Please learn how to live with people who hate your guts

We need each other and needing each other means inevitable conflict

I support the idea that we should work to increase human freedom and reduce human suffering, and as such I rebel against currents that take this idea to unworkable extremes. I see those extremes expressed in the above post, and I want to clarify the vision I see there and why I think it’s bad.

Here’s that vision:

All human desires must be legally permitted, morally approved, and materially enabled. Failure to do all of the above frustrates the realization of desire, and this frustration causes harm to the person experiencing the desire. Saying ‘no’ to someone, or just not saying ‘yes’ hard enough, is a reprehensible act of cruelty. ‘Saying no’ is ‘causing harm’, placing it on the same moral spectrum as mutilation and slavery. 

If we have a right to maximum freedom and minimum suffering then we all have a right to live in a world that never says no, a world which provides everything for us and which demands nothing from us. Inversely, this means that we have a human right to demand everything and to provide nothing. If you feel sad or angry it’s someone else’s fault for making you feel that way. Your sadness and anger are the foundations for your claims against others, evidence that your sacred desires are being violated by wicked people who are now in your debt. Your sadness and anger are proof that other people are worse people than you, proof of your moral superiority as a precious victim. Self-regulation and reconciliation are evil things to recommend, and are also foolish - public suffering is how you get ahead, how you demonstrate the magnitude of your sacred desires and the corruption of the world that denies their full expression. Weakness is strength, oppression is superiority.

Unfortunately, it can’t be the case that everyone demands everything and everyone provides nothing. Some people have to put some of their desires on hold at least some of the time. Sometimes work is both necessary and unpleasant, and someone has to do that work even on the days when they don’t want to do it. Sometimes two people want the last slice of cake. 

Also unfortunately, humans have a very peculiar desire for recognition. We desire that others tell the same story about us that we tell about ourselves. This causes problems, since the stories we tell about ourselves are very often incompatible. Some people interpret themselves as fulfilling sacred duties which are binding to all - people can’t affirm you as you understand yourself without also affirming the universal validity of the duties you fulfill. It is not enough to demand that someone say that I am good, you must also have someone say that it is bad to not be like me. This means that some unfulfilled desires will come with a double layer of ‘harm’ - not only will I not give you what you want, but I will tell you that wanting what you want makes you a moral failure. 

These conflicts are a function of human finitude. We are not Gods - we are not all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful. We are limited in our ability to know things, to live good lives, and to achieve our goals. We need other human beings to fulfill our desires, to meet our needs in general and our needs for recognition in particular, and needing other human beings inevitably calls us into conflict with them.

Learning to live with this conflict, with this frustration, is the foundation of maturity and of good citizenship in a liberal democracy. Learning to live means learning how to live with people, in particular how to live with people who are different from you. It doesn’t mean resignation to conflict and frustration - we should always seek to achieve better harmony and satisfaction in the world, but we should do so with the understanding that every conflict we resolve will be replaced by another one. All we can hope for, and what we must hope for, is a world where our conflicts and frustrations are easier to bear.