Why Does Hatred Exist?

When I was about fifteen years old, I was walking down the street wearing a kippah, a Jewish skull cap, with a couple of friends and a couple of older kids drove by and started throwing rocks out of the car yelling anti-semitic slurs. A year later I walked through the death camps and concentration camps used by the Nazi regime in Poland. Ten years later I walked through the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in L.A. When you enter the museum you immediately hear a great variety of racial slurs. The point is to teach that nearly everybody is prejudiced in one way or another. I'm writing this post immediately after watching the PBS broadcasting of "Anti-Semitism in the Twenty-First Century: A Resurgence." Here's the question, why does hatred exist? Why do people intentionally hurt one another?

As teachers, I don't think we have to have all the answers. However, it's important to ask the questions. These two questions can be addressed in nearly every subject area. Is there something biological about people that incites hate? How does literature address hatred and seek to advance/reduce it?

Is it possible that supporters of bloggers and Web 2.0 are simply encouraging a new medium through which people can harass one another and promote hatred? Before the Web 2.0 kids were typically only bullied in school, now they are bulled at home, virtually, as well. Why?

Anti Semitism