Insight: "The Hate Syndrome" (syndicated, 1966)

[dramatic music] [Officer Griffiths] How is he? [Doctor] He's sleeping now. He'll be all right. [Griffiths] No thanks. [Doctor] Where'd it happen? [Griffiths] Central Park and 86th Street. About an hour ago. [Doctor] Well he took quite a beating for his age. [Griffiths] Yep. I've called another police officer to come over, Lieutenant of Detectives. I think he ought to talk to the old man. [Lt. Polansky] Griffiths. [Griffiths] Lieutenant Polansky, this is Dr. Malloy. [Doctor] Hi. [Polansky] How are you? [Polansky] Where's the old man? [Doctor] He's sleeping. I gave him a sedative. [Woman] Dr. Malloy?  [Doctor] Oh excuse me. [Polansky] What's it all about? [Griffiths] He got hit in the face a couple of times. Brass knucks, it looks like. [Polansky] Mugging? [Griffiths] No, it's NOT a mugging. [Polansky] You told me the man is, uh, 77 years old. Now you're  going to try and tell me it was a professional prize fight? [Griffiths] Well, the other guy's downstairs in emergency. [Polansky] Now what are we doing up here? [Griffiths] Well that's why I asked you to come over, Lieutenant.  You see... [Polansky] Look, I was just about to go off duty. Now how about giving me one good reason why I can't? [Griffiths] Same reason that I'm up here, not downstairs. I'm the arresting officer, Lieutenant. [Polansky] The arresting officer? Of the old man? [Griffiths] That's right. Well what did he do? He attacked the guy downstairs with a knife. Two deep wounds in the shoulder, and the guy's pressing charges. [Polansky] Well, so? [Griffiths] Lieutenant, the old man is a Hebrew teacher. That's why I thought maybe that... You thought maybe what Griffiths? [Polansky] If the old man stuck somebody with a knife and the  guy downstairs wants to press charges you'll book 'im, print 'im and when he's well enough, let him  call a lawyer. Lieutenant, would you do me a favor? Sir. [Griffiths] Go down to emergency. Talk to the guy. [Polansky] Any particular reason? [Griffiths] Plenty. [Polansky] Okay, okay I'll humor you. What's his name and where do I find him? [Griffiths] McWilliams, and you can't miss him. [Polansky] Your name McWilliams? [McWilliams] That's right. [Polansky] I'm Lieutenant Polansky. [McWilliams] It figures. There's an old k*ke on the third floor  you should be talking to, not me. [Polansky] The old k*ke on the third floor is asleep. I thought maybe you'd fill me in with what happened. [McWilliams] Have you got a light? [dramatic music] [McWilliams] I'd be happy to fill you in, Lieutenant. The old man  went off his rocker. He went after me with a knife. Exhibits A and B. That pretty much tells the story. You forgot exhibit C. [Polansky] This pretty much tells the story. ["Insight" theme music] "Insight" - stories of spiritual conflict in the 20th century. [dramatic music] "Insight" ["Insight" theme music] Our century has witnessed great triumphs of the human spirit, but it has also witnessed human  degradation of incredible magnitude. Dachau, Lidice, Warsaw, Budapest, Dallas, Selma. The list is long enough to make most of us sick. In exasperation we ask, "Why do men hate?" "Why do some men need someone to hate?" These are good questions. We should ask them. But we shouldn't be self-righteous. For the men who did these things are not unlike ourselves. The seeds of hatred reside in every human heart. I could be a hater. So could you. This is not a pleasant thought. But it's a true one. [dramatic music] This belong to you, McWilliams? I'm a deputy commander in the American Fascist Party. Um, what are these? Each ribbon represents a particular  battle with the Judeo, non-Aryan elements. Oh. And what do they give you for brass knuckling a  77-year-old man? An oak leaf cluster? You're trying to bait me, Lieutenant. You're wasting your time. Now why would I want to bait you, Mr. McWilliams? [Polansky] I'm 21 years on the force. I dealt with perverts,  pimps, [bunker waters?], streetwalkers, and psychopaths. You think I can get emotionally hung  up by a handful of soapbox Nazis? [McWilliams] The following you may take as personal, Lieutenant. We don't like Jews. For our money, they're intellectual n***ers. Now at the moment you control everything:  press, radio, government, even police protection. You go through the motions of protecting  people like me but, uh, just through the motions. If I hadn't of had a couple of bodyguards, I wouldn't  be breathing now, thanks to your 77-year-old Jew. But let me tell you something else, Lieutenant. There will come a day, believe it now. There will come a day when a hundred thousand stormtroopers will line Fifth Avenue watching, while they take people like you away in trucks. [Polansky] What's your first name, McWilliams? [McWilliams] Joseph. Why? [Polansky] I just like to know who I'm talking to. I already know WHAT. [McWilliams] Aren't you getting this a little mixed up? I'm the victim! [Polansky] Ohhh, you're the victim, huh? [McWilliams] Yeah. [Polansky] Okay, Mr. McWilliams. This part is official. You're gonna press charges and the old man's gonna be booked and you'll be notified when and where to appear. That part's official. Now this part is unofficial. This is between  you and me, Abe Polansky and Joe McWilliams. I got a badge and a rule book that says that as long as you make orderly speeches and keep your hands to yourself, you can say anything and march  anywhere and I have to stand in front of you, stop a bullet if need be to protect you. But mister, if I ever catch you breaking the law, and that goes for picking a flower or spitting on the sidewalk, I hope to heaven you'll resist arrest. Because I won't need brass knuckles, Joseph... just these! [McWilliams] I'm glad we understand each other, Jew boy. [music] [Patient, quietly] Thank you. [Doctor] There's a detective outside wants to talk to you. [Doctor] Okay. Mr. Fine, I'm Abe Polansky. [Fine] You are a detective? [Polansky] That's right. [Fine] So you must be here to arrest me. You're a Hebrew teacher but I don't see you teaching. [Fine] Uh, logic yet, in such strange places. [Polansky chuckles] [Polansky] You did a very serious thing, Mr. Fine. You realize that? [Fine] To take a knife to another human being. I'm quite aware of the action, Mr. Detective, and  of the consequences. [Polansky] So? [Fine] So? I listened to him talking for over an hour. "The Jews" this, "the Jews" that. The "communist Jews", "the billionaire Jews", "the Jews who mongrelize and leave their filth around the earth". I listened to him for over an hour. So, with a knife I had taken out to get  sharpened, I spoke for six million dead. Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Majdanek. I wanted to leave a monument. Mr. Fine, the dead body of a fanatic punk is no monument. What he can become though, what you could make him, is a martyr. And the six million dead? Forget them? [Polansky] You mourn them, Mr. Fine. That's your right and their do. But if they become an excuse for every act of violence you want to pull out of your hat, I don't think they're being honored. [Fine] Mr. Polansky, listen to me [groan] Boychik, why is it that when two Jews get together there  must be a violent exchange of philosophy? [Polansky] [chuckles] Mr. Fine, I don't think you realize what the consequences are. He's going to press charges which will bring you up on an assault with a deadly weapon! [Fine] Assault with a deadly weapon. A man stands on a platform and calls for the slaughter of millions of people, Jews, negroes, Puerto Ricans, and who else, and who else, and who else! And for quieting him, I get assault with a deadly weapon? [Polansky] Well what do you expect, you stabbed him? [Fine] All right, all right, all right, I stabbed him! [Polansky] All right. [Fine] Well... you don't understand. How do you say? There are circumstances. [Polansky] Well, I'd certainly like to hear them. [Fine] You don't know? You didn't meet this man? [Polansky] I met 'im, McWilliams. [Fine] McWilliams, yet. The leopard puts on a camel's coat. McWilliams. This is not the McWilliams. [Polansky] What are you talking about? [Fine] Would you like to hear his name? Would you  like to know what I called him 20 years ago? I called him Seymour. A thin, frightened, fidgety, little boy sitting in the front row of a Hebrew class. Then he was Seymour Ableson. [Polansky] McWilliams? [Fine] By all means, McWilliams. [Fine] I used to wonder watching him leave the room when the class was over, frightened of the boys alongside of him. Frightened of going outside. Frightened of coming back. I used to wonder what could be in store for a boy whose fear is so much a part of his own body like, like his arms and his legs. [Fine] I used to wonder what could happen to this kind of boy. And then a week ago, his uncle comes to me. His uncle, an orthodox Jew with a beard. His uncle Moishe who attends the  synagogue each morning for prayers. And this uncle tells me of his nephew Seymour. Seymour! My former student! Ayesh, the backsliders. The Jews who think it's better business not  to be Jewish, they can change their names The cowards with consciences, they will donate to  a house of worship but do it anonymously. But the special one. The one with such a sickness. The little animal in the jungle, the little rodent to whom survival is not a thing. This one must be king of the jungle. This one becomes a McWilliams. This one calls for ovens and cyanide gas and  concentration camps on the, on the Hudson River! Listen to me, my Yiddish policeman. A wild  animal kills for sustenance, for a meal, but McWilliams, this breed eats his own and  I wonder that even God can forgive this! [sigh] [door knock] [Griffiths] McWilliams is out here. He wants to talk to the old man. [Polansky] About what? [Griffiths] I don't know. I had him filling out the field report. He suddenly takes a look at the old man's name and he gets the shakes. [Polansky] I wonder why. [Griffiths] Hmmm? [Polansky] Tell 'im to wait a minute. Fine, Mr. McWilliams would like to talk to you. [Fine] Ah, by all means, let him come in. Let the stormtrooper come in. [Fine] And there's no need for you to stay Mr. Detective. This time I won't use a knife. But this time he will really bleed. [Polansky] McWilliams! [light music] [McWilliams] Mr. Fine. [Fine] Nu? Man-child. Tell me, what flowed from the hole I put in your shoulder? [Fine] Was the blood of a pure Aryan variety? [McWilliams] I didn't know it was you. I didn't know until I was out there filling out the report, then I, I recognized your name. This is obvious. I gotta talk to you Mr. Fine. Also obvious. [McWilliams] Nobody knows who I was. [Fine] Nobody? I know. Your uncle Moishe knows. We are not two  oriental kings, but we are somebody. I haven't seen my uncle in 15 years. He won't tell anybody. He mourns me like I was dead. What about you, Mr. Fine? Well what about me, my little ex-student of the Torah? What about me? I am to keep my mouth shut. If I say that this fascist with the swastika and the metals is a Jew named Seymour Abelson, suddenly you will find yourself running out of street corners. You will find yourself listening to these monsters, former friends pointing at you saying the same things you said. The camps, the gas, the ovens. [McWilliams] I won't press charges! I swear I'll even tell them that you're the wrong man! Well if that isn't enough, you tell me what is! [Fine] One question, Mr... McWilliams, is it? This question... why? [McWilliams] I never hurt you. [Fine] You... you never hurt me. Is that what you said? You never hurt me? You preach the gospel of poison. Listen to me, you animal. You, you have hurt me. You have hurt my own. You have hurt the race of man. But far worse, you have planted a seed of hate in me that makes me ashamed to go into my own house of worship and present myself to God! [McWilliams] "If your neighbor wrongs you, forgive him for thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Would you vengefully punish your one hand for having hurt the other?" [McWilliams] Do you remember that, Mr. Fine?  You said it to me more than once. [Fine] The devil quotes the scriptures.  And with a good memory yet. [Fine] So what happens, brown shirt, if you walk  out of here unexposed? Where do you walk? Back to the street corners? You would not walk in peace. [McWilliams] I can't turn my back of what I believe! [Fine] No! You believed in being a Jew and you turned your back on that. And with what ease you renounced our faith. Tell me stormtrooper.  This one question answer me. Why? [McWilliams] You just don't renounce being a Jew. You, you kick it like a habit! Oh with you it's a profession. You stay in a ratty, musty, little room making  believe you're a holy man from 4,000 years ago. I had to take my Judaism outside. I had to wear it like a hump. I used to walk down the streets with my uncle  and I used to listen to people snicker. They'd look at his beard and his long sideburns  and his big nose buried in a bible, and I could hear them whisper, "k*ke" from a block away. The heritage of four thousand years. And you know  what it was? Old men crying and pulling their beards and clawing at their chests. The chosen people, teacher. Chosen for what? To wail at a wall? And when I was seven years old, I had a n***er say to me that I killed his lord. A n***er! [McWilliams] Well let me tell you something, Mr. Hebrew Teacher: that's a lousy heritage. [Fine] This is a better one? [McWilliams] It comes with no tears and no wailing walls. [Fine] So. Because you were made to weep, because you were made to hate, this couldn't be lived with? So you find yourself someone, anyone, weaker than you. You put on the trappings of the oppressor and now you have salvation. Tell me. If it were known that you are  a Jew or were a Jew, what would happen? I'd kill myself. Well, I believe you. I believe you. Taking of lives, I suppose, even your own isn't a horror for you. You have a business arrangement with the angel of death! I will think about it. For how long? For a moment or for an hour or for the balance of the day. I will think about it, Seymour Abelson. [Fine] And, if you hear me weeping in my usual Jewish fashion, it will be for you. [McWilliams] You know? Will you tell? [Polansky] That a Jew wants to kill  other Jews? I got too much pride for that. Soft. Jelly. Four thousand years  and they are still waiting. I am not a Jew. [whispered] I am not a Jew! [dramatic music] Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! [cheering and applause] [McWilliams] All right. Gentlemen, listen to me. This is good for us. This is publicity. This keeps our name alive. Whenever the Jews strike back it simply points up the battle. Do you understand? [Men] Yes we understand! [McWilliams] Now you listen to me You don't have to sell anti-Semitism, you can give it away for nothing. You don't have to teach people to hate, the hate is already there. The trouble is they're too complacent, they won't get moving. This... is my scar. And you know what your scar is? Your scar is having to live in a country that is overrun by the Jews, the non-whites. THEY sit in the high places in government, in the courts, with the police. They grin down at you from television sets. But when the white Aryan Americans pick up their own knives then the tentacles of subversion will be chopped off! Burned! Shriveled! And we will not leave a scar! [Men cheer] Sieg Heil! [McWilliams] What is it? [Man] Guess who's here, Commander? Jack the Ripper. [Men in crowd] It's a Jew. Who let him in? [Fine] Oh no. [Man] It's a Jew. [Fine] No knife this time. No weapon. [Men in crowd] Oh, he's got a knife somewhere. What's he doing here? What do you want? Mr. McWilliams, you don't recognize me? I am the old man who put the knife in your body. [Man in crowd] It's the Jew that stabbed you! [Fine] My name is Fine. I teach at the Hebrew school. I teach young boys of the God of Israel, the God of all men. You look frightened, Mr. Stormtrooper. Don't be. I didn't bring the wrath of the God of Israel with me. [Men laugh] I don't come here to wound you. [Fine] And I don't come here to expose you. [McWilliams] Then, what do you want? [thigh slap] A favor. [Men] He wants a favor! [laughter] Give him a favor, Commander! [Fine] A favor. A small favor. From men like  you, it's a simple thing that I require. [Fine] It is to laugh, how simple. [McWilliams] What do you want!? [Fine] I want to be punished. [Men] He wants to be punished. Let's punish him, Commander! [Man] Punished? [Fine] Just that, punishment. In the moment of my passion I tried to kill you. I turned away from God. I broke the commandments in my faith. [Fine] So here and now it must be an eye  for an eye. And since you are the aggrieved, you must perform the punishment. [Man] I hit him twice, I must have knocked him off his rocker! [men laugh] One more time, Commander, just to accommodate him? Hey old Jew! How would you like me to tan your hide? [Men] Let me at him! What do you want me... Let's tear him apart! Get 'im. Let me at him! Come on! [McWilliams] Stop it! You better get out of here old man.  There are no Jews here to protect you. [Fine] No Jews. No Christians either. [Fine] So go ahead Mr. McWilliams. Strike me. I'll  not defend myself. Go ahead. [Men] Yeah, go ahead. Hit him, Commander! Hit him! Hit him, Commander! Hit him! [McWilliams] Oh. Oh you people just don't learn, do you? Four thousand years of turning your  cheeks and still you don't learn! Hahaha, what is it that you say? "Him who pelts you - pelts you with stones, pelt him with bread"? [laughter] We say, "Blessed are they who pay good for good to the lord and good for evil to men." And we say, "There are Jews, n***ers, spicks,  wops, hunkies and pope lovers and anyone who tries to defend them - they are the enemy!" That is what we say! [Fine] And not only do I defend them, I call them my brothers. So I am the enemy. So strike me, Mr. McWilliams. Strike me down! [Men yelling] Go on, go on, go on! Hit him! [McWilliams] Get out of here. Get out of here, all of you. Go on, move!! [Man] Come on, out. [McWilliams] GET OUT OF HERE! [Man, quietly] Out. [door shut] [Fine] So... it is written, "Seek the good in  everyone. "Reveal it and bring it forth." You have been revealed. You better get out of here now. I believe that men hate other men for one reason only, because there comes to a point deep in the pit where they can no longer stomach hating themselves. So don't look for Black men or  brown men or yellow men to despise. [Fine] Look only into the mirror. See what you really hate. I cannot hate. I offer you pity. I offer you compassion. But to live in darkness without love, this would make God weep. This should make you weep. [sentimental music] [Polansky] Mr. Fine. [Fine] Hmm? [Polansky] I was worried about you. They told me where you were going. Well you seem to be all right. You're lucky. [Fine] Heh, lucky. [Polansky] I'll take you back to the hospital. [Fine] No, no, no. Take me to the synagogue if you will, Mr. Detective. It's a good time to do a little praying. You should have done that about an hour ago. They could have broken every bone in your body. Nu, and if they had, what then? The Talmud says, "Regard as trifling the great good you do for others, "and as enormous, the little good they do for you." [Fine] Something enormous and good has happened tonight. So, boychik, to the synagogue where I can thank God for it. Hmm? There's a Mr. Fine and a McWilliams in each of us. Most of us don't want to be like McWilliams, and yet too many of us allow circumstances to cause  us to act like McWilliams. Most of us would prefer to be like Mr. Fine, yet we balk at love's demands or we lose confidence in the power of love. I'm not going to tell you that loving is easy, it's not. But I can tell you that loving will enable you to tap a new kind of power. Love those who hate you. Smile at those who scorn you. Do good to those who abuse you and notice what happens. Your enemy's hatred is disarmed and ultimately it will be destroyed. You think I'm talking idealistically? I dare you to try it. You'll see.  Love is the most powerful force in the world. [dramatic music]