Stop the Hate

I’ve discovered that there are as many people that want to save the world per capita in the PACS department as the Business School. In my Organizational Behavior course, we had to write our own obituary or retirement speech. The vast majority of obits were about accomplishments having a net positive on the world. No one wanted to make money for the sake of making money.

I personally don’t want to save the world. I don’t think it’s a reachable goal. I’d be happy to live out my years running a sandwich shop in New Hampshire surrounded by a loving family and close friends. That’s an aside to my major point: people are good, so please don’t judge them for making different life choices or believing different things.

Liberals think they are the tolerant ones. Yet how many liberals do you know who think it’s a character flaw to be conservative? I bet the number is more than one. At a recent Jewish holiday dinner, I held my tongue as adults around my expressed this sentiment.

I grew up with the perspective that Conservatives were boogeymen. Freshmen year of college, living with Charlie was my major first exposure to radically different political beliefs than my own. At the time, it wasn’t a trivial matter to have a Republican roommate!

Exposure is the best method of hate reduction. Once the hate is broken, we can discuss the issues and lay out our assumptions and arguments with an open mind. We hate what we don’t understand, and what we can’t put a friendly face to.

Anything peaceful. Can we all agree to that? As long as someone is acting in a peaceful way, there’s no reason to judge him negatively. Hate is ill-founded, and it’s a burden that will weigh you down. Same goes with envy (plug for my favorite Econtalk episode).

N.B. I’m writing this directly after a fairly vitriolic post I wrote against the State. There’s no contradiction here. It’s ok to hate institutions that make things worse for everyone.