Is hell other people? By Gaëlle DE BRITO

Hell is horrible. It is a netherworld everyone fears, an extremely unpleasant and inescapable place in which the dead are condemned to suffer forever. Hell can also be defined as a personal state of misery and torment. But can hell be “other people”? Spontaneously, I’d answer yes because this world just seems to be getting worse and it is people who are making it so…

Every day, kids suffer from being bullied. Bullying can be physical and verbal (including cyberbullying). People often attack a person just because that person is different (physically) or sometimes just because they feel the need to torture someone else. This has a huge impact on the victim: they feel lonely, unloved, and lack self-confidence, and don’t know how to interact with other people anymore. And they usually never talk about it to anyone and the loneliness with all the bad feelings that accumulate can drive some to kill themselves. The figures regarding bullying keep rising. Prevention campaigns try to make kids aware of the impact that bullying can have.

Bullying doesn’t just take place at school; the same thing exists for adults in the work place: moral (and sexual) harassment. Bullying proves that “hell is other people.”

There are people who are very anxious and being with other people is sometimes very complicated for them. When someone like this has to talk to a group of people, this can be awful for them; it is indeed the presence of other people that makes a living hell for the anxious person. So when someone suffers from severe anxiety (or clinical depression) the whole world is hell. Anxiety is actually a very common phenomenon.

In your life, there must have been people who have disappointed you? They make you feel like you’re important to them, and then they leave you as if nothing ever happened between you and you just feel like you’re nothing in this world and then you’re scared to trust someone again and you just see other people as bad people.

In the past there were bad people, and there are a lot of bad people in the world today. They destroy people’s lives: a violent husband who hurts his wife and his children, or a parent who gives up their child for no real reason, or the parents who don’t really care about their kids. There are also the dangerous people who rape, kidnap, torture, or kill a huge number of innocent people.

We can also talk about the people who are destroying our planet and the life on it just for economic reasons. In Africa there are a lot of poachers who kill elephants and rhinoceroses for their tusks because they can sell them for a good price. People like this are very stupid and their actions are destroying the animal species in Africa (in the past century, there were 20 million elephants, and today there are only 500,000 left). I take Africa as an example, but this happens everywhere; polar bears are disappearing because people kill them for their fur to make coats, and this happens to a lot of animals all over the world. People are destroying parts of the planet like the Amazonian rainforest (58% of the trees that are cut down illegally are not even used). By destroying forests, people are destroying the biodiversity on which we depend. This is further proof that hell is caused by (other) people.

Is there no hope? Are all people bad? No, there are NGOs that help people or try to save the animals. There are people who want to do good. They are generous (think of Les Restos du Coeur, and Wildlife Angel). These kinds of associations do not get enough support; they need to be better known because not enough people have heard of them. Every day there are people who fight for the homeless, or the elephants or the rainforest, or for so many other causes. There still are good people ready to help others.

There are often demonstrations all around the world to free an innocent prisoner or for Gay rights, or to protest against dangerous leaders like Trump or Putin. People are not afraid to stand up to the authorities in order to defend their cause. Even if the cause doesn’t affect them personally, they do this for other people.

This courage is also demonstrated when there are disasters around the world. Hundreds, even thousands of people then help each other. There is real solidarity. Sometimes, on the news, we see a baby being rescued from under the rubble thanks to team effort. So, in this instance, hell isn’t other people because people are not hurting each other, they are saving lives. Every day, in so many places, there are people who work to help and save others: tireless doctors, nurses, surgeons, psychologists, rescue workers, firefighters, teachers, etc. They often risk their own safety to help others.

What about your parents? They, most of them, try to do their best for you. They stand by your side, put you first. They know you better than anyone and they love you. They try to make you feel happy. And this is the same thing with our friends and all the people who love us and who do not abandon us.

Hell is other people? Sometimes yes, other times, no. It’s a bit yin and yang, don't you think? As Sartre wrote: “… in the concentration camps, I learnt to believe in men.” Good experiences usually make people good, and bad experiences often make people bad, but I believe you can, up to a point, choose to do good and even decide if you will let other people make (your) life hell.