It was bound to happen. You can’t write about things that are preeminently loathsome for long without turning your sights on hatred itself.
Hatred is nothing new. It’s as old as mankind. What seems to distinguish our era is something worse than even generic hatred, such as hatred of blacks, whites, Americans, Jews, Mexicans, et cetera. Those are nothing new. Hatred has now devolved to absolute randomness. Earlier today I heard a radio news report that as many as ten separate bombings in Iraq erupted across Baghdad, Samarra and Basra, killing about 50 people and injuring scores more. The bombs were planted and detonated, said the report, at crowded bus stations and open air markets, their local versions of Kroger or Bi-Lo. What’s amazing is that they even made the news in the U.S. In fact, looking at online news sources like CNN, it took me awhile to find anything about these bombings. One of the most loathsome of crimes against fellow humans has become so commonplace that it no longer makes headlines.
In generations past, people targeted their enemies, whether they were perceived as such personally or nationally. Fights and riots and wars bred killing. Are those better reasons to murder? Not even slightly. But mass killings were at least done for a reason, however noble or ignoble that reason was. Today, the random extremist splinter group or angry individual will set out to deliberately and indiscriminately murder mothers pushing strollers, children learning their ABCs, young married couples, teenagers, retirees, grocery shoppers, marathon runners and spectators, popcorn-eating movie-goers, in short, anyone who just happens to be in the vicinity. It’s pure malevolence for the human race in general.
“Man has dominated man to his injury,” says Ecclesiastes 8:9. How true. How true.
