Nick Hughes

Opinion Editor

Last week in the enterprise issue I published an article concerning hate. Specifically how we as a species could stop the flow of hate. I know that it is a pointless endeavor, but I have come to a conclusion that I think needs to be added to the previous article. That conclusion being that, even though we cannot stop hate entirely, there is no excuse for us not to try.

We cannot achieve a utopia and it is a fool’s errand to believe we can. What we can do, however, is our best to act like decent human beings. Amidst all of the chaos and hate that freely flows from the government, various religious groups and downright nasty people, we can still be civil, at the very least, to each other. I do not think this is too much to ask.

Hate has a relationship with its polar opposite, that being love. The adage of the Yin-Yang comes to mind for me now when I think about hate. How can we have love without having first felt hate? It seemed like a false statement the first time I considered it, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew it was true. For most babies, they love the first thing that they see, which is usually their mother. As humans we all have experienced love at some point in our lives. With the foundation of love being formed at birth; that gives hate a form as well. That being a hatred of pain and sometimes of various objects or stimuli. Hate can be as simple as someone having a bad experience at a circus. The incident would take place with a clown, for example, and the person affected would have a distaste for clowns. That distaste is a mild form of hatred.

Hatred is also taught; I regret to say. It becomes a norm in a household that has racism in it. A child that grows up in an environment where racism is prevalent will most likely become racist themselves. This is of no fault of their own in my estimation. It is merely a consequence of their upbringing. What a person chooses to do with hate falls at the feet of that person. Their actions with their hatred will be what defines them.

On the flip-side, love is also taught. You as a person are taught to love your parents, taught to love your siblings and taught to love the people that your parents love. This cycle is seen as healthy and something that is natural for people to do, and I want to put forth the opinion that hate can be the same way. With the exception being the healthiness of hate. Hate is not a healthy feeling. When someone feels hate, it is a result of uncontrollable anger and sometimes barely controlled anger. It is often manifested when conflict occurs between two or more people or groups. Hate is not a good feeling to have at any time. I would rather feel love than hate at any instance.

Regardless of the futility of utopia, I still believe that it is something that we should strive for. Stopping the flow of hate seems to be a step in the right direction to me.