Rousseau Was Right: Difference between revisions

* ''Who Taught You How to Hate?'' by [[Disturbed]] is either a [[Deconstruction]] or [[Subversion]]. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The title really says it all.]] This song is far from optimistic. The eponymous [[Driving Question]] is a meditation on [[Children Are Innocent]] and the [[Freudian Excuse]], as the narrator asserts "[this] isn't in your blood, not a part of what you're made" and "there's always one who plants an evil seed". However, there are also lyrics which undermine these themes and suggest they are merely excuses or justifications for evil, such as: "Can it still be if you're what made you this way?" (After all, even if every child ''is'' born a nondiscriminatory tabula rasa with an inclination toward good, the corrupt are no less so for their innocent origins. There are plenty of killers who [[Used to Be a Sweet Kid]]. In the end, a hateful soul is nothing more than the spiteful anger they embody, making them "dead to everyone (you're not anyone)".) Ultimately, ''Who Taught You How to Hate?'' could be said to be a pessimistic condemnation of [[Cycle of Revenge|grudges]], because that is the ''only'' way a fundamentally blank slate can be tarnished -- by choice, willfully [[Subverted Trope|neglecting]] [[ForgivenessTurn the Other Cheek|to forgive]] and [[Forgiveness|wipe the slate clean]].