Xipo | Freedom from living in hatred

By｜Xipo

Whenever extreme events caused by hatred occur, some people ask, shouldn’t we hate them? Then they point out a large collective to which the victims belong, and find those extreme cases from the history of this collective, as if this completes a rigorous syllogism.

Major premise: “They” have done a lot of crazy things.

Minor premise: The victim is a member of “them”.

Conclusion: No matter what happens to the victim, it’s no big deal.

This is a very toxic way of thinking. It is not difficult to identify the logical trap in it, you just need to push it to the extreme. You are a person, and I am also a person. As we all know, there have been many tragedies of self-inflicted slaughter in human history, doesn’t that mean that it is reasonable for me to do anything to you?

The core problem of extreme thinking lies in the extremely narrow and rigid way of dividing “us” and “them”. Amartya Sen once made an outstanding analysis of this. If a person is willing to read his “Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny”, he can fully grasp the method of detoxification. Amartya Sen said:

“Indeed, most conflicts and atrocities in the world are sustained by a seemingly unique, non-selective identity. The fire of hatred always appeals to the spiritual power of a dominant identity, as if it can replace all other relationships of a person, and overwhelm our usual human compassion and natural compassion in a very natural and militant way, the result is either simple primitive violence, or carefully planned atrocities and terrorism on a global scale.”

The difference between modern society and traditional society is that a person’s identity is diverse, fluid, and selectable. But this also means that a person’s identity is easily manipulated. Whether it is class struggle, religious conflict, or civilizational conflict, it is a trick of one identity driving out and overwhelming other identities.

Compressing a huge group of people with a long history and various good qualities into a single, flat identity package is a great loss to this group, but some people can benefit from it.

Many tragedies in human history, where heads rolled, were summoned by the curse of identity. Amartya Sen is an Indian. He experienced the violent conflict during the partition of India and Pakistan in his childhood. He recalled that the generous crowd in January was divided into two groups in July, ruthless and brutal, and wanted to put each other to death. “The ignorant masses were put on a single and combative identity, led by skilled executioners to brew this violent incident.”

It’s like, I am a northerner living in the south, I like the south, and I always clearly think that I am a northerner. This does not cause any trouble to my life, I just occasionally complain that the southern pasta does not suit my taste. But if one day, a group of thugs suddenly occupied the city, they announced that all northerners must get out. This is certainly a disaster for a resident like me, so is it necessarily a good thing for the native southerners? This group of thugs is likely to announce that authentic southern cuisine does not need pasta, and ignores the fact that pasta has existed in the south since ancient times.

Do you think I’m kidding? Reality is more absurd and cruel than this. The Bamiyan Buddha has stood well in the valley for more than 1,500 years, but in 2001, the Taliban announced that authentic Afghanistan does not need you.

The extreme ideologies we can see are basically modern products. The Taliban were originally a group of student soldiers who knew nothing about the real world, and were the product of refugee camps. They are tragedies themselves, and they have created more tragedies. The traditional Afghan life that their fathers enjoyed was unfamiliar to them. But they don’t care, they have a purer faith, that is to say, they have a stronger and more exclusive single identity.

I think a single identity may not be a real identity, but only a disguised identity, its essence is a hatred consciousness that is hostile to the whole world. Those who defend the crazy, no matter what they say on the surface, what they want to say in their hearts is: “I don’t trust this world, no matter what you say, you always want to harm me. Don’t tell me about respect, friendship, love, peace, they are all deceptive, you will eventually harm me.”

Hatred is like strong acid in an alien body, which can corrode everything. If the spiritual asset of a person is love, then their asset is negative, and their only connection with the world is hate.

What we are most worried about is how to prevent the next generation from being captured by hatred. It is indeed a very difficult task. But I have repeatedly and carefully thought about it, and I think there is a solution. The most important thing is not to tell them not to hate, but to build rich channels between them and the world. Not through preaching, but through demonstration, let them know that people can be related to many beautiful things. In this sense, I do not recommend that ordinary people become political control, life is always higher than politics. An opinion is just an opinion, no matter how correct it is. To learn to get along with the world peacefully, it takes a lot of patience and effort.