H is for Hatred, Healing, and Hope. And Housing.

 

Hatred. What a word! Filled smackeroo-blurdy with power, and evil.

Let's take a quick look at how hatred is born. What is there in our human condition that leads us to hate? I would contend that, overwhelmingly, it's fear. Fear and loathing. In Las Vegas. Or is it RotoVegas?

Seriously, though: Fear leads either to submission: enslaving oneself to fear. That's an all-too common reaction, and not to be desired.

Fear can, very occasionally, lead to questioning: is the fear rational? Is it phobic? What can we do to cure ourselves of fear? To save ourselves from fear?

Or fear can lead to blind action: the active desire to strike out at what is feared, and to smash it into oblivion. To hatred.

How this latter kind of reaction comes about is interesting, and I will look at it with a new feature called a Noodle. See below. But right now let's simply accept that we are dealing with a pandemic of fear, and Covid is only a tiny part of it. Let's also accept that we have always been in thrall to fear: it's an evolutionary necessity. If you're not afraid of the rhinoceros in the undergrowth, then you become very dead, very quickly. 

But if you hate what you fear, and you have a keyboard in front of you, or a gun in your hand, you can master your fear - or demonstrate to those you wish to impress that you have the courage to Do Something About Your Shared Fear / Hatred.

We have seen this at home in New Zealand: the hatred that lead some people to shout "hurrah"  when the coward took guns into places of worship and shot 50 people that he was afraid of to death.

He hated, and probably still does. The people who shared his Anti-Social Media posts hated, and still - probably - do. 

But that was the most visible example of hatred in action. There are thousands more small actions that people take that are proscribed by fear and hatred that we see so often that they become invisible. Anti-Social comments in Social media, for example.

It's far easier, and much more comfortable, to see them at a remove. Which is why I look at the USA to see what hatred is like. As with everything in the USA, hatred is open, exaggerated, and impervious to criticism. On our media we see it in the casual killings of Black folk, in the cruel attacks against women, especially in the un-social media. In the indifferent justice system that imprisons people for years when they're innocent, black, and male. And recently female -  at far larger numbers than in the past. We see hatred that pursues people who have "Paid Their Debt" to society by being incarcerated who then, upon release, cannot vote. Cannot live with friends or family if they live in Public Housing. Cannot apply for many, many classes of employment.

And we see it in the race-and-fear based mass shootings.

We see it in their magazines and books, and we hear it in their Podcasts and on their hate-based radio shows and cable television shows. Fear, and Hatred.

And yes: If we can see it so clearly there, then we can be assured that it's a reality here. At home. In New Zealand. Just down the road, or even next-door.

So how do we stop the fear, and Heal the hatred? I could suggest religion, but experience teaches me that religion divides as much as it unites: no religion is universal, but most religious adherents believe their particular  religion is the only "right" one. 

My response to how we handle Hatred would be that of any humanist: the Golden Rule. If we all learned to live with, and to follow the precepts of the Golden Rule, then we would start making strong steps to a social system that works without discrimination, without fear, without anger, without hatred.

Always do to all others that which you would have them do to you.

All others. Not just all other white folk. Or brown, black, or red-necked folk. All people. Not just the people who were born into our society. All genders. Not just the one which you claim as your own. 

That way, we can have Hope. And Hope means that we will work towards a better tomorrow. That we will all share the burden. Hope means that...

Yes. I know. It's all a little naive. Sorry. Foolish of me to think that hope for a better tomorrow is desirable.

Now, Housing. The housing shortage in international. The world's booming population requires shelter, and we are of accord when we say that housing is a basic human right.

Compared to many parts of the world most Kiwis live in luxury. Amd compared to some parts of the world, our housing is a disgrace. Einstein knew about relativity.

I read that the Chinese are capable of building a two-bedroomed house for $4,000 (US, probably). They print them. 

Can anyone see any reason why we couldn't / shouldn't do the same? Surely a two-bedroomed home, no matter how basic or temporary, is infinitely better than putting a family into a motel for months. Sure, there would be infrastructure costs: sewage, power, fresh water, roads, schools.  But as families fight their way out of poverty, they could stay in the same neighbourhood while better homes are built. 

$4,000 for a two-bedroomed house? Even if it lasts for only five years before being re-cycled, it has to be worth it.

Mangakino, the mighty metropolis and tourists' dream destination on the Waikato River, was built in the early 1950s to house the workers who built the hydro-electric dams that generate a lot of the electricity that warm our houses today.

Their homes were temporary. Designed to last ten to fifteen years, tops.

And many are still in use now. 70-years old buildings, warm, dry, and oh-so temporary.

I spent my first 7 years in a house like this.

And a $4,000 printed home can be upgraded into a $30,000 printed home. Warm. Dry. Comfortable. A better roof over someone's head than one made by Toyota.

All we have to do is get the speculators and land-banking sharks out of the game. Our social history is too valuable to leave in the hands of jackals and bottom-feeders.

QUOTES FROM HEMINGWAY

Every man's / person's life ends the same way. It is only the details about s/he lived and how s/he died that distinguishes one person from another. 

The first draft of anything is shit.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. 

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

NOODLE:

Hatred and fear are learned responses. We are taught to fear the "other". We are taught to hate the "other".

As a boy I consumed comics by the barrow-full. War comics. I learnt, in the 1950s, that the only good German was a dead one, and the Japanese people were sub-human. I learnt that Japanese-made products were inferior, and that one should only buy or desire English goods. American cars were quite good, but too ostentatious.

I watched movies by the score, and loved Westerns. Oh, how I cheered when the Comanche savages fell dead from their horses. How I thrilled when the black servant was beaten for daring to answer back. Thwack! That taught him.

I grew up in a town with a high Maori population. I "knew" that being born "half-caste" was a curse, and I "knew" that Maori were unhygienic, and that they bred like flies. None of this was racist, of course: it was just stuff you knew. Not that you ever said anything to your Maori playmates and class-mates. They weren't like that: they, somehow, were different.

Into the 60s I read books about American gangsters and how a man with a gun was a simple and complete answer. I read Westerns that taught me that a man with a gun can overcome all evil foes. I read comic books about Supermen and Batmen that taught me that violence was an easy answer.

And the Viet-Nam war was good, justifiable, and a proper use of resources I learned that the use of Nukes in warfare was brilliant and bonzer, and the very best soldiers and airmen in the world were Kiwis, closely followed by the always slightly inferior Australians.

And I never questioned any of it.

I have now seen hundreds, perhaps even thousand, more films and TV shows that show me that crimes are best resolved by a man with a gun. Yay Schwarzenegger! Yay Mel Gibson! Yay James Bond / Jason Bourne!

Until I stopped. And thought: hang on.  This is how racism happens. This is how hatred grows. This is how the myth of the man with a gun (Yes, Lee Child / Jack Reacher: I'm thinking about you.) who will come along and cure everything came into being.

I was brainwashed. Until, about 25 years ago, someone introduced me to critical thinking. It was John Haines, a chap of great honesty and wonderfulness. RIP.

It's astonishing how thinking for yourself can change your life.

PS:     I still love a Western, and good shooty book, and a movie with car chases and explosions, But oh, how I loathe Jack Fucking Reacher. He wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so bad.