. All it takes is propaganda pushing one section of society as superior to another. A planting of the seed of “good” - you are good if you do this, take that, believe this (the base archetype of clean-unclean). If not, you are evil. Once planted, then you are off to the “races”. It’s the core of tribalism.
“What we regard as evil is capable of a fairly ubiquitous presence if only because it tends to appear in the guise of good.” - Hannah Arendt, The Banality Of Evil.
Have you ever heard of Jane Elliot? She was an incredible teacher. She taught grade 3 in a rural part of Iowa in the 60s. The day after MLK Jr. was assassinated, she did a remarkably simple experiment in her classroom. The experiment was subsequently validated and done in other classrooms, prisons, and milieus.
As the authority figure (teacher, government, company management, governing body, etc …), she simply asked all the brown-eyed kids to sit together and all the blue-eyed ones to sit together. She then stated that she wanted to share some interesting information. It has been found that people with brown eyes are more intelligent and better than those with blue eyes. And so it was declared as so, in the classroom.
The kids resisted at first and pointed out contradictions in their own class of students. However, she then got them convinced with made-up scientific information. Then, it was off to the races. Brown-eyed kids ostracized others, bullied, and berated them. Blue-eyed kids cried, performed horribly on tests, and soon had no self-esteem.
I mention Jane Elliot because it is happening in our society right now. On many levels - but the most obvious is the unvaccinated/vaccinated.
Disregarding everything else about the pandemic, this simple division of society has been planted, created and culled, pruned and messaged and almost all of us have bought into it. Yet, it has no basis in fact or reality given that vaccination for COVID is a personal health choice, not a public one. There are no public health benefits because the vaccine does not stop transmission. There is no science-based reason to mandate vaccination for COVID. Yet here we are. Blue eyes, brown eyes.
The unvaccinated are paying their “vax tax” in many parts of the world. It comes in many forms and isn’t just monetary. Families are divided (my own - they refuse to see me. Sisters, parents). Those not vaccinated still are paying a price and are refused normal access to society and its institutions. It is for this reason, I say the pandemic is not over.
My Canadian government will require citizens to get boosted every 9 months, in addition to being vaccinated. If not, they’ll be restrictions imposed. No entry into cinemas. No traveling, etc … It’s the banality of hate, pushed by a democratic government. We are all being asked to become card-carrying members of hate.
I’ll give one personal example of how this hate operates on the lower branches of the tree.
I was recommended for a consultancy job by a friend in a large international company. I had 3 calls with different levels of management. All very informal, all went well. I am eminently qualified. But at the end of the last call, one person from the company asked me about my vaccination status for this totally remote consultancy position. I said to them that it was my personal medical information and left it there. We shared a few pleasantries about this and that, in good spirits and then the call ended. Never heard from them again. Not even a “Thank you for your time.”
To wrap up, here is the kicker about hate. Hate becomes an ideology, it embeds in your heart because people are scared to not belong, to be outside the group, to be unloved. So they join, protect and defending the hate of the group. So, hate comes from our want to be loved. It does, truly loves.
It’s a crazy world we live in. Jane Elliot would agree. Here are her own recent words about the hate COVID has sanctified and officialized.
"Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? I think it can."