Loathe Thy Neighbor

Love continues to enjoy excellent public relations. What other word so grossly stage-managed for private gain could remain so uncontestably a star? Freedom, perhaps, but no other. Love is the most sought-after emotion of all. When we are in it, we feel uniquely at one with the world. And we say, "Love is wonderful!" When we are out of it, we feel coldly isolated from the world. And we say, "That wasn't Love. That was a sick relationship."

If we wind up winners, we call it Love. If we wind up losers, we know it couldn't have been Love. In that way, though we may lose at love, Love never loses. In this country it is the one extreme that we are all encouraged to be in favor of.

We love Love. And with reason. To cease valuing it is to cease valuing ourselves--because true Love, as we learned to dream of it at an early age, is to meet, at a memorable moment in time, someone who is (depending on choice): delicate, strong, beautiful, handsome, charming, debonair, submissive, protective, supportive, commanding, easy to listen to, easy to talk to, who does as we wish without a word being spoken, and to whom we are so attuned that if one begins a sentence the other can very often finish it. At which point our eyes meet to exchange promises of perpetual union. Not too difficult, because what we are staring into, really, is a mirror. For true Love is the dream of finding the mirror image of one's self writ large. Usually of the opposite sex, although these days that decision is optional.

There is little problem today in finding one's mirror image. Anonymity is not that hard to duplicate. The problem is to keep the mirror from developing flaws. Once married, mirror images have a disquieting tendency to change. They age, put on weight, become critical, begin to sag, stop having anything to say and--most unnerving--start making demands!

The fallacy in true Love is that it ceases to be true once you've got to share it with somebody else. Love, in the preferred reading of the word, means he or she who seeks you out, places a cool hand to your forehead, whispers, "There, there, it's going to be all right," and proceeds to arrange your life so that it is no longer necessary to be a grownup. There is no more profound disillusion than that of an outmaneuvered mirror image who finds itself forced to place the first cool hand.

There are, of course, other interpretations of the word. There are children, for example, who are known to define Love as that which brings pain, because every time the word is used on them they get pinched. There are other children who understand Love to be an item of barter--loaned out to them when they behave, called in when they misbehave.

Definitions pile on definitions. Love is the word people use when they want to manipulate you ("If you really loved me, you wouldn't do this to me"), possess you ("I love you so much I could eat you alive"), evade you ("OK, OK, I love you"), betray you ("I'm doing this only because I love you"), integrate you ("We march on you with love") and kill you ("On behalf of the freedom-loving peoples of the world, we have today bombed--").

Love has swept all other emotions before it. Every act that we commit, we commit in its name. Except the sex act. It is only in recent years that we have stopped denying that Love and sex have any connection at all. In the past, one sowed one's wild oats and then settled down in marriage to the girl one loved but did not touch for she was clean. On occasion, between procreational stopovers, one would sneak off to women whom one thought of as not clean, returning home drenched in guilt and satisfaction. If exposure followed, after a decent period of mourning, one would be accepted back into the fold on a probationary basis lasting a lifetime, and as a leprous example to the children, who were taught: "That's the way men are." The untold story of Dagwood's submissiveness is that Blondie knows where the body's buried.

However, woman's awakened interest in equal rights aroused her slumbering interest in equal fun. To many women, the insights of psychoanalysis were just what they needed to uplift sex, take it out of the darkness and subject it to the healthful glow of the American home. Today Love and sex are increasingly interconnected, thus establishing for Love a foothold into an enclave where it never dared trespass before: the marriage bed. Love, the imperialist, crushing all peripheral drives in its path, swallowed sex and made it clean. It is now an appealing athletic exercise, not in the least suggestive. One no longer sneaks off to sow wild oats. A surfeit of oats is provided at home, with husband and wife studying their his-and-her marriage manuals, checking to be sure that every step is shared together, so that in the end it will all come out even. Officially satisfied beyond their wildest acceptable dreams, husband and wife lie coolly embraced, inexplicably thinking about whips and chains.

There can be only one reason why Love, in whatever incarnation, does not work. It is because we are in terror of it, fearful of its power, ever mindful that it knows no bounds. Love stands alone, a colossus in the emotional spectrum, escalating wherever it pleases because there is no other emotion that can keep it in check. (Little wonder we try our mightiest to not get involved!) What is called for is a redress of the balance, and that can only be done by recognizing that, like it or not, we must bring back Hate. Only the increased support of Hate as a viable alternative can force Love back into a more reasonable posture.

Hate has always been in close competition with Love, and it is only in recent years that we have chosen to build up one at the expense of the other.

According to Greek myth, Love and Hate were at one time brothers. Love thought Hate was paranoid, but treated him with understanding. Hate thought Love was effeminate, but let him live--though always keeping a careful watch on him, because Hate was convinced Love was out to get him. Love laughed at what he insisted was Hate's projection onto Love of his own subconscious desires. "It is you who are out to get me!" Love beamed, "but I love you nonetheless!" And he tried to embrace Hate, who pulled away from him furiously, crying, "Get away from me, you fairy!"

Love liked to build things. Hate was only interested in tearing down. "All you are is against!" Love accused Hate one day. "Aren't you for anything?" "I'm for lots of things," grumbled Hate. "Name one," challenged Love. "I'm for private property," said Hate. "So am I," said Love, "so long as we share it with our neighbors." "I'm for freedom of the individual," said Hate. "So am I," said Love, "so long as we don't trespass on the rights of others." "I'm for minding my own business," said Hate. "So am I," said Love, "so long as we don't use it as an excuse to ignore (concluded on page 175)Loathe thy Neighbor(continued from page 113) the anguish of the downtrodden." "I'm for destroying my enemies!" said Hate. "I'm for winning them over," said Love. "You can't change human nature," said Hate. "Man was put on earth to perfect his species," said Love. "Man was made to conquer," said Hate. "Man can improve! Man can better himself!" insisted Love. "I hate to hear that humanistic hogwash!" cried Hate. "I don't know why I haven't done away with you before now, but that's an easily corrected oversight!" But before Hate could deliver the fierce blow intended, Love took him in his arms: "I know this isn't the real you!" And he hugged Hate to him tightly, trying to squeeze him into gentleness. And the more Hate struggled, that much more did Love tighten his embrace, smiling euphorically and saying, "You know you're just trying to make an impression." After a while, Hate fell silent in Love's arms. "Now, tell me you don't feel better!" Love laughed--and released Hate, who crumpled to the ground, dead.

"He is not dead," smiled Love. "He is only asleep. In any event, I will always keep his name alive in my heart." And from that day to this, Love, in memory of departed Hate, has pillaged, ravaged, destroyed and conquered; and having conquered, has tried, in the name of Love, to better man's lot and to encourage him to perfect himself.

Is it not extraordinary how this myth, more than two centuries old, has still so much to say to us today? Hate, as in the myth, has been smothered as a public emotion. Though we may use Hate every day in our lives, we never give it the credit that's due; so that in those situations where Hate has triumphed, we always confuse it for something else. We think, instead, that courage has triumphed, or that justice has triumphed, or that moderation has triumphed--when all along, without a single soul knowing, it's been Hate. When Hate is allowed to drop its cover, we will, at last, be able to evaluate it for what it is, unlike today, when we can only evaluate it for what it says it is.

Husbands who say to wives, "What are these bills for: $24.95, $12.95, $10.95, $6.95 and $2.95?" will simply be able to say, "I hate you!"

Wives who say to husbands, "Are you ever going to get the nerve to ask them for a raise, or do you want me to do it for you?" will finally be able to say, "I hate you!"

Children who say to parents, "Next door they have a swimming pool, a color TV and a new car, and we don't," will, wondrously, be able to say, "I hate you!"

Parents who say to children, "Do you know what the cost of food is today? If you don't eat it for lunch, you'll have it for dinner!" will, ecstatically, be able to say, "I hate you!"

A gradual opening toward Hate in our society is certain to signal the decline of alienation. Alienation is the weapon we use to defend ourselves against the suffocation of Love and the re-emergence of Hate. Being afraid of one and ashamed of the other, we withdraw into a feeling-less shell. A revitalized middle-class acceptance of Hate will shatter the shell forever. How good it will be to feel again!

When blacks can stop the pretense of Love and nonviolence and say, "I hate you and if you strike me you're dead and all I want is everything you've got!"

When whites can stop the pretense about property values, neighborhood schools and upholding the morale of the police and say, "I hate you and you are not going to move another inch forward and I dare you to knock this cattle prod off my shoulder"--then and only then will the balance of Love and Hate be back in proper relationship--and we can take steps to create a dialog.

But what if the unfortunate occurs--and history teaches us that the unfortunate invariably occurs--and sex war, generational war and racial war develops? What are we to say of Hate then? Well, we can say: "None of us wanted this, but we've got to stop them somewhere." In any event, nothing brings enemies closer together than the exhaustion of their mutual hate. One of the unexplained attributes of violence is that it transmits feelings of closeness (one reason, perhaps, for its growing popularity). We feel closer to no people than those we've crushed in war: We feed them, clothe them, educate them and marry them. Hate, remarkably enough, may be the only realistic path to a truly integrated America.

Only when Hate regains its legitimacy in the emotional spectrum will the aggressive nature of Love be properly contained. With Hate restored to its rightful place, and Love restricted to its rightful place, who knows but that we will, once again, have a way of telling them apart.