Why It Is Important to Choose Love In a World Full of Hate…
Love is healing and empowering when all else fails.
Often, we as humans become so involved in our day-to-day lives and social influences that we perform the norm. People are ingrained to routine and what everyone else values that we become afraid or discouraged of breaking those boundaries. Now in days, the norm has become evident, yet obscured forms of oppression. It is evident in the sense that we observe it through other people but it is obscured because we often do not believe ourselves to be contributing to the oppression nor that we as individuals are experiencing the oppression. We see the social constructs as normal because we are not exposed to environment that differ from our so called values and beliefs. That is where we are mistaken.
Oppression has long been around, we observe it through history and we experience it presently, each and every one of us. The problem is that we are too focused on the indifferences, anything out of the norm. This creates a platform to put the fault on the other and brings rise to hatred, violence, terror, etc. In doing this, we are essentially contributing to the systems of domination and oppression. Maybe it makes us feel better at the moment, maybe we find relief in having others to blame, but in the long run, anything of hatred fails. We will constantly fail if and when we continue through with this hate platform.
How then can we realize that the answer lies within love?
We must implement what bell hooks describes as the love ethic. We need to make the decision to love. In order to achieve this love ethic, hooks explains that we have to acknowledge the “blind spots” and be aware that they exist, we must show our concern for the oppression of others and not just ourselves, we need to express our pains through public spaces, we must emphasize choice, we must learn the truth and be critical of it, and ultimately we must act on choice.
Further, the love ethic can be understood through Zat Rana’s analysis, The Perils of Indifference. In his work, Rana notes how the act of the Holocaust went on for so long because people decided to not do anything about it to eliminate systems of oppression, especially for the surviving victims. The decision of the Nazi’s to discriminate and perform hate crimes on not just Jewish individuals, but those deemed as different from them, was first and foremost how the Holocaust began. For government officials, those in positions of power, even citizens, decided to do nothing for too long. To make no decision at all is worse because one is aware but chooses to ignore them. This would fall in opposition with hook’s love ethic because although it was understood that most were aware of the Holocaust, they chose to put more concern over other issues, such as WWII and the economy. Thus, concern for others’ oppression was possibly part of the reason why the Holocaust lasted so long, until eventually, allies intervened. In essence, all else fails because everyone who did nothing made that choice, in doing so, although subconsciously they chose to hate instead of love. Also, those who did nothing were not critical of the truth, they chose to not act on what they knew, which again, contributes to the oppressive system and enabled the Holocaust to last as long as it did.
Similarly, Dan Pedersen makes an interesting point when he states, “At some point we have to decide that now is okay. Who knows how many more now’s we’re going to have,” which is important when discussing decision-making and choice. The fact that allies finally stepped in to help Holocaust victims, is what led to the end of a long war. It was their choice, at that very moment and times leading up to that moment, that enabled certain individuals to be known as Holocaust survivors. Had the allies not chosen to step in at that very moment, maybe none of the Holocaust victims would have survived and we would not know the brutal and devastating details that we know today. Similarly, if the allies would have decided to make the choice earlier, or anyone in that matter, that it was time to act against the oppression, that it was time to choose love, many more victims might have been able to survive and the damage that was done might have been reversed. The point is that in the choices that we make, we do not know the outcome, but if we choose act out of love today rather than tomorrow, it might not be too late. One second, minute, hour, day, makes a big difference when a love ethic is our choice.
