Only Love Can Conquer Hate

Nobody has the exact answers for how to end systemic oppression in our world. If somebody did, we could have solved that question by now. There are many people who have many different ideas on how to go about ending the oppression and hatred of others. It is my personal belief, that hatred can only be forced out through unconditional, relentless love of oneself and those around us. We will only see this world change when we all, as a society, start acting with love, empathy, and compassion.

Racism. Sexism. Classism. Nobody likes those words. Nobody wants to think that they are prejudiced or bigoted in any way.

But the truth is, all of us have judgements and opinions against other groups of people. We all act with hatred on our hearts.

If you act nice to people who are treating you kindly, what use is that? Everybody does that. And if you are a good person to your friends, so what? Everybody is a good person to their friends.

We must have love for everybody, not just when it suits us. We must have love for the person with another skin color, another religion, another socioeconomic class, another gender, another sexuality. We must have love for somebody who is from a different political party than us. We must have love for people who say horrible things to us, who bully us, who want to take away our rights. We must love those who want to harm us and kill us.

In today’s world, hatred is normal. We have grown up in a world where we think it is okay to not like other people, simply because they are different than us.

And that is why, what I preach is the new form of radicalism. Compassion is radical. Love is radical. It is radical to tell others that we should love people who hate us.

We have become a society filled with hypocrisy. We say that we hate hatred in all of its forms, but we cast a judgemental glance at people who say that we should love our enemies.

This is, in my opinion, the only way to drive out the forces of evil. Only love can bring more love into the world. Certainly, evil will not bring more love into the world. More racism and sexism and poverty and bigotry and hating your fellow human will not bring more love into the world. This reasoning seems to fall on deaf ears of many. But I am hopeful that there are people in this world who do still believe that love is the only force that can conquer hate.

This is a transcript of my podcast, which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Soundcloud, and more. Click here to listen.