I don’t know if any of you have seen the movie Joker, but there’s this one line from it—just before he murders a talk show host—that the Joker laments that “nobody’s civil anymore,” and that people will walk past their fellow man’s suffering. The movie came out in 2019, and boy, oh boy, did we not realise how far down that rabbit hole went! Not long after, we had the COVID pandemic, and while there was a cozy little two or three week period where everyone was united in their concerns, that quickly dissolved into what can only be compared to warring factions constantly bickering and slandering the other. The world became a much angrier place, although to be honest, the world has felt like a much angrier place every since 2015. It is so easy to be angry these days, and that is of course helped by media and ragebait articles, but where does it end? Indeed, where does our righteous anger end?

Conquer rage with humility, conquer evil with goodness, conquer greed with generosity, and conquer lies with truth.

The Dhammapada

Very wise words from the Buddha here. We’re often told that we should pray for our enemies (Matt. 5:44), and absolutely we should; but I think what we find in this quote is a clarification. After all, if by praying for our enemies all we say is “God, help my enemy so they may see the light like me,” then we grow dangerously close to the attitude of the Pharisee who says, “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people” (Luke 18:11). Such a reinforcement of our own righteousness, if anything, can only serve to inflame our anger, not heal it.

In the words of Jim Jefferies, “This might be the most hippy shit that ever comes out of my mouth, but the only way you can fight hate is with love.” I think that’s precisely what the Buddha is saying: you can’t fight fire with fire, or how different could you possibly be? Otherwise what you’ll have is two fires feeding the flames of the other. It’s, to borrow a psychological term, a positive feedback loop. The the interest on your credit card when you don’t make a payment: it compounds! It’s polarisation, which is perhaps the biggest problem in our society today, and the fact is that we’re all responsible and we all have our part to do in mending it.

When we treat our neighbours as they deserve to be treated, we make them even worse; when we treat them as if they were who we wish they were, we improve them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And by extension, I think we improve ourselves. Food for thought!