Thoughts to Build On

But all this urgency, this sympathetic assist-
ance, this total disregard of cost, seems to apply only to
epidemics of physical disease.
What about epidemics of mental-emotional-
spiritual disease?
This nation-and the entire world-is enguHed
in an epidemic of hate. If we knew as much about mental
health as we know about physical health, we would con-
sider an epidemic of hate to be as dangerous as an epidemic
of malaria or typhoid.
First, let us be sure we are not setting up a
straw man with which to joust. Is there really an epidemic
of hate abroad in the world?
The evidence is conclusive. The supporting
facts are clear-and everywhere. We are not approaching
a crisis-we are in the midst of one. An epidemic of hate!
Hate is not a physical disease. It is a mental-
emotional-spiritual disease and must be treated as such.
The physical damage is the result, not the disease, itseH;
yet most proposed cures would treat the physical results
of the epidemic of hate and not its mental-emotional-
spiritual causes.
One of the problems is that there is not just
one hate, but an all-pervading complex of different hates,
interwoven in the fabric of our lives. Each hate has a
diHerent cause, which requires a diHerent cure. The hate
of one group is the exact opposite of the hate of a different
and, perhaps, opposite group.
And there we find a basic cause which may
provide a partial beginning for a cure. It is in the con-