This is a provocative and beautifully challenging piece. I often find myself reaching a similar conclusion from a psychological angle rather than a spiritual one: that any form of criminal or deeply antisocial behavior is an expression of some kind of mental or emotional dysfunction. To me, that doesn’t mean excusing it—but it does open the door to sympathy, even for those who have done monstrous things.
It’s not sympathy that condones, but sympathy that recognizes how far someone must have fallen. How disconnected from others, from empathy, from themselves—to commit such harm. And with that recognition comes a deeper responsibility: to protect others from such danger, while also understanding that hatred and dehumanization only deepen the cycle.
In that sense, I agree: righteous anger can coexist with love. Love doesn’t mean letting evil run free, it means resisting it with clarity, without letting it consume our own spirit in the process.
Thank you for taking the time to articulate your view so well. Protecting others from this problem is the goal. Looking at this psychologically, as you pointed out, rather than spiritually can join two insights for the good or, unfortunately, put them at dangerous odds. The nature of permeation is central to understanding how we isolate love through levels co-existing. Psychology sees the isolation occurring on a single level, forcing us to see it all as ourselves in a personal struggle.
Giving up our hatred is giving up our protective walls against our own thoughts that are incapable of seeing "evil" people with understanding. It is our own "evil" thoughts protecting evil people by keeping us afraid of our thoughts of them.
This is a provocative and beautifully challenging piece. I often find myself reaching a similar conclusion from a psychological angle rather than a spiritual one: that any form of criminal or deeply antisocial behavior is an expression of some kind of mental or emotional dysfunction. To me, that doesn’t mean excusing it—but it does open the door to sympathy, even for those who have done monstrous things.
It’s not sympathy that condones, but sympathy that recognizes how far someone must have fallen. How disconnected from others, from empathy, from themselves—to commit such harm. And with that recognition comes a deeper responsibility: to protect others from such danger, while also understanding that hatred and dehumanization only deepen the cycle.
In that sense, I agree: righteous anger can coexist with love. Love doesn’t mean letting evil run free, it means resisting it with clarity, without letting it consume our own spirit in the process.
Thank you for taking the time to articulate your view so well. Protecting others from this problem is the goal. Looking at this psychologically, as you pointed out, rather than spiritually can join two insights for the good or, unfortunately, put them at dangerous odds. The nature of permeation is central to understanding how we isolate love through levels co-existing. Psychology sees the isolation occurring on a single level, forcing us to see it all as ourselves in a personal struggle.
Giving up our hatred is giving up our protective walls against our own thoughts that are incapable of seeing "evil" people with understanding. It is our own "evil" thoughts protecting evil people by keeping us afraid of our thoughts of them.