The most luscious application of hate is public and it is loud. It is a declaration of power, and is unadulterated by any need for reason or equity. It needs only a thin veneer of anonymity or generalization to distinguish itself from thuggery and vicious malice. And, in most cases, deftly sidesteps the obvious scrutiny that dares to inquire as to its etiology - not a reflection projected in defense of an outer obscenity but the bitter resonance of an inner mephitic decay. Sadly it seems, as a species, we need this luxury to hate and to languish in it amidst footlights.
In my lifetime, I have seen the arena for this malevolent play shift from faceless foes in war, to disenfranchised groups, to rival teams, and finally to the dichotomous rift our kind call politics.
I remember my youthful naivete almost willing to root for the gooks and slopeheads not for my sense of their virtue or cause, but my honest disdain for the cruel curled snarls of those who pronounced these epithets with such vituperative pleasure. I hadn't yet met anyone from Vietnam, and had no way of understanding whether or not they deserved my hatred, I just learned early on that the sources spewing this propaganda hadn't impressed me in their other professed areas of expertise. As a child of violence, I intuitively knew where this ugliness came from, and it wasn't half a world away - it was buried deeply in the chests of the adults gloating noisly with impunity in my presence, I saw it clearly on their faces.
I remember the Polish jokes, the Black jokes, the Blonde jokes, and a thousand others aimed passionately at a group either not directly present, or yet to be allowed to square off fairly with the bully in the room. Again, it was the cruelty scribed across the faces, the subtle incongruity of the contrived smile and snide context. I did not have to wait to learn about low self-esteem and insecurity in my college psychology class, the humor of my elders enlightened me.
As a male, I inherited "my teams" from my step-father, grandfather, and my geography. Logically, not a very cogent excuse to assign the closest thing to love that I owned at the time. I lived and died with my teams, I never hated their foes, but I did get angry at them when they prevailed. They were the enemies for 48 to 60 minutes depending on the league, but no longer. I never rooted against a rival in other engagements, or took pleasure in their misfortune. I never felt the need to curse, hurl projectiles at, or to make death threats to their players (let alone their family members). I never felt like burning something in the street after a win or loss, and I somehow failed to develop the American virtues of internalizing the "heroic" deeds of my sports idols and rationalizing away their defects. At worst though, I was mildly bemused by the vehement vitriol produced against athletes, coaches, cities, and fans of opposing sides. Perhaps I was a poor fan. I did notice however, the unabashed hatred directed in these largely meaningless fracases. Once again, I sensed an intrinsic malady publicly exalted, deemed innocuous by a society racked in violence and hatred. Hatred is good, I guess, in the right places, not at the wrong faces.
I have a private theory that the appeal and futile and puerile functions of sport have drifted directly to the camp of politics, in part due to the advent of free agency. I remember my teams as groups of guys, not an emblem on a city's franchise. I loved the "team" not the landlord. It is hard for me to cheer on a temporal amalgamation of spoiled and selfish athletes. Heck, you can't even count on four years anymore out of your collegiate luminaries. So if you are not engaged to a city (really one or more really rich white guys), what do you do? You may choose to focus your fealty on a political party - there are only really two, yet they yield a a plethora of contests, a profusion of public engagements(elections, debates, forums, innumerable media frays). And the good news, your guys (and gals) seldom switch sides. They are yours forever! Or until a fan of the other team shoots them in the head.
This partisan contrivance we have constructed is the perfect vehicle to showcase our brazen expressions of hatred. Just listen to the tone, watch that lip curl, notice the smug self-righteousness of the detractor. Turn the volume off, and you may not be able to differentiate the monikers of the targets: Democrat, Republican, Jew, Nigger, Liberal, Conservative, Towel Head, Spic, etc, etc, etc. Political dialogue has all the hallmarks of hate speech, without the ism marking it out of bounds. From the flat and unilateral illusion of consensus on either side, to the remarkably unambiguous derision leveled at all things other. I marvel at grownups who have developed the ability to believe that two entities can be so permanently polar, so pedantically right and wrong, wrong and right, blue and red. Yet this playground might just be the last refuge for our inner ugliness, our need to disparage, denigrate, deprecate, deride, and decry openly and proudly. Our pride is now measured by our propensity to hate successfully - just not at the wrong people or the wrong groups. Is it any wonder that our society mourns the proliferation of bullying in our schools? Perhaps our children just haven't learned the etiquette and sportsmanship of hating yet.
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