Hatred.  What is it?  Why is it?  What tips the human psyche over from frustration and despair to a livid, seething anger—to a place where the only response to all things worthwhile is to kill those who embrace them?   Is it nothing more than another human being voicing the same thoughts, saying the same words?  Is the power of persuasion so convincing to those with so few options for changing their own environment that they give in to radical answers like ‘kill, and to hell with the consequences?”  Unless we want to become like them, we had better find answers.  Unless we are ready and willing to kill one billion or more members of the human race in the hope of eradicating hatred, we had better find answers soon. 

I write from some experience; I have “walked the walk.”  I am not an expert on war, even though I’ve seen it up close and personal. I know the power of bombs and warheads.  I find no joy in killing, even though I contributed to the deaths of many thousands of human beings.  And I find no comfort in poverty, even though I lived far too long in its embrace.  I have also looked into the vacant eyes of despair and found not a whisper of solace there.  Still, I do not know hatred.  But I know we need to defend ourselves with every means at our disposal in order to stop those filled with hatred today.

But what about tomorrow?  Do we have the foresight, the calmness of purpose, and the God-given brains to unscramble this mess, to sort through the debris, and to comb through our own motives in search of lasting answers?  That is more than “talking the talk;” that is facing up to reality, to our own responsibilities and going far beyond the myopic view of those whose complete grasp of the subject is limited to “I would bomb the shit out of them.”

This much we know:  Hatred is not limited to Islamic Jihadist radicals, or to the poor, to the uneducated, or to the desperate.  Osama bin Laden was a billionaire.  Nidal Hasan was a United States Army major, a psychiatrist, who was charged to help the very soldiers he killed wantonly.  Syed Rizwan and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were quiet respected members of their community.  Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother before going to the elementary school at Sandy Hook to kill 20 children and 8 adults.  He was not a Muslim.  

This much we can surmise:  The abundance and the availability of guns is a common factor.  The irresponsible use of them is second factor.  Disrespect for self and others is a third.  The unrepentant willingness to sacrifice all in the name of murder is a fourth.  An irrational assimilation of these factors in the brain is the most compelling factor that is common to them all.  Isolation and brainwashing are factors.  The Stockholm and the Patty Hearst syndromes are likely contributing factors.

Those associations merely come to mind as I write.  Clinical and behavioral psychologists as well as epidemiologists and criminologists should be able to expand on that list with ease.  Where are they, and why haven’t we heard from them?  The public deserves to know something that starts to get to the core of this devastating disease now and on a continuing basis.  If not them, who? And if not now, when?