“All happiness or unhappiness depends solely on the
quality of the object to which we are bound by love.”
Spinoza wrote those words in one of his earliest
works, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. But this morning, I’d like to tweak them a
bit. Here’s my version: “So much happiness or unhappiness depends
solely on the quality of the object to which we are bound by hatred.”
You have to pardon me, but I spent part of the last
couple of days putting the finishing touches on my newest essay, entitled “Spinoza
on Love and Hate.” In my research, it
became clear that of these two emotions, love took the lead role for
Spinoza. But it was also clear that
Spinoza believed that hatred is both more ubiquitous and more important than
most of us would like to believe. I didn’t
have to be convinced. I’ve always
thought that people are in denial when it comes to the prevalence and
profundity of hatred.
Here are some snippets from the sage of
Amsterdam: “It is rarely the case that
men live by the guidance of reason; their condition is such that they are
generally disposed to envy and mutual dislike.” “Men are prone to hatred and
envy, and this is accentuated by their upbringing. For parents are wont to incite their children
to excellence solely by the spur of honor and envy.” “Men are far more inclined
to revenge than to repay a benefit.” “Men are by nature enemies, and even when
they are joined and bound together by laws they still retain their nature.”
All of those words were written more than 300 years
ago. Do they remain true? Or has the arc of the moral universe bent so
far toward justice in the past few centuries that these statements seem
antiquated? Personally, I take some of
those quotations to be a tad exaggerated, but only a tad. It is certainly the case that envy, revenge,
mistrust, bigotry, and violence are alive and well. It is also the case that when Spinoza painted
a portrait of the human condition characterized primarily by insecurity and
competitiveness, he demonstrated how slowly indeed the arc of the moral
universe bends. Just turn on the
television – news, drama, whatever you prefer:
are you likely to see a profile in love or in hatred? Security or fear? Anger or compassion?
Even the voices of “progressivism” right now are
obsessed with their enemies. For a
while, it was the NRA. Then, it was Netanyahu. Now, it’s the xenophobes and the other
bigots. So there you have it – it is not
enough for the progressives to be engulfed by hatred. Now, they have to be hatefully obsessed with
hatred itself.
While I have no idea exactly what the progressive’s obsession
du jour will be tomorrow, I think it is safe to say that it will not be an
object to which they will be bound by love, but rather an object to which they
will be bound by hatred. And needless to
say, the same can be said about their political opponents, who may claim to be
followers of Ronald Reagan, but don’t come close to having the Gipper’s
positive vision of progress. He traded
on hope, whereas his contemporary “disciples” trade on fear. And anger.
Such is life in 2015.
It is difficult to write the above words this
weekend, which should be a time of gratitude.
We all have so much to be thankful for, and it is precisely those things
– the objects that bind us by love, not hatred – that we need to take stock in
more often. As Spinoza argued, hatred is
impossible to avoid altogether, for any time we feel pain, we are prone to
feeling hatred. But at least we can
avoid the more grandiose manifestations of hatred, such as envy and anger, and
we certainly should be able to avoid feeling the kind of inner-rage that seems
to be on the ascendancy today, and not just in the Middle East.
How do we defeat hatred? Only by love. That was Spinoza’s teaching back in the 17th
century, and it remains true today.
This Thanksgiving weekend, please remind yourselves
of the people you love the most, the institutions you love the most, the
artists and writers you love the most, the qualities in yourself you love the
most, the aspects of your planet that you love the most, and the vision of the
future that you love the most. Just for
this one weekend, let yourself be defined by what you cherish, not by who you
fight.
And when you’re making your list, allow me to remind
you not to forget about God. Spinoza,
for all his heresies, would require me to make that point. After all, it was Spinoza – who many take to
be an atheist – who wrote that the love toward God “cannot be stained by the
emotion of envy, nor again by the emotion of jealousy,” and “there is no
emotion directly contrary to this love by which this love can be destroyed.” Accordingly, Spinoza added, our love toward
God “is the most constant of all emotions … and cannot be destroyed except
together with the body.”
I would never say that the belief in God is for
everyone, but I am heartened to say that for those who do believe, the Holy
Name provides an incredibly powerful object of affection. These days, I feel like we’re fortunate
whenever such an object presents itself.
I’ve had enough with all the hatred.
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