Is It Possible To Have A Society Without Hatred?
People often lament how divided society is today. After re-reading Lord of the Flies recently, I’m wondering if it’s possible for a society to exist without some forms of hatred and division.
Hop onto a social media platform, and you’ll see people complaining about how evil other people are. Liberals hating conservatives, conservatives hating liberals, moderates hating both sides and being hated by both sides.
People like to say that Western countries, particularly the USA, are on the decline. The political divides are too steep to be bridged. People can’t agree on anything anymore- civil war is imminent.
If only we can all just hold hands, agree to disagree, and sing Kumbaya in unison.
I’ve always thought that this perception of the Western world has been a little off, but reading the 1954 novel by William Golding, Lord of the Flies, has helped me look at things from a different perspective.
First, we will examine the idea that came to me while reading the book, the title of this post: Is it possible to live in a society without hatred? A world where Group A doesn’t hate Group B? Is world peace possible?
Then we will look at our modern world, particularly the USA and internet culture, to see if we can explain why the world seems to be devolving so rapidly.
Lastly, we will see what individuals such as ourselves can do to combat the hate in the world.
Note: Photos in this article were taken by me in a Mexico City Museum.
Lord of the Flies: Brief Overview
This section will contain spoilers for Lord of the Flies. I highly recommend the book, so skip this section if you’re considering reading it. Just know this- the boys in the book are stranded on an island, form a very simple society with very simple goals, and their society collapses to a horrific degree.
For those of you who have read the book or don’t mind spoilers, I will share three quotes from the book. One from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end. I think these quotes illustrate the phases of society quite nicely.
“This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.”
This is the beginning of their society. Everything is exciting, fresh, new. Spirits are high. The boys just have to maintain order and have a good time until they are rescued.
“Suddenly, pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet.”
In the middle of the book, divisions in the society are beginning to arise. The two leaders of the group, Ralph and Jack, disagree on what values and goals the society should prioritize. This quote addresses the main protagonist of the book, Ralph, as he struggles to keep the society afloat without a clear path to follow, without adults to tell him what to do.
“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
By the end of the book, the society has disintegrated into bloodlust and chaos. The boys have burned the island down and have started killing each other. The protagonist Ralph is saved from death by adults showing up just in the nick of time.
A simple society with three goals- build shelter, get food, keep a smoke signal going to get rescued- completely devolved into violent tribalism.
If a small group of boys with a common goal of being rescued from an island can’t keep their society peaceful, what hope do the rest of us have?
Is it possible to have a society without hatred?
To answer the question simply: No, I don’t think that it is.
Throughout history, right up until today, people have always hated each other.
For a humorous read that illustrates how horrible people were during the middle ages, read Candide by Voltaire. (Make sure to read a translation by Donald Frame. Voltaire was a French writer, and some translations really fail to convey the wit and depth of his prose.)
Read two of the oldest texts known to man, The Bible and The Odyssey to see that humans have always possessed the same emotions that we possess today- love, joy, happiness, gratitude, friendship on the positive end; jealousy, hatred, greed on the negative end.
For every beacon of hope throughout human history, there have been at least an equal number of dungeons of despair.
And unlike in Lord of the Flies, there are no adults coming to save us.
In the book, the children look to adults as wise beings who have all the answers, who know right from wrong, who will eventually come to save the children if they can survive for long enough. I think we can all remember feeling this way as children. I’d be surprised if anyone reading this didn’t run to an adult when they felt an injustice had been performed against them, at least once in their life.
But as all of us grown-ups know, we don’t have all the answers. Many times we have a general idea of what should be done, but we don’t really know for sure if our way is the right way.
The angriest, most hateful people tend to be those that are incredibly sure of themselves. Incredibly sure that they know the answer and that anyone who disagrees is evil, hateful, wrong.
So, is the world becoming more hateful?
Having not been alive for the vast majority of human history, I can only muster an educated guess. I would say… No.
I would say that emotionally and spiritually, that people are just as hateful as they have always been.
But physically, I would say that the world, particularly Western countries like the USA, are much less hateful from a violence perspective.
While you can be fired from an American company for having the ‘wrong’ opinion, you won’t be taken outside and shot.
While you can have your house foreclosed upon by the bank, a group of marauders isn’t coming to pillage your town, kill your men, and rape the women. (Not that this can’t happen anywhere in the world, but it happens a lot less than it used to.)
Today, hateful opposition groups throw words and keystrokes at each other.
Yesterday, they threw spears, shot arrows and guns, threw mines and explosives. (Plenty of countries still shoot guns and throw explosives at each other. Think about that the next time a Twitter comment ruins your day.)
Is the world becoming more hateful? No.
But do we see more of the hatred? Yes, yes. A thousand times yes.
Back in the day, you would only know about the people who personally hated you. If you were a public figure, you could read hateful opinions of yourself in the newspaper.
But today, any single individual can see more hate levied against themself than at any other period of history.
I would bet $1000 that a pro-lifer today posting an a pro-choice twitter thread would have more hateful attention thrown their way than dictators did in the past. The dictator might have seen news reports that went against him, but he could have easily chosen to ignore those. And if any individual chose to criticize the dictator in person, the dictator could just have them killed.
But for the Twitter user who now has 100,000 people spitting hate at them with no way to stop the hate from flowing towards them (besides, God forbid, turning off social media), they will intensely feel a hatred that dictators (before mass communication) never would have been consciously aware of.
In the USA’s not too distant past, you could be tarred and feathered, lynched, burned at the stake, sterilized, etc. for possessing the wrong opinion. Today, you will become a leper and lose your job (unless the hatred being thrown your way gets you a better job offer from someone on your political team).
Is it good that humans are so hateful to each other? No, of course not.
Is the internet helping us become less hateful? No, of course not.
Are we likely to eradicate hate from humanity? An emotion that has been firmly entrenched within us throughout human history? No, of course not.
“Do you think,” said Candide, “that men have always massacred each other as they do today, always been liars, cheats, faithbreakers, ingrates, brigands, weaklings, rovers, cowards, enviers, gluttons, drunkards, misers, self-seekers, carnivores, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”
“Do you think,” said Martin, “that sparrow hawks have always eaten pigeons when they found any?”
“Yes, no doubt,” said Candide.
“Well, said Martin, “if sparrow hawks have always had the same character, why do you expect men to have changed theirs?”
-Voltaire
So if haters are gonna hate, what can you do about it?
Personally, I think that it’s an exercise in futility to try to rid the world of hatred. Human nature hasn’t changed very much in the last few thousand years, and I don’t expect it to change at all in our lifetimes.
So what can you, the individual, do to combat hate?
Control what you can control, change what you can change, accept the things that you can’t.
I think we all know people that constantly complain about their circumstances, yet never do anything to change their circumstances. (We might even be these people ourselves.)
So if hatred is negatively affecting your life, either change your circumstances, or accept the hate and don’t allow it to affect your emotions.
If you have hateful coworkers, you can try having an honest conversation with them to see if that helps. Of you could just accept the fact that they are miserable, unhappy people and smile when they try to pass their misery onto you. Or, just get a new job at a company where people don’t hate themselves.
With family members, friendships, and relationships, see if you can work through your issues. If not, depending on the relationship, you may need to modify it or end it. A relationship where people continually spread hate to each other is not a positive thing. Stepping back can sometimes be better than continually being around a negative presence.
And lastly, become a more positive, less hateful person yourself. You will find that as you become more and more unwaveringly positive, negative people will magically seem to shy away from you.
Like attracts like. Be a flame of positivity. Light attracts light. Darkness attracts darkness.
For help with becoming more positive, I highly recommend the book As A Man Thinketh by James Allen as a good starting point. If you don’t like to read, the audiobook is only about an hour long and worth the listen. When I was actively working on becoming more positive, I listened to the book at least once a week.
It will take a lot of intentionality and mental attention when you first start working on becoming more positive, but it will become a part of your unconscious personality over time.
And if everyone in the world worked on becoming more positive? Well then, maybe the world would become a less hateful, more loving place.
Your friend at the end of the bar,
Josh
Links for books mentioned above (affiliate links): Candide, Lord of the Flies