Hate verses Goodness

On some days it feels like hate is running rampant.  Hate is defined as an intense or passionate dislike.  Dislike is defined as a feeling of distaste or hostility.  As someone who writes murder mysteries, with murder representing the most hatred, you would think I would not be surprised at the level of hate that seems to run through our world.  Now this maybe mostly political hate and more scripted than real; but the evidence of real hatred is strong.

Most of my fictional hatred is very personal; usually revolving around love gone bad or money.  There is always some element of madness that runs through most murder mysteries, not real crazy, just a little deranged crazy.  Many of my characters, who are not murderers, are also a little deranged.

In my books I see the hate as an element in human existence.  Not something that is evil but more something that is “normal” for a human.  Of course, that is a fictional world.  I have had a few readers comment that my villains are not evil enough, which may be true.  My villains are often only slightly crazy but terribly angry about some offense or wrong that they have suffered.  I have never written a book about the totally insane serial killer who is evil, but awfully clever.  Those stories never appealed to me as a reader. 

The word distaste is an odd word to use in the definition of hate.  I really distaste you!  Okay, not only is that bad grammar it also doesn’t make sense.  Distaste is something you feel about someone’s diet or wardrobe choices.  My distaste for Billy led me to murder the poor sod.  Nah, that’s not right.

So here we are in our modern world of constant communication where almost every day there is an example of great hate.  One group hates another.  Murders and mayhem happen every day almost everywhere.  What is this?  Why do humans find it so difficult to not hate?

Maybe the answer is that it is human to hate.  Could it be that the natural state of humans is a lot of hate?  I hate this, I hate you, I hate that hat, I hate everything. Not a very pretty picture.  But if we think about the past, the very distant past, survival might have been dependent upon that angry hatred that gave energy to an ugly survival skill of killing or being killed.  How many generations does it take for a new survival skill of discussion, negotiation, and compromise to replace the kill or be killed instinct?  Probably many.

This feels like I’m reaching the conclusion that humans are just bad.  Well, that is not what I believe.  I believe exactly the opposite.   The most common quality I see in humans is goodness.  The problem is that the goodness of many is overshadowed by the evil of a few.  One lone madman can make the world an ugly place for the vast majority.  One good person just goes unnoticed.  Acts of kindness do not show up in headlines or breaking news.

In the past I had the unfortunate opportunity to observe human nature during some of the worst times for many people.  Court room appearances before a judge to hear their fate determined by an overly bureaucratic criminal justice system.  These proceedings had all the structure of what I would imagine a cattle call would exhibit.  Any human quality or blind justice was not on display.  People were shuffled in and out with an efficiency more akin to the DMV than a hearing to determine whether someone is facing years in prison.

The experience of observing these proceedings over many months changed me.  I observed the hearings and the people.  The accused people who were facing grave consequences.  You could see the fear, you could hear the anguish and helplessness.  These were people trapped in something that thrived on dehumanizing all involved.  But what I saw demonstrated by the people waiting to hear their fate was not hatred but caring.  Often the caring was demonstrated by one person waiting to have their name called, consoling another waiting.  These were mostly people at the bottom of our society.  They had extraordinarily little in terms of money and knew a lot about pain and suffering.  Every day as I observed, I saw acts of human kindness that touched my heart. 

I know there is bad in the world, and I will continue to write my murder mysteries regarding some of that bad; but mostly I see good.  Maybe my viewpoint is more delusional than anything else.  Disregarding all the headlines and breaking news, I choose to believe in human goodness.  I’ve seen it demonstrated by people in the worst possible circumstances and trust it is a quality we all share, even if reluctantly.  We are all different and we are all the same.  Be kind.

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Soon after this post is published I will record the post to a new podcast. Also in the process of recording past blogs, this will take a while; but soon should have a good size backlog. If interested you can listen on Spotify or Google Podcast and a few other places where podcasts are available. Thanks.