Do you realize this subject could take over this blog? There are so many things that are truly and deservedly worthy of our hatred. Terrorism. Cancer. Child abuse. But seven days of hate times fifty-two weeks would be more negativity than I could tolerate. Dedicating one-seventh of this space to something that isn’t lovable is plenty. What’s today’s target? Here’s a clue:
If that hint isn’t crystal-clear (and it isn’t), I’ll spell it out. It’s politics. I am not a fan. Actually, politics is all about hate. It was Henry Adams (1838-1918), the grandson and great-grandson of John Quincy Adams and John Adams, respectively, who defined politics as “the systematic organization of hatreds.” I see the truth in his observation every day. From my personal experience, the greater someone’s party loyalty, the greater their blindness to anything good coming from the other side. If you’re a rabid Republican, you even hate Obama’s necktie. It gets that trivial.
Partisan pride and prejudice goes beyond party parameters and national borders and becomes something that’s destructive on a worldwide scale: it’s called patriotism. Sugar-coat it any way you wish, but it’s one of the most divisive forces on the planet. I’m not the first person to notice this. Ambrose Bierce wrote, “Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.” “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!” said Albert Einstein. “You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race,” said George Bernard Shaw. Bertrand Russell wrote, “Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.” “Patriotism is the religion of hell,” said author James Cabell, and Ralph Perry wrote, “If patriotism is ‘the last refuge of a scoundrel,’ it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether.”
If you’re a devout Republican or Democrat or a flag-waving patriot, you can become like the guy above. Nothing good comes from the other side, and everything bad is their fault. Want a recent example?
The world was recently faced with a crisis that many observers feared could trigger yet another war in the Middle East, if not World War III: the chemical attacks carried out by Syria’s dictator on his own citizens. President Obama was widely criticized for being indecisive on what the U.S. response should be. Tensions continued to mount. Then Russian president Vladimir Putin proposed a diplomatic solution that seemed to defuse the crisis. The imminent threat of war was averted. Were many Americans happy? Probably. But the loudest voices came from those embarrassed that the solution came from Putin, not Obama. I heard them in news analysis on TV and in conversations around town. It didn’t matter that a solution was found. It didn’t matter that war was averted. It didn’t matter that lives were saved. And do you know why it didn’t matter? Because it came from “the other side.”
That is politics and partisanship and patriotism at work. As I said, I am not a fan.