Hatred (29 page)

Those of us who have never experienced the cold and continuing passion of hatred can never truly understand that which exists in the hearts of the haters. We do not know how “they feel when . . .” And for that we must be grateful. But to limit the reach of hatred, we must try to understand it. There
is
such a thing as evil; there is such a thing as paranoid displacement; there is such a thing as a culture of hatred. And it is with the last-named that the danger is compounded.

Generalized theories of violence and hatred often prove vulnerable because they seek a common internal dynamic that
drives all haters. That problem almost destroyed psychoanalysis. Freud established his theory of neurosis built on unconscious drives and defenses against them. He postulated that dynamic forces from the patient's past determined his neurotic fate. Then Freud and his followers assumed they could find common patterns in all who suffered a similar neurosis. This ushered in the silly season of dynamic speculation that sought universal and overarching causes. Only later would psychoanalysts recognize that it was not a common drive or common past that determined the nature of a phobia, for example, but a common defense. The same is true of hatred.

Even the best of researchers continues to be beguiled into looking for universal causes for sociological behavior. Richard Rhodes, in his admirable book
Masters of Death,
⁸⁷
struggled in a similar fashion to find some common bonds that would link the Nazi SS murderers, in hopes of introducing some dynamic, regardless of how demented, that might explain the killings. But these people do not share a psychological unity or a basic dynamic. They are not a universe of like-minded people. Each of them is playing out his own scenario of misery and rage determined by his unique history.

Similarly, the profilers and other self-appointed predictors of human behavior patterns do a disservice to the complexity of human motivation by their generalizations. They inevitably describe the unknown terrorist in the image of his predecessor, and in the process often lead law enforcement down a garden path, as in the disastrous effort to find “the white man in a white van” in the search for the sniper killers in the Washington, D.C., area in the fall of 2002.

There are as many variations of psychodynamics leading to hatred as we find in neurotic patients. Each, neurotic and hater, takes the building blocks—his unconscious or conscious feelings of terror, deprivation, impotence, humiliation, and frustrated rage—and constructs a setting for hatred. Each one will search for direction and outlet for his misery that exonerates himself. He will build a scenario of persecution by utilizing whatever leads are at hand. He will invent an enemy. He may exploit individual scapegoats: blacks, Jews, abortionists, gays. He may discover a previously designed enemy supplied to him by groups with consonant concerns—safeguarding the environment, protecting animals, preserving racial purity.

The deranged individual has a limited capacity to wreak havoc. The psychotic is too disorganized to do much more than go on a shooting spree. As tragic as that is, it has relatively limited long-range consequences for society at large. The psychopath also has limits set on his actions. It is with the group—the culture of hatred—that monstrous evil can be unleashed. When the psychotic or paranoid is a despotic leader, like Idi Amin, with absolute authority over his nation, individual despair and resentment may be united under the banner of the leader's insane vision. When everyday bias is supported and legitimated by religion or nationalism, the passions of ordinary malcontents will be intensified and focused, allowing a community of hatred to emerge. The conditions necessary to support mass murder and genocide are now set.

A collection of haters is generally a ragtag assembly of individuals until a powerful authority, such as a political or religious leader, provides them with a common enemy. This paranoid leadership gives shape to the group by naming an enemy, by granting legitimacy and respectability to the hatred of that enemy through its authority, and by mobilizing the disorganized group into a killing culture. The aggregate becomes a mob, a
troop, or an army, brought together by the shared enemy, which has been selected and offered up to them by the paranoid political state or the fanatic religious leaders. The common bond of hatred is the common enemy. The culture of hatred is the primary threat. We are right to treat Al Qaeda with deadly seriousness. We are right to view Saddam Hussein and the other despots of the world as potential Hitlers.

It is a sad truth that religious leaders often create a forum for the dissemination of hatred. We are told that the Muslim faith is one of tolerance. But what is the Muslim faith? And who articulates it? The mullahs are no more united than the Christian or Jewish theologians. Who speaks for Christ? The Roman Catholic church, the Southern Baptists, the Christian Militia? The same condition exists in the disparate worlds of Islam. Each mullah becomes a prophet for his own people. In our time, however, only the radical Islamists have captured the attention of media. We are experiencing the extensive influence of the Wahhabi faction over modern Islam, where every infidel is the hated enemy.
⁸⁸

The fanatic and xenophobic Wahhabi sect of Islam has been given legitimacy and financial support through the shortsightedness and recklessness of the leaders of Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi disseminate their hatred and intolerance everywhere in the Muslim world through the activities of irresponsible mullahs, and with the money supplied them by feckless Arab political leaders, who ought to be held responsible. Their military arm is Al Qaeda. And they speak only of hatred and holy war.

As recently as the summer of 2002 the
New York Times
reported an interview in which a professor of Islamic law explained to a visiting reporter: “Well, of course I hate you because you are
Christian, but that doesn't mean I want to kill you.”
⁸⁹
Well, the professor may not wish to kill the reporter, but the students he instills with his theological justifications of hatred may have different ideas about the proper expressions of hatred. If the theocratic dictators who dominate the oppressed minorities in Saudi Arabia and the other “moderate” Arab states think they can control the mass frenzy that they are either encouraging or tolerating, they profoundly misread human nature and the role that hatred can play.

We live in a time in which cultures of hatred exist predominantly in the Muslim world. But there are undoubtedly paranoid cultures in other areas, Africa, for example, where their effects are as yet so local and self-contained that they have not impinged on the consciousness of the larger world. It would be wise to direct some attention to these areas before the fact; to deal with the misery and frustration that are waiting to be molded into hatred before we are forced to. Once a culture of hatred has been firmly established, we are left with only the limited choices of disarming, diffusing, or destroying it.

I have tried to attend to the nature of hatred out of a feeling that a clearer understanding of its qualities can guide us in understanding its causes. The roots of hatred are buried under a surface of normalcy that obscures their depths and entanglements. They must be exposed and analyzed. I view a psychological analysis of hatred as a prerequisite, not an alternative, to investigating the social conditions that encourage its emergence; the economic aspects that cultivate it; the political and religious institutions that exploit it. Only with the knowledge of what hatred is can we uncover the conditions that nurture it.

A sense of deprivation has psychic roots independent of
poverty and want. We cannot control each individual's developmental background, and we do not need to. The isolated and individual hater can cause profound misery, but only to a limited few. The greater danger will always lie with those who would cynically manipulate and exploit such misery, those who would organize and encourage hatred for their political ends. We must attend to them, the preachers and organizers of hatred. We had a moral obligation to do so with the rise of Nazism. We didn't care enough then. Perhaps we do now.

The moral world is the preserve of mankind. We must cultivate it. In the end, the search for the heart of evil, the “unholy grail” as Walker Percy called it
,
may be as elusive as the search for the Holy Grail, but it is the quest that defines our humanity.

Someone has to do the dirty work of reading an unkempt first draft. This is best hidden from all but the most forgiving. My brother, Dr. Sheldon Gaylin, also a psychiatrist, undertook this task and in the process managed to encourage and direct my progress. Further along, my sister-in-law, Rita Gaylin, offered the kind of detailed critique that only an avid reader and natural editor could supply. I am indebted to both of them. By then I was ready for a professional.

My long-time agent and friend Owen Laster once again proved his abilities by directing me to my current editor, Kate Darnton. Critical yet supportive, gentle but persistent, she applied her youthful enthusiasm and considerable talents to the task of improving this manuscript. She is a delight to work with.

With each new book, the task of “acknowledging” my wife's contributions to my work becomes more difficult. Time and love have eroded those separate identities—the her and me—that we first brought to our young relationship, leaving in its place a stubborn and persistent thing called “us”.

Abnormal human behavior

biblical references to

defining

in literature

and standards for insanity

See also
Human behavior; Mental illness; Normal human behavior

Abortion

Abuddabeh, Nuha

Affective disorders

Afghanistan

Al-Akhras, Ayat

Alexander, Franz

Allport, Gordon

Almog, Shmuel

Al Qaeda

Amin

Anger

chronic

and envy

See also
Rage

Animal behavior

and animal rights beliefs

and emotional responses

and pecking orders

Anti-abortion activists

Anti-Semitism

in Asia

in literature

literature on

themes in

Anxiety

Arab communities

dictatorships in

and early Arab trauma

envy of the United States by

See also
Al Qaeda; Terrorists

Ardrey, Robert

Aristotle

Aryan Nation

Atta, Muhammed

Baader Meinhof Gang

Bacon, Francis

Balzac, Honore de

Barnett, Victoria J.

Baz, Rashid

Becker, Ernest

Beethoven, Ludwig von

Betrayal

Bible, The

Bigotry.
See
Prejudice and Bigotry

bin Laden, Osama

Blacks

Bliven, Naomi

Boudin, Kathy

Browning, Christopher R.

Bundy, Theodore

Butler, Samuel

Byrd, James, Jr.

Cannon, Walter B.

Caring

Carlo, “the Jackal,”

Carter, Helen

Castro, Fidel

Catholic Church, the

Chagnon, Napoleon

Chekhov, Anton

Children and adolescents

and discovering the self

feelings of deprivation in

and identification

modeling behavior by

murder by

murder of

paranoia in

and parental downward identification

rebellion by

sold into slavery

China

Christian Brothers, The

Christianity

and anti-abortion activists

and anti-Semitism

and the Crusades

Clinton, Bill

Communities of haters

aided by communications technology

in the Arab world

Communities of haters (
continued
)

characteristics of

versus cultures of hatred

joined by religion

Competition

Congreve, William

Conspiracy theory

Criminal behavior

and crimes of passion

and hate crimes

mental illness as defense for

and moral relativism

and paranoia

as a psychological disorder

and psychosis

by radical single-issue activists

and schizophrenia

See also
Terrorists

Cultural differences

and culture of hatred versus culture of haters

in early civilizations

in family values