Life, Love, and Liberty

“Our topic tonight is hate. Yet so far I’ve spoken about anger rather than hate. One might suppose that what I’ve said about one will apply mutatis mutandis to the other; but I think there is an important difference. Anger is often justified; but hate, I think, is never justified, at least against a person.

Where does the difference lie? Well, we can be angry with a person and still wish that person well; after all, we are often angry with those we love, and we do not stop loving them while we are angry with them. But we cannot hate a person and still wish that person well. I think this makes hate morally problematic in a way that anger is not. For I accept Aristotle’s conception of happiness as a life of virtuous rational activity. Surely we should wish our enemies to be more virtuous and more rational; after all, if they were more virtuous and more rational, they wouldn’t have hijacked two airplanes and sent them crashing into the World Trade Center. Any move, by anybody, in the direction of greater virtue and greater rationality should always be met with approval. But if Aristotle is right about happiness, then to wish for our enemies to be more virtuous and more rational is ipso facto to wish for them to be happier.

I think this must be what such moral teachers as Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha mean when they advise us to wish our enemies well. Obviously we should not wish success to our enemies’ projects; for those projects are evil, and they could not cease to be evil without ceasing to be the projects they are. Hence hatred for those projects is quite in order. But people can always cease to be evil without ceasing to be. If they refuse to cease being evil, we may find it necessary, in self-defense, to make them cease to be; but we should always prefer that our enemies cease being evil. But what is that, but to prefer that our enemies become better people—that they live better, more worthwhile, less destructive, hate-filled lives? And if that is what we ought to prefer, then we ought to wish our enemies well. And while that is compatible with being angry at them, and with killing them if necessary, it is not compatible with hating them.D”

- Roderick Long

You really have to wonder whether some political commentators listen to themselves when they speak.

Case in point: the incredibly monstrous Rush Limbaugh who should really do us all a favor by ceasing to have a talk show.

“You have this stupid pansy little idea that war is bad”

Hat tip to Arthur Silber for this.

Guess I am just a silly pansy who doesn’t understand why lots of death and suffering is really really great rather than something to be avoided.

How could I be so foolish!

Thank you for enlightening me Limbaugh. No, really. You’ve shown me why I could never embrace your perspective on life once again ( :

Being an apologist for torture had already gone a long way towards that. I am not sure whether that commentary or this one is worse. I’ll have to settle on them being of equal horror.