It reminds me of that old Traveling Wilburys’ song, “Handle with Care.” Hate is a strange and dangerous motivator. It’s something that makes me consider demons as a real possibility. Having experienced Zoom bombing during an online meeting about racism, I was greatly saddened. The distress the bombers caused in just a few minutes was truly saddening. With white supremacist comments and ideology, they seemed to have nothing better to do than to ruin the day of twenty-some people who want to make the world a better place for all. I was reminded of a video that Arnold Schwarzenegger had posted earlier that same week. The link is below and it is worth twelve minutes of your life. I’ve been impressed by how Schwarzenegger has been using his influence to combat the evils of Trumpism, although himself a Republican. Of course, he has a backbone that many elected officials lack.
As an Austrian, Schwarzenegger is aware of the damaged lives that Nazism left behind. There’s no glamour here, just pain left behind for all. We’ve unfortunately suffered through four years of leadership based on the rhetoric of hatred that has rubber-stamped this kind of thinking. It will take many years to recover, if we ever do. And the internet, for all the good it does, also offers a venue for those who find hateful activities enjoyable. I do wish there were a way to channel such people to Schwartzenegger’s video. It is the moral responsibility of the strong to protect the weak. We have millennia of history to back that up. What’s so hard about live and let live?
Opposites don’t always hold fast, but love certainly is the antithesis of hate. One of the things watching horror movies has done for me is to reinforce what happens when hatred is allowed to take control. The best of the genre contains morality that reinforces that those who love overcome while those who hate never end up in a happy place. No belief system that promotes superiority is worth investing in. There will always be those with nothing better to do than to trawl the internet to troll those who try to make the world a better place. As a society we can reject such behavior and attempt to help those who are motivated by hatred. The damage caused by hate is real. Actual human beings are destroyed by it, and for no reason. Many of us, most, I suspect, think love is the ultimate good. We must do what we can to try to help those who disagree, no matter what certain political leaders espouse. The Wilburys were right, all people deserve to be handled with care.
