"You really shouldn’t fight that raging forest fire that surround you by dousing yourself in gasoline," said no one. Of course that’s not how you put out flames! That is how you ignore the flames and ignite yourself; it’s such a no-brainer that it’s almost insulting to your intelligence. But how is that so different from telling people, “You can’t fight hate with hate.” I hear people say it every single day. When did our society become so perverse and obtuse that we have to be consciously reminded of this on a daily basis?

So often we assume the worst about everyone and everything. Be wary of airports because that’s where people get attacked. Don’t go near that protest, because it’s bound to get out of hand. Avoid too much interaction with people who differ from you, because eventually there’s too many differences to find common ground. Never engage in conversations about controversial topics, because no one can agree on anything. It’s these types of corrosive beliefs that worsen communal bonds. We are building a senseless population; a population that isn’t insulted when they hear the phrase, “You can’t fight hate with hate.”

It’s difficult to diagnose this mental illness, because it’s a subtle, chronic disease. To put the detriment of our assumptions into perspective, imagine the situation in which they were overt and exaggerated: You consciously brand everything around you with its gravest mistakes and operate in an environment of perpetual fault. Any reference to Germany is a toast to Nazism. Every white person in America is a legacy of the KKK. Martin Luther King Jr. is no more than an adulterer. George Washington is a slave owner, not a freedom fighter. The “Made in China” label reminisces the Red Guard’s reign of terror. That kind of world would be a nightmare; it builds closets that never close, and skeletons walk out of them freely.

If we only stood in one another’s closets, then it would be a dark world indeed. The notions of trust and love would become urban legends. It makes my stomach churn to think of the permanent humiliation I would be forced to shoulder, unpardonable. The court rooms would ring with guilt; always the prosecution, never the defense.

Now do you understand the severity of the mental illness?

It’s hard to diagnose because the strain that exists isn’t quite as aggressive as the above hypothetical, but it’s no less of an epidemic. Our subconscious assumptions are destroying us from the inside out. If parents were told that their children were infected with a progressive disease, they would do all in their power to reverse it. No parent would hear the diagnosis and respond, “Well, the odds are too scary. We should just give up.” Our world should be treated no differently; we are worth fighting for.

I can’t lie. It would be easier to disregard our corrosive assumptions. It would mean living in a world where we still have to be reminded that we can’t fight hate with hate; however, at least we wouldn’t have to sweat scraping off all the accumulated rust. But this decision is made when we operate out of scarcity. I charge you instead to see the surplus.

There is too much love to become numb to hate. There is too much beauty to focus on the ugly. There is too much forgiveness to feel suffocated by closeted skeletons. There is too much life to let death take center stage. There is too much good to ever let the bad define existence. If we could operate out of the abundance, our assumptions born in the scarcity lose their destructive power. Don’t tell me we can’t fight hate with hate; tell me we can fight hate.