Thursday, June 13, 2024

Allowing Others To Hate When One Is Merciful

I would never advise anyone to be merciful in spite of me (perhaps just temporarily) gravitating towards it.  Of other people or my own self if I so much as lost interest in mercy, I of course, as any thoroughly rationalistic person would, have nothing against hating, confronting, mocking, and betraying non-rationalists in general, if only one is able to do these things without actually violating any objective moral obligation (feelings are irrelevant and obligations that exist might be very different than what many people want anyway).  Hatred and confrontation and mockery can be done without actually giving up mercy as well, for one could be hateful in a logically and morally legitimate way while still withholding other deserved harshness.  One would no longer be merciful if one went further so as to engage in something like calculated relational betrayal.

In speaking of hatred, I am not talking about feelings of intense dislike that are involuntary.  These cannot be good or evil or irrational either way since they do not reflect beliefs or behaviors.  I mean hatred stemming from worldview or personality.  To hate someone because they were born with a penis or a vagina is asinine.  To hate someone because they come from a certain country or have a certain skin color, black or white or anything else, is asinine.  Hating someone for being emotionalistic, abusive, or in any way unrepentantly irrational (to an extent proportionate to their delusion or sin) could not possibly be erroneous.

As of the time of writing this, at least, I am eager to be generally merciful.  Some individuals and some errors have made me contemplate if I want to continually maintain this merciful attitude, but thus far, I have not gone back to my well-known and potent hatred of irrationalistic people and not just false concepts, as delightful and empowering as it is.  My worldview was and is the same either way.  Since mercy is withholding justice out of something like love or pity, and justice is by default obligatory, to be merciful or unmerciful is fine regardless as long as one is not irrational in the process.  Certainly, I do not oppose other people being hateful in valid ways and acting on that hatred as long as they do not believe anything irrational (assumed or contradictory) or act in an unjust way (such as physically assaulting someone).

If someone else does not personally desire to be merciful, even if it did bother me, what basis could there be for pushing back?  They can accurately insult non-rationalists for their egregious stupidity or excitedly long for the deaths of the wicked and not be irrational or evil.  Mercy is optional by nature, so to truly expect or demand mercy to always be shown by everyone is invalid.  There is also the crucial distinction between what mercy and justice actually are.  If shooting someone in the head is the deserved penalty for kidnapping, for instance, then opposing the prolonged torture of a kidnapper is not mercy; it is rationality and justice.  However, if kidnappers do deserve death and a rationalistic person was to hope for their just death and find deep pleasure at the longing for it, then it is morally just for them to have this disposition and even a merciful person has no right to oppose this.

One day, I might return to my familiar  unflinching, rationalistic hatred of everyone who is not at least trying to be an equal, ally, or friend in their alignment with reason.  It is not as if the Bible is against this (Leviticus 20:23 and Psalm 5:5-6, for example).  It is not as if any amount of discomfort from those on the receiving end of rational, righteous hatred makes it evil.  Until that day arrives, if it does, I could still have no justification to expect anyone else to be as I am and desire to show mercy.  If no mercy was to ever be sought or exhibited by anyone ever again, there would be nothing wrong with this state of affairs.  Lack of mercy in anyone else is therefore never a problem.  Irrationality and injustice are.

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