Politics and Hate

"Politics is eminently a realm of hatred," says Anthony Esolen in this article at American Greatness.

Has that always been true? It certainly seems truer now than ever before. Perhaps this is why most of the truly saintly people I know are the least politically minded. Politics brings out the worst in us.

I had a vague knowledge of who David Koch was (although until very recently I mispronounced his last name). My mispronunciation was corrected when I ran into someone who hated them, bringing them up in sarcastic comments at every opportunity. [Who are these Coke brothers he keeps talking about, I.] I was surprised at the level of hatred for someone he didn't know at all and in fact someone whose life never impinged on his own in the least. And when David Koch recently passed away, this hatred was on display again in Leftist memes on social media. But why?

And by the way, it is just as evident on the right as on the left. I tend not to bother much about young politicians from districts far from my own. So a Dem Representative from a district in Minnesota said something stupid. If she were my congresswoman, I might be working hard to defeat her in the next election, but she's not. So why lose sleep over her. And yet many on the Right are on a continual tirade against The Squad, and if you don't share it, if in other words you are insufficiently hateful toward them, your conservative credibility will be called into question. Our politics now is defined by who we hate, and how intensely we hate them.

I could cite many examples (and Esolen cites many from his own experience inacademia). This need to hate is very strong in us. Fairness goes out the window. Probity and moderation have long fled. Thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit need not apply. As in the case, say, of Antifa zealots, hatred becomes an organizing principle for community, the glue that holds the group together.

There's an interesting piece at Quillette called The Great Scattering: How Identity Panic Took Root in the Voic Once Occupied by Family Life. The author, Mary Eberstadt, says,

The diminution and rupture of the family and the rise of identity politics cannot be understood apart from one another.

I think that's right. In any case, the author provides plenty of food for thought. Connecting the ideas of both Esolen and Eberstadt, I think that hatred and Identity Politics go hand in hand. I am comparing no one in particular to Hitler, but his political philosophy was nothing if not "Idetnity Politics."

Anyway, it's a sad and disturbing development. Sometimes a grim thought wiggles its way into my brain: things are reminding me of the French Revolution. Oh, that's extreme, I tell myself. You really can't go that far! But I do wonder if someday it will not seem to far-fetched.