We have seen twenty-four hours hate when Richard Spencer brings his angry, anti-semitic troops to Charlottesville, Virginia. We have seen two hours hate when a controversial speaker like Charles Murray comes to Middlebury College. We have seen two seconds hate when a St. Paul policeman murders a conscientious driver who politely discloses a firearm in his car. Now we have two minutes hate deep underground on the train in Manhattan, because someone associates your tote bag with world-wide evil.

Each case illustrates communal, contagious, and uncontained emotion called forth without reflection. Actions become pre-programmed. They grow from indoctrination, campus organizations, police training, social media, propaganda, everyone’s need to belong. Currents of hate drown your own thought.

These emotions infest your brain and your heart, not because they come to you naturally, but due to influence from your associates. To an extent, you choose your friends, authorities, and leaders. More insidiously, since you live among particular cultures during your lifetime, you do not choose who influences you. They choose you.

You likely know where the term two minutes hate originates. Orwell’s 1984.

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