The war does not have to start in the Middle East. It’s already at home in the US. The amount of hatred I have read floating from one political end to the other in our own country is a virtual bloodbath of character assassinations. Apparently two men, a current American president and the previous one, can do no wrong and no right at the exact same time. They’re like Schrödinger’s Cat: alive and “dead to me” simultaneously. I feel the dark side of the force myself when I think of one those two men, so I get it. I may pride myself into thinking that when all is said and done I don’t really “hate” anyone, but by then it’s too late. I have looked into the white of the eyes of the Dark Side.
One thing’s for sure: that dark place we’ve been calling “hell” throughout the ages, historically without a real space, now has an actual GPS coordinate: our “smart” phones. A lit screen in our hands, where we morbidly click on that political land mine we can’t resist... our instant gateway to hell.
Spare me the “I just do it for the laughs” bit, cynicism is the fast lane on that gateway. Perhaps the “I never click on politics” camp are on to something, but it does not exempt them from Schrödinger’s Paradox. Most if not all still very much love to hate and hate to love our surreally morphing presidency.
Finally there’s the “I’m not on social media” camp, who unfortunately don’t do a good job at hiding their contempt for it. Speaking of dead cats, you know what they say about curiosity. That’s their cross to bear.
But there is one group who are on seemingly still waters, the kind that run deep. I can only think of them in terms of Ayn Rand’s “objectivism”. Initially a fan of Rand’s philosophy, over time I found her to possess one too many contradictions for my taste. But sometimes we just need to grow up and not shoot messengers, flawed as they may be.
In her book “The Fountainhead”, Ayn Rand’s central character and hero, Howard Roark, is having a brief conversation with Ellsworth Toohey, the villain of the story. Toohey was directly responsible for blocking Roark from a brilliant career in Architecture. In that brief exchange of words, Toohey asks Roark, “You can tell me what you think of me,” expecting to stir up hatred and bile. To which Roark coolly responds, “But I don’t think of you.”
That line has stayed with me since college, an influence on more than I care to admit. You might have heard some people say, the opposite of love is not hate: it is indifference. Intuitive enough, no doubt central to Ayn Rand’s philosophy. But if that’s true, then what is the opposite of hate? Therein lies our dilemma.
You can drag love back into the triangle, and try creating your own paradoxical reality. One where opposites are not perfectly symmetrical. The opposite of hate cannot be indifference, because indifference to hate only perpetuates it. Hate only has one absolute cure: love. Love only has one true nemesis: indifference. And so it goes, till you’re on your knees.
The opposite of peace is not war: it is indifference. Indifference to the armchair warriors and their cowardly cries of “nuke them all!”, or “death to all of infidels!” Indifference to those who run from any and every fight, with their empty peace-hugging slogans. Because war does not automatically switch itself on straight from peace: it must first feed on the frenzy of indifference on its way to hell.
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“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
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