My rereading exercise was inconclusive, but it did raise a new thought – was my thinking too literally about the word ‘hatred’ a fundamental flaw of the essay? Obviously, anyone who would comment to a stranger that they ‘hated’ authors of popular nonfiction books wasn’t the sort of person who spent two hours a day carefully repairing sentences. Piling on French fries doesn't reveal a buffet diner's disdain for health; it’s the fact of being at a buffet in the first place.
The larger problem in ‘Hatred’ is that it demonstrates a worldview validated by people who cannot help but assess others using a personal set of values. Specifically, the post suggests that people who value precise word choice apply the standard to judge others. I don’t know if this applies universally, although I do know that some educated people will use something like a grammar error to look down on others. What I found surprising when I reread my work was that I came off like someone whose own standard for precision justified applying the same attention to detail when understanding someone else’s speech.
The problem is that I’ve never perceived myself in this way. I’ve spent quite a bit of time around bilingual or nonnative English speakers, certainly more than the average person, and have always understood that the work of listening begins when the words fall short. I think this explains my long fondness for lousy puns as it does my militant support for certain books. I’m sure the way I’ve turned out would be no surprise to whoever had the privilege of teaching me during my few weeks in a first-grade ESL class.
And yet, ‘Hatred’ – what happened? I believe my own strengths turned against me. Instead of simply identifying a misuse of the word and thinking about what a stranger meant by ‘hating’ a book, I went the other way and accepted the remark at face value. The rest of the essay reads like me trying to talk someone down from a tall, unprotected ledge – don’t hate, hatred is bad! Not everyone on the roof is thinking about jumping.
