I think hate politics is a form of civil war. It is a targeted marginalization of one section of citizens by those who enjoy hegemony. Under such conditions a community or section of citizenry is demonized and rendered second order citizenry using media and propaganda for political ends. It is one sided war raged by the ruling benches that enjoy all power that seems to use those powers to crush a section of its own citizen. Such crushing of a section of citizenry is growing globally. How do we understand this exclusion and ostracism of a section who are also citizens of the same country? How can such politics be not anti-constitutional and smack totalitarianism of the Nazi era?
This politics puts a section of its own people in a state of being a resident non-citizen. Such a person is called a Denizen. Denizenship is less favourable status than citizenship. Often the state marginalizes its own citizens on real or imagined pretexts that almost render them quasi criminals in the eyes of other citizens. It appears often in these situation that the state derives its unaccountable power under the cover of religious or cultural nationalism. Unfortunately, we cannot discern that the state that is using unaccountable power is itself trying to call this targeted groups to accountability.
In recent days, Elon Musk pointed out that we have suicidal empathy going on in the US . He says we need to have empathy for civilization and not commit to cilvilizational suicide. It is loathsome to say the least to think that caring for others would end a civilization. Musk goes on to declare that the fundamental weakness of West is empathy. Evangelical Christians in USA are beginning to affirm that empathy is bad. It is said that the debate has also arisen among the Catholics of USA with JD Vance using the medieval Ordo Amoris to justify policies of President Trump on immigration and foreign aid. Vance thinks that it is morally just to privilege the needs of one’s family, community and the nation over those of the rest of the world. He attracted a rebuke from the Pope but several thinkers lauded his thinking . The critique of empathy inflicted by the right wing is not to find an alternative to altruism. It is aiming to cancel empathy all together. This then assists the ruling benches to define the enemy and crush the same for political and economic ends.
We seem to have reached a moment that has set aside and forgotten the golden rule and find meaning and positivity in hate. We have transubstantialized hate. Its negative dimensions are thought as positive and good for society. The golden rule of empathy and care has been replaced by the law of the jungle. We seem to be sliding in to Hobbsian state of nature. Expression of empathy is seen as weakness and we are can see how Nietzsche’s superman being chased by those who enjoy hegemony. When we forget empathy, we do not just dehumanize the other, we dehumanize ourselves. With empathy being a casualty, we are fast descending into societies of mass suffering and death. Hence, it becomes a important question to ask: Are we becoming heartless and cruel to our own other brothers and sisters who also a bona fide citizens of our country? It seems that the rise of the right wing governments are incapacitating us from recognizing, feeling and responding to the suffering of the other.
Right Rev Mariann Budde delivered a message on January 21 2025 from the pulpit of Washington National Cathedral that spoke truth to power. This message went viral where she appealed to the President Trump who had just assumed his office, the second time to be merciful to the people who were then in fear. Right Rev, Budde rightly saw how the new regime will see empathy as sin. In his book , The End of Empathy: Why the White Christians Stopped Loving their Neighbours? John W. Crompton indicates that it was when the white Christians became wealthy that they gradually forgot their suffering neighbour. He sees it as an instance of politics driving religion rather than religion is driving politics .
May be we too have the challenge to ask: where is the place of Karuna in our society? Why have we not gone tired of hating the demonized and minoritized other in our country? Showing karuna seems to have almost become toxic in our country. Where is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam? We need to enkindle mercy/ karuna to fight the reigning politics of hate. Excess of hate is never good for us. But somehow we have come to love hate politics for a long time. We seem to come to love to hate. How are we going to allow karuna and compassion die in our society? Just as the right wing is using Christianity to justify their political excesses, we too find that Hinduism is being used to legitimize politic of hate in our country. Hate is definitely ungodly but is proclaimed to be godly to the extend some people are ready to kill evoking the name of God by raising slogans. This is why it appears that in India, it is politics that drives Hinduism and not vice versa.
What will happen to a world that suffers empathy deficit? What will happen to India that is suffering karuna deficit? What is the state of human rights and human dignity in such a world? Will human life become disposable making way for the whims and fancies of the rich and the powerful ? Empathy, mutual respect , karuna/compassion are very profoundly human. We cannot simply live our life from within. We are addressed by the other. We are called by the other. We become what we are not just in our eyes but in the eyes of the other. It is the recognition of the other or the call to responsibility by the other that makes us authentically human. The existential question of authenticity seems to be returning to haunt us in this age of empathy deficit or karuna deficit . With empathy deficit America seems to be becoming unChristian in the name of Christianity and India to seems to becoming unHindu in the name of Hinduism. This is appears to be so because it is politics that drives religion and not religion that drives politics in these societies.
