Some ideas about hate, suffering, evil, terrorism and anti-semitism from a Christian Science Monitor forum on global issues. To read the entire thread, click here.

The initial question:

CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN TO ME THE RATIONALE OF WHY,WHERE, AND HOW ANTI-SEMITISM STARTED? WHAT DID THE JEWS DO TO CAUSE THIS HATRED? by MAROONKNIGHT

Response:

As a child I heard the Jews called "the chosen people." With ghettos and genocide going back hundreds of years, I remember thinking "Chosen for WHAT, for suffering!?" Perhaps the answer to that question is yes. Please hear me out.

During the Bosnian war my husband & I began to talk about the nature of evil. What was it, we wondered, that could make grandmothers wish to gouge the eyes out of the neighbor's kids? Saying that they had lost their own children or grandchildren seemed no explanation at all. Why wouldn't suffering the unbearable loss of a child make them doggedly determined not to inflict the same horror on another woman? Slowly it began to dawn on me that that question itself carried at least a partial explanation for evil.

My theory is this. They didn't/couldn't suffer their unbearable loss so they are trying to pass it on.

I have come to believe loss distills into compassion only when it has been fully experienced. This process dissembles a person at every level; there is often tremendous physical pain; dreams and hopes and goals are abandoned or restructured. One's faith, if it existed previously, frequently feels insufficient for one's new situation. For longer than the person can bear there is an emptiness, and then with imperceptable slowness, a new larger self appears. This new self weeps for neighbor children as well as one's own.

This transformation is difficult for all humans. It requires tremendous courage, which is another word for love. (Cour comes from the French for heart - courage being a fully funded heart.)

When a loss occurs to a person who has not been sufficiently encouraged, or when it happens in a culture that frames extended grief or suffering as weakness, the risk of evil increases. The impact of their loss has filled the individual with sufficient energy to destroy a persona. Unable to apply it to themselves, it bounces around inside them like St. Elmo's fire. Thermodynamics speaks of the properties of energy, that it can be transferred from entity to entity, that it decays into heat. Interestingly, acts of revenge or destruction are often described in terms of fire or heat.

In the moment that the murderer is executed in Texas, or the stone hits the Israeli soldier's face, or the bomb shatters the toddlers jaw, there is a flash, a flush of heat in the one who is passing on a grief they cannot bear. Of course, the transfer is incomplete. Rarely does a single act of revenge result in full relief. Still, upon commiting a hateful act, the suffering of the perpetrator is eased as the energy spreads from their body until it reaches the body of someone who is either funded to feel it, or so unable to pass it on that in time it works a transformation on them against their will.

For centuries the Jewish people were the great wire where suffering went to ground. But that time seems to have passed - these days, Israeli soldiers shoot back at Arab boys. The chosen people have resigned, the rest of us are going to have to learn to process our own grief or risk its transmutation to contagious evil.

So, what is there to do? Well, for myself I take the following policy. When faced with loss, I grieve. Sometimes I grieve for losses that touch me only peripherally.

I answer statements of grief with a simple "yes". ("I miss him" "yes" "We were going to go to Holland" "yes")

I refrain from bright-siding people. I do not say "Holland will still be there, you can go with someone else" or "It could have been worse, thank goodness she went quickly."

I trust that children can survive gentle truth, and do what I can to model compassionate and heart supporting behavior - "Grandma is gone from this world forever, you will probably miss her most at Christmas when the chair she used to sit on is empty. Sometimes you will smell places that remind you of her house and it might make your throat and heart hurt a bit." or "You loved Mittens very much. Mittens loved you. Remember how she would rub against your legs. Remember how soft she was. Yes...yes...yes." by THENWHEN

Hi
An interesting theory, but how does it explain the hatred of people who have experienced no loss? What is their excuse? Bin Laden grew up a pandered wealthy child, and most of the 9/11 suicide bombers grew up in affluent homes -- none of them had suffered significant loss. by SNOWY29

That's a good question, Snowy. Of course, I don't have the answer, but a couple things spring to mind. I suspect that one need not experience loss directly to become filled with its transformative energy.

The first thing that springs to mind is the way emotional energy spreads like pond circles. On the positive side, a kind word and a smile to the checker at line in the grocery can cause customers in line behind you to have a better experience with as the clerk passes the smile on. The more intense the interaction the further it spreads - a smile might pass only 1 or 2 customers back, a really profound compliment might touch customers for the rest of the day.

This energy is quickly disconnected from its source, but continues to have an effect until it dissipates or is met with an opposing energy.

The second is that affluence is no shield for suffering. In some cases it can make things worse ("look at everything you have! you have no right to feel sad"). By definition, a sheltered childhood means less exposure to emotional complexity, less familiarity with moral ambiguity and therefore can make the individual more susceptible to outside influences as they mature.

It seems to me that there are certain types of personalities and certain times in everyone's life when they are more susceptible to emotionally intense contact. People in their teens and early 20s seem particularly sensitive to strong emotionally generated arguments.

Young people grapple with forming their own world view. This nascent philosophy usually has less ambiguity and complexity - it is common and easy for teens to see issues as black or white, good or evil. Teenagers have limited experience to draw from when assessing the validity of a moral position. If during this period they are exposed to someone who is vibrating with unresolved suffering, it is easy for them to begin resonating in sympathy.

They can then pass this second-hand suffering on to others as perpetrators of violent or evil acts, or as recruiters themselves.

So, again what can each of us do? If hateful acts fill us with resonating hate and thoughts of revenge we are acting as conductors for evil. We find ourselves terse with our children, or curt and distrustful of strangers. We may respond rudely to people whose ideas or questions make us uncomfortable.

If, on the other hand, we allow an exposure of evil to go to ground within ourselves (by authentically grieving for all those involved, by redoubling our efforts at compassion and kindness with ourselves and others) we have done our part to dissipate and counteract the behavior that disturbs us.

My father had Zoroastrian leanings. He would say, "imagine the world in a nearly equal struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Each evil act goes on one side of a scale, each good act on the other. The universe is waiting for one side or the other to win and then it will be game over. The scales are so delicately balanced that the act of even one soul can tip the outcome. It doesn't so much matter what side you pick, as long as you do the best you can for your side. So if you are going to be evil, be really really evil, jump up and down on your side of the scale, cheat if you can find a way. But if you choose the side of good then let your goodness be as untainted as you can, be a clear voice, a strong weight, never stop working to refine your understanding and as you know better, act better." by THENWHEN