On the state of my soul · 1:53pm Oct 21st, 2017
A few weeks ago, I was idly scrolling through my usual feed of news, chatter and nonsense, and saw a headline:
Neo-nazi mauled by lion
I didn't read the article - I had no desire to know more details. But what arrested me was my reaction to seeing this headline: for a brief moment, I laughed. It was over in less than a second as the horrible reality of what the headline was saying reasserted itself, but that reaction has been bugging me ever since.
Now, I have no love for the far right movmement. They preach hatred, division, and backward thinking. They promote suffering and lies. In the last two years they've dealt the society of Britain a near-lethal wound that it may never recover from, and are making headway on doing the same to America, and the threat exist in many other countries as well. The hatred that a minority of people in the west feel for Islam, and the hatred that a minority of Muslims feel for the west, are parts of the same negative system, one that can only be broken by moving beyond such hatred. I have every reason to consider neo-nazies the lowest form of human being.
And yet... has my own hatred for them grown enough that I would laugh at the pain of another human being? Am I that callous? Was I always so, or has their hatred infected me? Was it the headline's resemblance to the comic cautionary tales of my youth? I'm no moral paragon. I commit plenty of minor sins (and crimes) quite regularly. But I never thought of myself of feeling hatred for anybody like that.
Because as horrible as their views and actions are (and don't doubt that they are), the people involved are still people. They still have human rights as do everyone else. Good people need to stop them from destroying the world, but not by inflicting more pain and inspiring more hatred in return.
I urge you, as I urge myself, to beware of allowing yourself to hate.
I think that as long as you're bothered by that initial reaction, and aware of the issue, you're still okay.
Would you still laugh if it was happening right in front of you? If not, I think you're good. It sounds like you had a momentary reaction to what seemed, on its face, to be a comically absurd premise. This wasn't an expression of cruelty or malice.
This is plain schadenfreude and, as Skywriter said, an absurdist scenario.
Actually speaking from prior journalistic experience, the fact that the victim happened be a neo-nazi almost guaranteed to be unnecessary information, especially in the headline. Unless, however, the author wanted you to have a specific reaction, like laughter at the almost Looney Tunes image it probably provoked.
You don't have to worry about the weight of your heart here, you just found some intentional gallows humour funny.
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Sure, I haven't started twirling my moustache and tying people to railway tracks quite yet (though my moustache would twirl fabulously
).
I guess I see this as an opportunity to reflect on what my diet of quick headlines and social media is doing to me. I form opinions about people based on only a few words. I could let it slide, or I could grasp the opportunity however unsettling.
Hmm. Beware falling into hate--but also beware falling into deontological ethics, which is the opposite face of that particular ridge, and also leads to destruction.
There are times when it's appropriate to hate. But we're so bad at identifying them correctly that it may be better to pretend there aren't.