The HATE DISEASE & Why REVENGE Never Works

All “needy” people are yearning for a better safety net than the one they’ve got.

The HATE DISEASE & Why REVENGE Never Works

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A recent heartfelt appeal on the Critical Psychiatry Network for the list to get behind a medical appeal for an urgent cease fire in Gaza, met some opposition. In particular, one prominent member, Peter, weighed in against any public statement. I disagreed and posted the following.

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Well Peter, I have long admired your clinical courage. I deplored what the Cochrane people did to you over diazepam, and was delighted to be in Copenhagen the weekend you launched Scientific Freedom with Peter Breggin and other brave souls.

So please apply your clinical acumen to the following imaginary scenario. Picture the time, back before the spirochaete was identified – and here is a contagious disease you can only contract from people already harbouring the lethal agent.

You can rabbit on about morals, sexual continence and so forth, but clinically speaking what you need to do, is see what you can do to limit the spread and the damage – notably General Paralysis of the Insane in the case of syphilis – but that’s just because you are a clinician. No moral judgements are called for – just saving lives.

It keeps going round and round – one notable English physician infects himself with spirochaetes, and dies of it in the name of Science – I don’t intend to go that far.

But here in our Twentyfirst Century we have an even more lethal infectious disease – also passed on from one generation to the next – it kills indiscriminately, and is regarded by many as ‘just deserts’. Similar reasoning to what they applied before – if you didn’t want syphilis, button your trousers – you knew the risks and you continued anyway. Surely doctors should be able to rise above “serves you right”.

Now the lethal agent here is just as intangible as the spirochaete was before microscopy. It kills indiscriminately – indeed according to Bessel, more people die of it domestically than “in the service of their country”, and there are reports of similar increased death rates, currently, in domestic Russia.

I have studied this lethal agent, traced its channels of transmission, and highlighted a means to disinfect it. Sadly, just like before microscopy, there is no concrete evidence of its potency, even of its existence. It continues to kill, without acknowledgment.

I eliminated it in a small pilot project, but this was too countercultural to make much impact. It’s easily scoffed at.

But the disease here is REVENGE, and the lethal agent – HATE. It too is transmitted from one generation to the next – and it kills indiscriminately all over the place, especially in returning military who are so traumatised they either kill themselves or their loved ones – well above the expected rate.

Revenge – I’ll break your leg, because you broke mine. In terms of simple logic, let alone orthopaedics, this results in two people crippled, without benefit to either. What you find is that one broken leg does not suffice – because hate is ‘blind’, it attacks indiscriminately, just as the spirochaete did – it is no respecter of anyone or anything, and even more contagious (especially with so-called ‘social’ media).

Clinically, it only evaporates when the victims of it feel SAFE. Doctors, in my view, have an obligation to point this out, and to protest when non-therapeutic medical advice is doled out.

If you want a non-military exemplar, check out the next four years in the USA – Trump has full blown, Stage 5, Revenge, and the number of innocent casualties which will inevitably follow, will surprise you.

As above, I admire your clinical courage – can you follow my line of thought here?

Thanx

Bob

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To which he replied—

Dear Bob,

Nice story. You are so right. In 2010, I met with a remarkable man and two of his daughters in Toronto, Izzeldin Abuelaish. He published the book, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, which he gave to me.

He went to Israel every day and doctored on the Jews and Arabs there. One day, the Israeli military deliberately shot into his apartment with a canon and killed, I think, three of his children. One of the surviving daughters had a glass eye.

Izzeldin is the total opposite of the hateful Netanyahu who is a catastrophe for the whole region. Izzeldin now lives in Toronto. Has given talks in many places, I think including the UN and the EU parliament.

Bw Peter

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My response –

Thanks so much for this Peter. I’m so glad you met Izzeldin – I quote his book and that of Antoine Leiris –‘You Will Not Have My Hate’ – at every opportunity I have.

There is a way through, a healthier alternative – but only when enough people stand up and say so.

War (and prisons) are an expensive way of making things worse – I wonder if depicting ‘hate’ as a lethal agent will help.

Certainly you can immunise against it.

Homo Sapiens is a social species, and having armed itself with thermonuclears may well be running counter to The Iron Law of Evolution – adapt or perish.

Here’s hoping not

Thanks again

Bob

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