The Logic of Hatred

The nation is our self-enlargement. We are pitifully small individuals who can’t assert ourselves in this world of competition and strife. We want to be seen but are invisible and the nation is our substitute.

It is frequently said that the nation satisfies our need to belong being our extended family supplying warmth and love. But if that was essential, why not extend it even more and include the whole mankind in our embrace? No, we couldn’t do that because there would be no one left to assert ourselves against.

The essence of a nation is not inclusion but exclusion. To be better, stronger, bigger, more beautiful, more admirable, a comparison is needed; something to measure against.

There are two ways to excel: we get better or they get worse. One way is as efficient as the other. If we belittle the others, we will grow ourselves, and the more we detest them the smaller they seem. Hatred is not an unfortunate outgrowth of nationalism, it’s a natural consequence.

Mainstream society laments the outbursts of bigotry and division, and rightly so, but the source of it is found within itself. Nationalism or patriotism is the ideology of our time, standing strong when more complicated systems have failed. It’s encouraged and supported from the government and down and from the grassroots and up, so how can we blame those who stretch it too far?

Patriotism is the love of one’s extended self and the consequent exclusion of what is beyond. If my country comes first, the others must come last. If we are to win, they must lose. So let’s make them lose. Let’s ridicule them, let’s trample on them, let’s hate them. Feel how we grow, feel how you grow. Feel how you become something when they become nothing. It feels so good.