As members we were taught to hate those outside our group ..... it is interesting what Hoffer says in his book The True Believer about how this works within this mindset.....
{b}Note{/b} where he states that this mindset eventually becomes like the very image it
focuses on - the recipient of the hatred
From THE TRUE BELIEVER by Hoffer
68
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed,we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate. It is understandable that we should look for others to side with us when we have a just grievance and crave to retaliate against those who wronged us. The puzzling thing is that when our hatred does not spring from a visible grievance and do not seem justified, the desire for allies becomes more pressing. It is chiefly the unreasonable hatreds that drive us to merge with those who hate as we do, and it is this kind of hatred that serves as one of the most effective cementing agents. Whence come these unreasonable hatreds, and why their unifying effect? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others -- and there is a most determined and persistent effort to mask this switch. Obviously, the most effective way of doing this is to find others, as many as possible, who hate as we do. Here more than anywhere else we need general consent, and much of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred. Even in the case of a just grievance, our hatred comes less from a wrong done to us than from the consciousness of our helplessness, inadequacy and cowardice -- in other words from self-contempt. When we feel superior to our tormentors, we are likely to despise them, even pity them, but not hate them."
That the relation between grievance and hatred is not simple and direct is also seen from the fact that the released hatred is not always directed against those who wronged us. Often, when we are wronged by one person, we turn our hatred on a wholly unrelated person or group. Russians, bullied by Stalin's secret police, are easily inflamed against "capitalist warmongers"; Germans, aggrieved by the Versailles treaty, avenged themselves by exterminating Jews; Zulus, oppressed
by Boers, butcher Hindus; white trash, exploited by Dixiecrats, lynch Negroes. Self-contempt produces in man "the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.""
69
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between
hatred and a guilty conscience.
There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice. That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them. We do not make people humble and meek when we show them their guilt and cause them to be ashamed
of themselves. We are more likely to stir their arrogance and rouse in them a reckless aggressiveness. Self-righteousness is a
loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us. There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.
70
To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat_an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
71
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have
wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-
contempt.
72
A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus
it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds.
73
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise. The Japanese had an advantage over us in that they admired us more than we admired them. They could hate us more fervently than we could hate them. The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American's hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. It is of interest that the backward South shows more xenophobia than the rest of the country. Should Americans begin to hate foreigners who wholeheartedly it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life. The undercurrent of admiration in hatred manifests itself in the inclination to imitate those we hate. Thus every mass movement shapes itself after its specific devil. Christianity at its height realized the image of the antichrist. The Jacobins practiced all the evils of the tyranny they had risen against. Soviet Russia is realizing the purest and most colossal example Of monopolistic capitalism. Hitler took the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion for his guide and textbook: he followed them "down to the veriest detail."13
74
It seems that when we are oppressed by the knowledge of our worthlessness we do not see ourselves as lower than some
and higher than others, but as lower than the lowest of mankind. We hate then the whole world, and we would pour our
wrath upon the whole of creation. There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. Their burning conviction that there must be a new life and a new order is fueled by the realization that the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built. Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world.
75
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives
try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass
movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
76
Whether it is true or not as Pascal says that "all men by nature hate each other," and that love and charity are only "a feint and a false image, for at bottom they are but hate," " one cannot escape the impression that hatred is an all-pervading
ingredient in the compounds and combinations of our inner life. All our enthusiasms, devotions, passions and hopes, when
they decompose, release hatred. On the other hand it is possible to synthesize an enthusiasm, a devotion and a hope by activating hatred. Said Martin Luther: "When my heart is cold and I cannot pray as I should I scourge myself with the thought of the impiety and ingratitude of my enemies, the Pope and his accomplices and vermin, and Zwingli, so that my heart swells
with righteous indignation and hatred and I can say with warmth and vehemence: 'Holy be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done!' And the hotter I grow the more ardent do my prayers become.""
77
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even
when me league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently
intolerant toward those not of a like mind. The estrangement from the self, without which there can be neither selflessness nor a full assimilation of the individual into a compact whole, produces, as already mentioned," a proclivity for passionate attitudes, including passionate hatred. There are also other factors which favor the growth of hatred in an atmosphere of unity and selflessness. The act of selfdenial seems to co f n us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself of the chosen, the salt of the earth the light of the world a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too 18. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish. There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom -- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.
JanG