imagine a world without hate

​I had the occasion to share an email with filmmaker Michael Moore recently. Mike was opining that the Democrats need to toughen up in their ongoing battle with the GOP during Joe Biden’s presidency.
While I understand his frustration, I told him I honestly believe that the U.S. – and indeed the world – would be better off if a certain four latter word was banned from the lexicon. That word is hate.
When you have Republicans hating Democrats… and Democrats hating Republicans… nothing good can ever transpire. What’s required is a hate-free environment where, even if you’re not thrilled with the other guy’s agenda, you sure as hell don’t hate him because of it. And when hate doesn’t overwhelm the conversation, the door opens to being able to sit down in the same room and start a dialogue, one in which you can explore your differences and, ideally, wrestle a compromise out of it. But if hate pervades everything, you simply can’t get to that stage.
Many years ago, I told my two sons we were going to ban the word hate from our daily discourse. I explained my reasoning and while it took a bit of work (old habits die hard), eventually we got to the point where that word simply never arose anymore.
Hey, it ain’t foolproof… but it’s a start.

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