Hitler persuaded hundreds of thousands of people from his homeland that people who followed the Jewish religion were to be hated and despised. Was he wrong? Yes. Did he believe he was wrong? No. Did he persuade all those people at once? No, that is the simple answer. It was, in fact, the greatest pyramid scheme in history where hate was used to sell his ideology to like-minded individuals who ensured that people who didn’t agree with it were never heard from again.
In short, Hitler was the catalyst who started the avalanche of hate tumbling down through the world where it took millions of deaths to stop its progress.
You’d think that society would have learned to watch out for people like him who use other people’s differences to inspire hatred. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case because I hear many people in powerful positions delivering their speeches whose only goal appears to create division and inspire hatred.
The question that needs to be answered is, do you blame those people for manipulating society or do you blame society for allowing itself to be manipulated? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This would be an easier question to answer because you’re only dealing with two variables as opposed to a society where there are billions of unique individuals to be taken into consideration. The truth is that there are no easy answers. Anywhere in a society where there is injustice or perceived injustice, there are going to be underlying tensions. These underlying tensions are waiting for the right spark to ignite into a fire that could be very difficult to extinguish.
Can we as a society change the direction we’re travelling in? Yes and no is the answer. If enough individuals ask themselves the following question, why should I hate people who are different? If enough people’s answer is, I shouldn’t, this will lead to individual responsibility which in turn will lead to collective responsibility. Only then will society change for the better.
While we’re waiting for that change to occur I’ll leave you with one final thought.
If you remove your attention from people who are inspiring hate, you will not be inspired by them.
