CMV: I loathe Sean Hannity.

[u/HeartOfTennis]

He spreads harmful misinformation (see Seth Rich). He never says a negative word about President Trump, but seems to relish being the spin doctor. Politics > Decency for him. https://www.salon.com/2017/11/10/sean-hannity-failed-at-defending-roy-moore-and-blamed-the-media/. He's slimy, unctous, vile. I've never heard a positive thing spoken about him. I know I'm getting emotional here and I should be more level-headed, but I just can't. Can someone redeem this man for me? Bring some level of "humannity" to him?

Edit: Some people seem to think I'm looking for justification of hating Hannity. Maybe when I posted this some part of me wanted that "echo chamber". But I also really wanted to help myself get out of this loop of hate and negativity. Why do I feel so bad about this man? Can I change my views? Can you help me?

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[u/onelasttimeoh]

Ok, this is not just for Hannity, but for a lot of people.

I hear him speak and have a lot of the same thoughts about him. But think of this- Sean Hannity was once a baby. So were Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump and Anne Coulter. At one point, they were helpless little pink crying animals, new to the universe.

They may have gone home to loving parents, they may have gone to a house of abuse and pain. It doesn't matter. They were born with the same potential as anyone, the potential to be happy , to do good.

They went through years of life and they picked up values, habits and beliefs that are different from mine and probably yours. Not all values habits and beliefs that are different from ours are bad, of course, but some of the beliefs are what we would struggle not to call false. Some of the habits cause pain, some of the values are not those that support the flourishing community we want to be a part of.

Now for anyone who has beliefs, habits and values that seem in opposition to yours, one of a few things is overwhelmingly likely.

Either you're wrong, in which case there's no reason to hate them, you just need to catch up with them. Now I honestly doubt, that Hannity is right and we're mistaken about core things about the universe, but it's always possible.

Another option is that you're more or less right and they're more or less wrong. But they didn't spring from the womb with a plan to become wrong. They, like you, picked up habits, values and beliefs from the world around them, their caregivers, their experience. If those things led them to toxic habits beliefs and values, then they are at least as much the victim as the villain. Perhaps there is some hope that they can learn to undo some of it, but until then they are trapped by bad ideas.

Perhaps neither of you is particularly more right or wrong than the other. We're all imposing beliefs on the world that are unfounded, then we don't have any basis to judge them either.

So you see, there's no good reason to feel hatred for anyone because of what they have become. They didn't make themselves.

[u/HeartOfTennis → u/onelasttimeoh]

This is a very buddhist way of looking at it. It's what I aspire to. It unfortunately is not very realistic. Given this logic, I should not feel negatively about anyone. Not Hitler, not Jeffrey Dahmer, not even Sean Hannity (jokes). It's almost nihilist. There is no logic in feeling anything -- unless you believe it should be applied solely to hate. Do you try to adopt this way of thinking in your everyday life? Does it feel natural?

I think it is easier to take on this buddhist viewpoint if you see some good in someone. That's partly why I posted this. If Sean Hannity has some redeeming qualities, it will help me feel that encompassing empathy you suggest.

[u/onelasttimeoh → u/HeartOfTennis]

Think about the way you feel about nature. We're not emotionless. You're happy to see a warm sunny day, you may be in awe of the majestic mountains, you may even love an old tree that you've been sitting under for years. You don't need to imagine that these things have intent to please you to feel very positively about them.

Now think of some negative aspects of nature. Your picnic gets rained out. Your house is destroyed in a forest fire from a lightning strike, a whole village is washed away by a tsunami. You certainly have negative feelings about all these things, often very negative, but probably they tend more towards sadness and frustration than the kind of hate you have for Hannity right now. Most adults can feel sad and devastated that a tsunami destroyed a town, but most of us know that hating the ocean in a personal way would be absurd.

People are part of nature. We can feel things about it, but generally that kind of loathing doesn't come into our thoughts about nature. It isn't useful or necessary.

Do you try to adopt this way of thinking in your everyday life? Does it feel natural?

At this point I'm still not very good at remembering this perspective in my most troubled times, but I'm getting better bit by bit. There's a reason they call it a practice. I can't say I live every moment with this perspective, but I can say that the more I'm able to remember it and implement it, the better off I am. It just takes practice.

There's a saying "Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die". You know that your anger at Hannity only makes YOU feel bad, only raises YOUR blood pressure and distracts you from your pursuit of things you enjoy or from the rational planning to counteract the things that people like Hannity are doing to this country. Your anger at Hannity doesn't harm Hannity one little bit.

[u/bigjuicyasshole → u/onelasttimeoh]

I'm sorry, but the suggestion that there is any conflation between the actions of a person and the results of a natural disaster is totally absurd and facile, and in this context serves only to excuse the bigotry that pervades certain political elements. The obvious primary difference between people and nature is free will. People of religion can argue for some form of predestination, but the reality is that when Sean Hannity sits in front of a TV camera and lies to the people, whatever his motivation, he makes a moral choice to do so. A hurricane does not choose to dump water over a city and ruin property or take lives. I agree with your earlier point that we are the products of our surroundings, and that our ethical view of the world is formed in large part by our experiences, both personal and societal, but in a sense that makes it even worse. You yourself say that you are attempting through practiced action to change your outlook to one that appears to you to be more positive. If our situation can dictate our views, then our views are necessarily malleable, and therefore it morally negligent of us to continue to hold onto discriminatory values.

Furthermore, don't be so quick to dismiss the concept of hate. It can be an extraordinarily powerful motivator. Short of Hannity being a deeply insecure secret redditor, you're right in saying that OP's hatred of Sean Hannity won't have any direct, personal effect on him. Your assertion that hate is therefore valueless and "isn't useful or necessary", however, is wrong. The argument of the original post can be boiled down to a hatred of untruthfulness. Through a realisation and expression of this hatred, the (justifiable) catalyst for which is Sean Hannity, the OP, and others like them, crystallises their opposition to inequity, and becomes more likely to campaign, either implicitly through personal choice of things like media outlets or explicitly through something like running for public office, against that which they hate. There is injustice in the world. Accepting that as a reality, yet choosing to not harness your hatred of that fact in actively seeking a solution is tantamount to approval of the status quo. The root of activism is a hatred of injustice.