Love and Cruelty
“Hay que endurecerse sin perder jamás la ternura.”
(one must endure-become hard, toughen oneself—without losing tenderness.)
–Che GuevaraAt the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
Hatred is an element of struggle; relentless hatred of the enemy that impels us over and beyond the natural limitations of man and transforms us into effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machines. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.
–Che Guevara
Love without cruelty is powerless; cruelty without love is blind, a short-lived passion which loses its persistent edge. The underlying paradox is what elevates it over mere unstable pathetic sentimentality, is its cruelty itself, its link with violence….You need to love with hatred.
–excerpt from Violence by Slavoj Zizek
Reading these words this morning seemed like the falling of a hammer. My instinct tells me that these words are universally, unconditionally true. It is personally true, and it is communally true. One must be severe with one’s self. Speaking truthfully is cruel, a rejection of the sentimental dodge, of a finesse and avoidance of the point. Only by caring enough to endure the truth can I find a solid foundation upon which to stand. We collude in our own servitude by acquiescing to our own comfortable lie, or to those offered by the powers that be.
