Of Bad Antics & Semantics

 

I really wish the word “hater,” in its current connotation, would disappear from the vernacular. Sounds like one of those Newspeak words to me. I can disagree with your opinion and not hate you. You have every right to disagree with my opinion, but you don't hate me. Not even best friends agree on every single thing. They're not going to hate each other over it. And yet I see the word “hater” a dozen times a day just because someone doesn't like or agree with someone else's point of view. What a ridiculous concept! Believe me, if I hate you, you'll know it. And it'll take a hell of a lot more than not agreeing with me to make me hate you. Shoot, you used to be able to sit at a dinner table with people of different political/religious/cultural persuasions and talk about such things as who you might vote for or current events, and nobody cussed, spit, or shot at anyone else.

Everything is contentious these days, it seems; a total maze of confusion. People with different political affiliations revile each other. People who don't look or dress or speak the same as everyone else are mocked and ridiculed. People of different faiths can't tolerate each other. People from different countries, cities, and neighborhoods are viewed with suspicion. One almost can't take a middle-of-the-road position on any issue any more. You have to be either for or against, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. You're looked askance at if you can see both sides of an issue or if you lean one way on one thing and the other way on another. You're pressured to stand either for or against, no in between.

There are some elements in our society that should not be condoned, venerated, or celebrated, just because a normal civilized society wouldn't. I could name them, but I'd risk being labeled uncool, old fashioned, narrow minded. A hater. Rational thoughts about such things fall into the category of plain old common sense. Which, alas, seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Everything has to be complicated and convoluted and argued to death, no common sense permitted. If you look at something stupid and call it stupid, somebody's going to call you a hater. Any absurd thing, why, give it a new name, hype it and call it normal and it's suddenly socially acceptable. Welcome to 1984 2023.