Yesterday there was an advertisement on Public Occurrences at the bottom of the first page. It was an ad for a YouTube video. I clicked on it. The President of the United States was conducting a town-hall type meeting and he called on a little boy dressed in an argyle sweater who wanted to ask the president a question. The question the boy asked the president was "Why do they hate you?" It was hard to hear that.
A couple of presidential elections ago I saw a bumper sticker, "Hate is TOO a family value." It made me laugh because it was so politically incorrect. It is also true. Hate is as much a primal human emotion as is love, its opposite, but those are two opposites that are so close together sometimes. Both intense emotions, there seems to be only a thin permeable membrane separating them, and one that we pass through easily, and sometimes back again.
I hate, and I am ashamed of it. I hate Islam. That is the truth, and I am ashamed of it. I have written here so many times about Islam, "We must not hate." Maybe some close readers remember, maybe to them the thought occurred, "He's trying to convince himself," as I was. Less frequently I've written "I hate hate." That is also true. It logically follows from that that I hate that part of me that hates Islam and that hates hate. I hate me.
I have also written that I am hated by others. Of course that's hard to hear too but I hate myself, that part of me that hates. FDR was hated and said defiantly "I welcome their hatred." I have adopted something like that as my response: "It's good to have enemies" I have written many times. That's true, I believe that too. I don't think I would be doing my "job" as a blogger writing about public occurrences, that is about everything under the sun, if I didn't make enemies. That was similar to President Obama's response to the little boy's question. This is part of what he said:
"If you watch TV someone's always getting mad. Take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just called politics. Don't take it too seriously...Just keep on going even when people criticize you."
It was a philosophical response but also a protective one. The president minimized it, he never acknowledged to the boy that it was true that he was hated because he didn't think a 4th grader should be exposed to hate. He's too young for that. But President Obama knows he's hated. I believe it bothers him just because he's human. I have asked myself the same question that the little boy asked the president, "Why do people hate Obama?" I don't know why such a good man is hated.
A couple of presidential elections ago I saw a bumper sticker, "Hate is TOO a family value." It made me laugh because it was so politically incorrect. It is also true. Hate is as much a primal human emotion as is love, its opposite, but those are two opposites that are so close together sometimes. Both intense emotions, there seems to be only a thin permeable membrane separating them, and one that we pass through easily, and sometimes back again.
I hate, and I am ashamed of it. I hate Islam. That is the truth, and I am ashamed of it. I have written here so many times about Islam, "We must not hate." Maybe some close readers remember, maybe to them the thought occurred, "He's trying to convince himself," as I was. Less frequently I've written "I hate hate." That is also true. It logically follows from that that I hate that part of me that hates Islam and that hates hate. I hate me.
I have also written that I am hated by others. Of course that's hard to hear too but I hate myself, that part of me that hates. FDR was hated and said defiantly "I welcome their hatred." I have adopted something like that as my response: "It's good to have enemies" I have written many times. That's true, I believe that too. I don't think I would be doing my "job" as a blogger writing about public occurrences, that is about everything under the sun, if I didn't make enemies. That was similar to President Obama's response to the little boy's question. This is part of what he said:
"If you watch TV someone's always getting mad. Take it with a grain of salt. Some of it is just called politics. Don't take it too seriously...Just keep on going even when people criticize you."
It was a philosophical response but also a protective one. The president minimized it, he never acknowledged to the boy that it was true that he was hated because he didn't think a 4th grader should be exposed to hate. He's too young for that. But President Obama knows he's hated. I believe it bothers him just because he's human. I have asked myself the same question that the little boy asked the president, "Why do people hate Obama?" I don't know why such a good man is hated.
I can articulate why I hate Islam, and I have but maybe my explanations sound as crazy as those of Republicans who hate Obama. I don't think FDR ever said he hated people, whether the Republicans of whom he spoke or the Germans or Japanese. I'm sure Obama has never said "I hate him/her/them." It's an impolitic thing to say. My sense is Obama does not hate. My sense is FDR did hate, but it's only my sense. I read Churchill's "The Second World War," all six volumes and the end-notes, every page. He felt so strongly against Hitler and Germany that I consciously looked for "I hate" from Churchill. Finally I found it. When he visited Germany after Hitler's suicide he wrote something like "But when I saw the devastated and desperate people all the hatred disappeared."
It does seem to me that there are some things worth hating. And I know that hatred is a human emotion that is just as "natural" to us as love or joy or fear. Hatred can be irrational and I think that is what disturbs me for I hate to be irrational too. I see no rational basis for the hatred of Barack Obama but I see no rational basis for those who love sometimes. I see no rational basis for people to love Judge Tom Head and Congressman Todd Akin. That is, I see no rational basis for the love of the people who hate Obama. But they are loved.
Religion often produces hate and among Obama's haters are some very devout Christians. Religion, faith, is almost by definition irrational. Aquinas tried hard to use reason to prove God's existence, he failed. Kierkegaard knew Aquinas had failed. It was he who proposed instead that believers take a "leap" over rationality to get to faith. One "believes," not based on reason, but because reason does not explain satisfactorily. So you go to the opposite, faith.
It seems to me most religious people today do not attempt to justify their faith based on reason. The slogans, the bumper-stickers today are Kierkegaardian, they are assertions: "Believe," "I believe." Maybe, like my assertion "We must not hate" those who believe are trying to convince themselves. But I don't think so. I think those assertions are sincere, true for those asserting them, they really do believe. They just believe. I don't believe, but I believe they believe.
I believe that there is more charity, more love, in Christianity than in Islam but Christianity has produced haters, produces them still. It was Swift who said three centuries ago "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love." It seems to me that that fits the Religious Right in America today, among whom are some of the haters of Barack Obama. I, however, do not have that irrational, if that's what it is, religious faith to blame, or credit, or use as an excuse for, my hatred of Islam. That is based on reason; it is rational hatred to me. I hate my hatred but that's it.
