In many ways hate is the lazy way out.
If can label someone and then emote against that label and do it online and in abstract terms then I don’t actually have to wrestle with all of life’s complexity.
And if hate is lazy then it should come as no surprise that our intellectually sloppy culture is beset with hate.
Here is a simple explanation for the crazy about of vitriol and bile in our political discourse:
Kids brought up with Facebook and Instagram are more politically bigoted, not because they don’t hear alternative opinions, but because they don’t learn the concentration necessary to listen to opponents — a difficult and unnatural skill.
To put it another way, today’s American elections are mild compared to those of, say, 1800 or 1860. The relative tolerance that characterized the twentieth-century reflected rising education and rising intelligence, which made voters more capable of empathy with opponents. Reverse that rise and people will revert to the more primitive but easier rule-of-thumb: my tribe good, your tribe bad.
I find it pretty compelling, you?
Jeff Gissing 