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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hate Requires Too Much Energy

Claude Lewis Knight-Ridder

With montonous regularity, my mail arrives containing messages from people who purport to hate me. They twist ideas I’ve offered, turning them into unrecognizable positions I’ve never even considered. What surprises me most about such people is their persistence. It is utterly alarming that anyone would spend the amount of energy it takes to “hate” someone they haven’t known.

They have many idiosyncrasies. They range from those who simply become annoyed by a statement to those who are quite obviously demented.

The least offensive among them might resort to making irrational phone calls or mailing vile unsigned notes that often say a lot more about them than about the object of their discontent. In a few extreme cases, such individuals express their unhappiness through threats or violent acts. Some harbor dark conspiracy fantasies and aim their vitriol at disparate institutions, such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America or the United Nations. There is an absence of logic attached to their unhappiness.

Others of the type take aim at whole groups of people, such as gays and lesbians, Jews, African or Native Americans.

Social misfits very often see enemies all around them. Usually, they are so intent at blaming others that they fail to see their own dreadful role in the world.

What puzzles me most about such people is their devotion to their poisonous behavior. Their consistency suggests that their irrational behavior is the singular achievement in their empty lives.

On the few occasions that I stop to think about them, I consider what great good they might achieve if their energies could be transformed from pathetic behavior into healthy accomplishment. Their lives might be changed for the better if they met someone willing to visit with them.

There are children and adults who desperately need tutoring. There are the sightless who could benefit from strangers reading to them, or simply exchanging ideas for one or two hours a week. Nursing homes and hospitals are crowded with people aching for friendly conversation. Though it may not seem obvious, some people express hatred out of loneliness. They can help themselves simply by helping others.

Recently, a practiced hater reached me by telephone. I invested a few minutes in listening to his pathetic ramblings. He venomously assailed many individuals and groups. When he became tired and bored with his own bawdy rhetoric, he resorted to shouting unconscionable things about women.

When he paused in his ranting, I interjected that his mother, his wife, his sister could all fit easily into his angry generalizations.

He heard nothing I said, trampled over my reaction to him, and broadened his targets to include anyone that he perceived was not like him. By the time I hung up, there were few groups he left untarnished.

Though he wasn’t aware of it, he proved by inverse example, not what he set out to prove, but how truly decent most Americans are. Most of us have the capacity to disagree without resorting to hateful attacks.

Many letters that reach my desk reflect honest disagreement. I welcome them.

Fortunately, the haters among us remain relatively rare.

xxxx