The Exponential Nature of Hate

Has there ever been a point in human history where the trajectory of future events is more predictable? Given what we now know after witnessing the events of the 20th century, there should not be a single student of such that doesn’t understand the peril of our present catastrophic rise in antisemitism and hatred. The consequences of rising antisemitism are more than apparent in the mounds at Bergen-Belsen and the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. And it wasn’t just Jews and Roma that lost their lives to Nazi evil. Tens of millions of people died. Our entire world was fundamentally reshaped. And we did survive it to come out on top—but what if we hadn’t? It’s not a challenging thought experiment to imagine the tables turning the other way, like Man in the High Castle.

So what’s the deal? How is practically every college administrator across the entire world oblivious to the danger we are now in? Don’t you have to, I dunno, study to administer a college? How has an entire generation missed the most essential of all history lessons?

But that’s not even the largest issue. The largest issue is the fact that absolutely zero people outside of our own circle of advocacy don’t understand the peril of our present situation. Ringing the alarm bell has become almost symbolic; because everyone who does understand doesn’t need to hear it, and everyone who doesn’t, won’t.

So let me explain in what I believe are elementary arithmetical terms: the growth of hate is exponential. Meaning that for every hater of humanity, by their words and their actions they are likely to increase the number of antisemites in the world by a number greater than one. I remember distinctly in the immediate days after October 7th I stumbled upon Virág Gulyás of Jewish National Fund Speakers for the first time. She had posted a video on social media explaining that the “free Palestine” protests and such that were at the time just kicking off in the wake of 10/7 resembled in no small part a “cool kid’s club”, and this “club” has as its explicit goal the targeting, bullying, and harassment of anyone thought to be Jewish, Israeli, or “Zionist”. They will not let you rest until you submit to them. It is the textbook definition of a bunch of ignorant bullies; and whaddaya know, they don’t like it when you fight back.

The problem is though that people love a good dog pile. Humans really are the worst sometimes. When we see someone getting beaten down by a crowd, part of us wants to help—but part also wants to join in on the beating. This is true for almost everyone. Solzhenitsyn’s line in The Gulag Archipelago rings ever louder today: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

I don’t know why the world is this way. I truly wish I knew. Because it should not be possible for ugly, puerile hate to have such a stranglehold on the hearts of those who encounter it in the wild. Certainly it should not be a more powerful motivator than friendship or love (Platonic or otherwise). But it often is. It destroys friendships and lives with impunity. It ruins all it touches. And it is very, very hard to stop.

Sorry to bring your holiday season down. I’ll keep this one shorter. I have an exclusive to go with it anyway. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and all the rest.