The pandemic of hate. Overflowing the revenge-justice loop

Abstract

Since time immemorial, human beings have oscillated between rationality and madness, between the capacity to build societies based on ethics and justice, and the inclination toward violence, revenge, and hatred. This paper draws on the possibilities offered by complex thought to recognize the coexistence of the rational and the irrational in the human condition. In this sense, it proposes analyzing the founding myth of the Furies to identify the revenge-justice loop as an archetype that promotes the substantial increase in the pandemic of hatred on social media since 2019. This myth symbolizes not only punishment and avenging justice, but also the inability of homo-demens to contain the hatred that has permeated the history of humanity. Hatred appears in the history of the human species as a phenomenon that reflects the ungovernable nature of homo-demens. It proposes moving from retributive justice to restorative justice.