    19

    19

    How Hatred Builds The Walls of Society's Bungalow

    "Frustration turns into hate."

                 Napoleon Duarte, President of

                 El Salvador

    "politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the

    systematic organization of hatreds."

                                Henry Adams

    One more ingredient is necessary to make the notion of the

    enemy click: hatred.  The persistence with which societies offer

    permission to hate is astonishing.  Marxism gives the have-nots

    permission to hate the haves.  Medieval Christianity gave permission

    to hate heathens.  Islam gives permission to hate infidels. Unions give

    permission to hate bosses.  Peace groups give permission to hate

    militarists.  Conservatives give permission to hate liberals.  Even Jesus

    gave permission to frown upon the rich.27  Each culture chooses an

    enemy on which to blame a goodly portion of the earth's evil, and

    turns hatred of that group into a virtue. But from what raw stock is this

    group adhesive distilled?

    A vast number of studies by clinical psychologists like N.H.

    Azrin, R.R. Hutchinson and D.F. Drake show that frustration generates

    rage.  Train a rat to run down a straight tunnel toward a piece of food.

    When it reaches the tunnel's end, it gets to eat.  Then, place a Plexiglas

    barrier in the rodent's path.  When it reaches the transparent obstacle,

    the rat can still see its food, but can no longer reach it.  This is

    frustration.  How does the animal respond?  By going into a fury.  If

    you place a bottle brush next to the plastic barrier, the enraged rat will

    tear the object to pieces.  Give him a smaller cousin, and he will beat

    the heck out of the diminutive beast.28  From these observations, and a

    host of human studies we'll go into later in this book, came one of

    <<  <  GO  >  >>