Have you all noticed that more and more people in this society habitually understand the world with hostility? When you express a different opinion, they call you a lackey of someone, and if you support the rights of a certain group, they label you a traitor. If you advocate for empathy, understanding, and dialogue, they think you are weak, naive, and brainwashed.
These people share a common characteristic: their cognitive abilities are extremely low. Most of them are concentrated in a specific time period, like defective products produced on an assembly line. When it comes to patriotism, they get excited; whoever shouts the loudest represents the deepest love, regardless of what patriotism truly means. When they hear anti-American sentiments, they become ecstatic; whoever acts exaggeratedly is considered impressive, without understanding what exactly should be opposed. They generally have low educational backgrounds, limited life experiences, and lack independent thinking, as if they are single-celled organisms, perhaps unaware of the historical story of "the thief of hooks is executed, the thief of nations is merely a candidate." They bully the weak and bow to the strong. They often shout about destroying the sun and annihilating America, yet they don't dare to help an elderly person who falls on the street. They are eager to label those with differing opinions but do not know how to defend their rights when their own interests are harmed. They only care about their stance in doing things, never minding whether it is logical. They never think about why they live at the bottom, why they work hard all their lives yet remain poor, and they do not realize how an invisible hand is harvesting their lifetime of wealth. They like to follow the crowd, keeping a psychological braid, feeling that only by living in a large collective do they have a sense of security. They believe they are justice itself, yet they do not know they have lived their entire lives in a hate-fueled education, becoming fuel that a small group uses and discards, wasting their sad lives in ignorance.
Today's theme is "hate education"! For example, during a break, you hear a teacher say that they are just that kind of people, unreliable, and the children's expressions show no doubt, just silent nods; or at a family dinner, you hear an elder say those people are inherently insidious, with no rebuttal at the table, only cold laughter in agreement. Then you may already be caught in the chain of hate education.
Hate education is not about hitting people with fists, but about drawing lines with labels; it does not create conflict but rather creates cognitive closed loops. It is a mechanism for systematically instilling hostility towards specific groups' ideologies or values. Its most terrifying aspect is not the spread of the word "hate," but its ability to be passed down through generations, eroding minds and rewriting language and history. It is a malignant transformation under the guise of education, a chronic cognitive plague. In reality, hate is the easiest virus to spread.
Eric Hoffer pointed out in "The True Believer": hate is the most powerful cohesive force for groups. When people love an object, they generally do not seek out their kind, as they are competitors; but when people hate an object, they always seek out their kind and merge into a glowing collective.
The irony of history lies in the fact that having passed today, what comes head-on is "yesterday." Let's take the Soviet Union as an example. The Soviet Union deliberately peddled hate, because the more hate is emphasized, the more willing the people are to pay higher costs and cede more rights, which is the essence of hate education. The narratives of hate education in the Soviet Union mainly took two forms: one is the hatred of external threats, which is the hostility between value systems, targeting the West led by the UK and the US; the other is the hatred of internal enemies, which is the opposition between classes, initially targeting the wealthy class, and later the intellectual class.
In terms of external hate narratives, looking back at the speeches and articles of Soviet members before they seized power, they are filled with praise for America. However, after the Soviet Union successfully seized power, their attitude made a 180-degree turn. From then on, anti-American literature flourished in the Soviet Union. For example, in Gorky's book "In America," the image of Americans is defined as foolish, arrogant, and materialistic, with a penchant for colonialism. In contrast, the image of Soviets has always been hardworking, kind, simple, and peace-loving.
After World War II, the confrontation between the Soviet Union and Western values became even more pronounced. America was portrayed by the Soviet Union as the planner and instigator of World War II, as well as the heir of the Nazis. Soviet leader Malenkov publicly stated that America's aggressive ambitions far exceeded those of Germany and Japan, and that the Soviet Union suffered greatly in World War II. This shared collective memory was fully utilized by the Soviet Union, and patriotism was shaped into a fervent narrative of hate. This narrative of hate is highly aggressive, like a hypersensitive person with extreme self-esteem, where any criticism from abroad is taken as a national hero and patriot, while any praise for foreign countries may be seen as a traitor and a sellout.
Thus, how this narrative of hate expresses patriotism is not important; what matters is hating foreigners. However, this narrative of hate turns patriotism into a performance, where people only need to exhibit such poor acting skills to be recognized as patriots. This brings them reputation, wealth, status, and even power. Conversely, if one is disdainful of displaying such postures, they may be regarded as potential traitors and lose everything. This is the bad money driving out the good.
If a nation is perpetually trapped in hate education, interpreting any actions of other countries as a relentless desire to destroy them, and viewing any criticism from others as the voice of capitalists, then hate may become a black hole, devouring all that is good and continuously distorting people's values, ultimately leading to an inability to distinguish between civilization and barbarism.