Our Societies Are Being Ensnared by a Vicious Cycle of Hate

Think of How Much More Hateful Things Have Gotten in the Last Few Years. This Is How Democracies Fail.

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Take a look at our societies. What do you see? What I see is hate being normalized. You can judge in your society for yourself — I’ll speak here with reference, especially, to America and Britain. Hate’s being normalized so fast, so hard, that something perverse is happening. We’re becoming inured to it. We don’t think of it as hate. But we should.

Because our societies are increasingly trapped in a vicious cycle of hate. And that, my friends, leads nowhere. That’s not just a moral admonition — it’s social science 101.

What do I mean by all this? Think about it with me for a moment.

A friend asked me a question the other day, and said I should write about it. Something about virtue. And it made me think. How just a few years ago, what was then called the “alt-right” would repeatedly lobby this charge against everyone it didn’t like. This weird phrase that it’d use over and over again, a hundred, a thousand times a day. Hey, you’re virtue signaling! That guy — he doesn’t really want to save the planet, care about democracy, etcetera — he’s just virtue signaling! That woman doesn’t really care about harassment — she’s just virtue signaling!

LOL — even at the time, this was bizarre and surreal. What does it even mean to “signal” virtue, anyways? Is that like…wearing a pope outfit but actually being Harvey Weinstein? Give me a break.

But in this day and age? That era seems relatively quaint. Now, we live a time where it’s perfectly normal for gay people to be smeared as groomers. For the LGBTQ to be called pedophiles — not just as an insult, but replete with convoluted, bizarre conspiracy theories behind it. For women who want reproductive healthcare to be called murderers. For forced birth to be something to beam proudly and piously about. For kids who want to read books or accept their gay friends to be portrayed as dangerous rule — or even law — breakers. For teachers and professors to be “grooming” them into…what? Child molestation, genocide, Lord knows what. For people who lift a finger to aid others, in the exercise of basic freedoms, to be “aiding and abetting” these now enemies of the people, state, virtue.

The day and age of just calling people “virtue signalers” or “dirty liberals” or whatever the insults du jour were back then — not so long ago — are over. And now there’s a much, much more sinister…what? Atmosphere. Rhetoric. Attitude. But it’s not just words we’re talking about, really.

It’s policy. Politics. Ways of life.

Now? It’s totally normal to say that entire social groups of people shouldn’t exist. Now, the right, when you say this, makes a Big Deal of pretending to be confused. Hey, we’re not taking away anyone’s right to exist! Look, you still exist! You’re taking away our right to exist! They insist they’re not doing anything wrong. But when you’re taking the basic freedoms of a society away, one social group at a time, you are engaged in the project of the removal of personhood. That is precisely what it means that you think certain people shouldn’t exist.

As people. With agency. Moral agency, social agency, political agency, human agency. Moral agency — I should be able to make, for example, my own healthcare decisions. Social agency. Call me my name. I can have relationships and intimacy and associations with whomever I like. Political agency. I should have a voice that’s just as much one as yours — you shouldn’t just be able to take away my vote, my voice, my representation. Human agency. I deserve respect and dignity as myself — just that — not for what role I play in society, what level of a hierarchy I fit into, what social institution says so. I’m a person. In all these manifold ways, and many, many more. You can’t take that away from me.

This day and age is different because things have evolved so fast. On the wrong side. The alt right seems like a distant memory. “Virtue signaling” is almost laughable in this day and age of being able to outright spread, preach, speak, shout, perform, enact — hate.

Think about how bad the problem really is. The GOP’s new breed of rising stars have absolutely no problem with any of the above. Saying it right out loud. That’s what they’re making their careers on. They’re not out there calling people, LOL, “virtue signalers” — figures like Ron DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Greene and any number of less well known lieutenants aspiring to power in state legislatures and local office are out there saying that…the LGBTQ shouldn’t exist…women shouldn’t have basic freedoms…books should be banned…kids shouldn’t be able to read.

And anyone who “disagrees” with that, as if we’re just talking about everyday casual stuff, shucks, like what kind of music you like — well, they must be part of this giant liberal conspiracy to drink kids’ blood. Anyone who’s not in accordance with this agenda? They must be a groomer, pedophile, Satanist, enemy of the people, state, faith, and on and on.

Think of how crazy all this really is. That all this is now normal. Not just saying that whole social groups — teachers, the LGBTQ, whomever — are groomers and pedophiles, as if that wouldn’t be odious enough, but actually meaning it. Because behind this, like I said, lies a convoluted set of conspiracy theories. Basically, they all add up to a paranoid form of racial genocide — you’re trying to get our kids, turn them gay, make them trans! As if anyone chooses to be. So that…so that…we don’t have a master race anymore!!

Crazy town.

But you know what’s really crazy? That we don’t call all this what it is. Hate.