Chattanooga Times Free Press

IN THE END, THE HATER ALSO DESTROYED

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The human condition features the good and bad of our individual traits that, collective­ly, create the mass of our society. In recent weeks, we’ve watched that human condition rise to great challenges with wildfires that were overshadow­ed in the West by the sequence of hurricanes that have devastated the lives of Americans. We’ve seen human chains form to rescue the stranded in floodwater­s, lines snake around buildings to drop off food for shelters and to volunteer, and the generosity and goodness of so many expressed in countless ways.

The premeditat­ed Las Vegas mass shooting equally featured accounts that will travel through time as benchmarks of heroism, seen and unseen.

While this human condition features the expanse of characteri­stics and emotions that make everyone unique, the capacity of good is in every heart. That good sustains an orderly and decent society. Equally, however, the capacity for evil exists and is the chosen path for some. Yes, it’s a decision, a choice.

What drives one toward the path of evil? Evil, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is the state of being morally reprehensi­ble, with its origins noted as arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.

Interestin­gly, to acknowledg­e evil is to stand politicall­y incorrect. The linear logic follows that if you acknowledg­e evil, you, too, acknowledg­e a morality that’s good versus amorality that’s not. Further, by addressing a state of wickedness, there’s an agreement that there is good character and conduct versus bad. Clearly, the evidence of evil is inarguable in our society, with the recent Las Vegas shooting an easy example.

The evil acts employed by the Las Vegas coward who claimed lives of the innocent point us to an emotion that’s natural but can become consuming and, as in last week’s tragedy, lethal. Hate.

At this writing, the ghost of a man with essentiall­y no cyber-footprint of social media, with a documented paper trail of passing federal and state background checks for legal gun purchases along with his earned wealth, has revealed no motive behind his obvious extensive planning to inflict mass carnage. But, there is no need for additional evidence to validate that the killer, whose name doesn’t deserve to be spoken again except by his eternal judge, was a vessel of hate. Whether from self-loathing, hostility toward a group of people and their common characteri­stics, or an aversion derived from an experience or self-imposed mindset, hate was the fuel that moved this man to his evil deeds.

Psychology Today warns that hate is a mask of those who are personally insecure, declaring that “not all insecure people are haters, but all haters are insecure people.”

Dr. Jack Schafer states, ironically in this case, that “Hate elevates the hater above the hated.” But he cautions that hate is expressed in stages: First, haters gather as a group defined by ire aimed at an object of their hatred. The target of hatred is disparaged. The haters escalate with taunts and offensive gestures that expand to attacks without weapons that not only serve to marginaliz­e the group that’s hated but also to isolate the haters. The final stages of hate are to attack with weapons, which include items seen in the street brawls of violent protests of our day and conclude with the goal to physically destroy the hated.

While hate’s goal is to destroy the object of its wrath through acts of evil, it also kills the hater.

Robin Smith, a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, owns Rivers Edge Alliance.

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Robin Smith

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