There is one choice, 3 votes for Dreamer and Thinker's debate

is love one's enemies possible? if so, what does loving them do to end hatred?

  • Love Thy Enemy

    Love thy enemy

    Possibly, you could say that has been the battle cry of many whom aim to eliminate hatred and all the destruction that is a reaction of it from this world. Those who shout that out in protest of injustices are alike not from religion, race, gender, or any other category besides that of people who genuinely embrace the ideal of what measures need to be taken to produce a peaceful society, or at least one that is better than the current state. 
Of course, when one utters that simple statement of loving those whole inflict harm upon them, problems emerge. It has been debated since humans began to inquire about the environment and other people around them, of whether or not humans are born either good or evil. By debating this, we not only engage in an activity that promotes degrading of another’s opinion, but we make the assumption that the human race is solely placed out in black and white. Either we are brought into this world with the mission of bringing love or we find that at our core there is a need to indulge in acts of hatred.     Neither of those two philosophies are correct, that is at least how I see it to be. We do naturally have instincts, most notably the instinct of survival. The study of evolution has shown the ways that organisms adapt to environmental changes so that they can prolong their species. The same can be said for humans. We find ourselves in a situation that needs change to overcome obstacles, and the strong will prevail by making those necessary changes while the weak submit to defeat. This theory can then be applied to the actions humans take in the realms of emotions. When we feel threatened, an array of emotions can be experienced. We can fear for our lives, break down emotionally, or defend ourselves. This idea goes for any circumstance a human is placed in. Because of this, I find that humans instinctively have emotions of erotic pleasures, or love, as well as emotions of hatred that promote violence and destruction. It depends on what situations we are placed in, and how we have been taught since we began to learn, whether or not the emotions of love or hate show. Since nurturing those instincts are the actual cause of things like war or racism, humans cannot blame their unscrupulous actions on how they we wired from birth. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in a sermon of his, “there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.”
This presents another problem of what actions are considered moral and those which are consider morally iniquitous. We can thank religion for creating standards which most civilizations apply to try to understand the difference between the two. Ultimately, we find that things which inflict physical and mental harm on another person or group shall be deemed morally wrong. But this doesn’t always hold true, especially in government. Unfortunately, as some have nurtured the emotion of love, others have escalated the emotion of greed and corruption. When you allow someone who has enhanced their vision to see through a lenses that looks out only for themselves through materialistic goals to become the leader of a country or religion, you allow for immoral deeds to seep through the cracks that every society has. Since no civilization has ever been Utopian, then it is easy for someone to dissipate all laws consider just and replace them with regulations that promote themselves and those allied with them, rather than helping everyone as a whole. This idea can be applied to the Civil Rights movement that occurred in the United States. This is not to say that our president or government had those in charge who were morally corrupt, but for a long time we allowed for silence and ignorance of the grave injustices happening to those from a different nationality other than Caucasian. This ignorance and prejudice was the perfect breeding ground for a society that endorsed actions that allowed for these injustices to continue. Although not everyone can be blamed for this horrible situation in our nation’s history, those who choose to not partake in the racism but at the same time did not speak out against how it was morally wicked were part of the problem. This shows how not only hatred will multiply even more hatred, but how unawareness will produce even more actions not being taken to end epidemics of debauched rulings. 
When these ideals that express hatred are allowed to exist, they cannot construct a society that supports the furthering of beliefs of peace. You cannot expect for peace to be present at a moral level if there is constant uproar of defying those standards of morality. To stop this, there is only one clear solution. That is to love and forgive those who inflict harm upon us. This is obviously easier said than done. To love anyone in any circumstance, whether they be a friendly neighbor or someone who treats you with hatred because of your beliefs, ideals, and/or actual self, takes an incredible amount of personal strength and perseverance. This path of love and forgiveness is a difficult route, but one that must be taken if we want to live in a world of harmony. The emotion of hatred itself will never be dissipated from society because it is a sensation that we are all born with and have the ability to feel. The only way to prevent it from showing is to adapt an idea that loving each other will stop that emotion of hatred from enhancing and then leading to even more acts of devastation. In the wise words of President Lincoln “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” we see how the power of love and forgiveness can strike down acts of hatred. When we return hatred with love we end the vicious cycle of hatred multiplying to even more amounts of hatred and chaos. Just as darkness cannot make a blanket of blackness become light, adding more hatred cannot terminate the original hatred. Light will remove darkness and love will obstruct hatred.
    100%  Voted for by Dreamer and Thinker, Theatre Mormon, pnktrky.
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