Hatred: Debate

[emotional leper]

Question: Is hatred self-defeating and a waste of time, or does it serve a purpose.

In answering this question, I'm going to have to give my definitions of words. I know that altering the definition of a word from a commonly used one to a personal one is a bad way to start an arguement, or win one, and I can't remember the name of the fallacy.

For me, Love and Hate are on the same spectrum. Not a line, but more like a circle, or a spiral staircase. Same as with good and evil. It is possible to love something so much that you move far enough around the circle to hate it. This is something that can be seen on the political spectrum. The difference between the extreme far left and extreme far right are neglibable.

For me, Love and Hate are emotions, and as such irrational. They have no rational basis. Like or Dislike of a thing, however is based upon logical bases, and are rational. You can only like or dislike something if you understand it ( or him or her. ) If you do not understand something, you can only hate it. And once understanding of something is achieved, it is possible to neither like or dislike it -- merely accept it. Such as the classic problem of "Why is there Evil?" There are lots of answers. My Zenarchist training ( I'm laughing as I type that ) directs me to shrug and accept it for what it is. Why is there evil? Who cares why it's there. It's there. What are you going to do about it?

Since I feel that one can only Hate or Love something that one does not understand, I find self proclaimed 'haters' of things interesting. Without drawing from too many horrible examples of personal disaster, I have been in love with several women in my short life. Well, mostly girls, and one woman. But the way I differentiate between the two involves more than age. But that's another discussion. I have loved many people. I still do. But many of those loves have transformed either into Likes or Dislikes. When the reason behind my attraction to someone is irrational and/or emotional it's love (or lust, depending, another conversation). When I come to a fuller understanding of that person, I will still love them, but I may not like them.

I thnk I got all the preliminary out of the way.

Hate shall make me strong.

It's a principle I live by. When something bad happens to me, most often, it seems by someone who I care about, or love, or who says they feel one of those feelings for me, I am incapable of hating them for a very long time. Loving someone is a little switch inside my head that once flicked on, can never be flicked off. It's annoying. However, I can love someone and hate them at the same time. There can be things about a person that emotionally attract and repel me.

I have a horrible habit of forgiving people. For everything. Many people, including mental health workers, have commented on this. From the smallest little slight to someone trying to kill me, I've forgiven someone for it. And if I haven't I probably will one day. However, forgiving someone requires that I believe that they are capable of better things. Or that it was an accident. Or that they did not realise what they were doing. Or all three. After a certain ammount of time, for example, if you're a girl who says you want to be in a relationship with me only to get close enough to me to find out the exact ways in which to hurt me to try to drive me into suicidal despair, I will stop forgiving you. I will even begin to hate you.

Now, of course, one of the things I came to realise long ago is that in hating other people, I'm really only hating myself. I don't hate that person, so much as I hate aspects of myself I see in them. Or aspects I see in them that reflect capacities I have in myself that I do not like. I hated my father for a long time for being an emotionaly unreachable bastard because I was one, too. However, once I came to understand the basis for the hatred, it stopped being irrational, and as it was no longer irrational, could be dissected and destroyed.

Hate shall make me strong.

Hate makes me strong by letting me know that there is something I need to work on. When I see someone doing something, and that something makes me hate them, that is a huge signal to myself that I need to sit down and seriously think, and try to understand, that person, and why they do what they do, because it says something about me, and what I do.

So many people, I deem, are inclined to hate so easily, because it is easier to vent anger and rage at a foreign body, and feel satisfaction in the release of the anger, than it is to turn that anger inward and find the cause of it, and correct it.

That and there is a very, very large trend in American Culture to deny the possibility that there can be anything wrong with the self. That all problems are external ones. This is endemic from personal to government levels, I think. But that's a whole other series of discussions.

[Avatar]

Hmmm, I'm not sure that I get what you're aiming at there...oh..wait a second...I got it...sorta hate as the impetus for self-improvement.

OK, I get what you're saying. But it is a rather radical departure from what people usually mean when they talk about hate.

Otherwise, I largely agree with statements like you can't hate anything you understand. That it's born of fear and ignorance.

I do think though that you can love what you do understand.

I totally agree that once ou figure out what in you makes you hate something, you're on the way to no longer hating though.

But this is hate as a tool for self-analysis. Or at least, recognising it as a symptom that needs analysis.

Good post and interesting topic.

--A

[danlo]

Get it out of your system while you're young Emo it really serves no purpose as you get older. I was at war with society for a long time and had a 'hit list' from High School till I was 35 all it did was waste time and energy and burned me out hard. One day I sat down on a park bench and let it all go--even the burning angst I had against my parents. My life has improved dramatically since then.

Now I only hate the San Antonio Spurs because they keep beating all the teams I root for (especially the Suns ). Hate in this case may actually be a deep seated respect-tho I'll never admit it! Damm the Spurs, damm them!!!

[wayfriend]

Now, of course, one of the things I came to realise long ago is that in hating other people, I'm really only hating myself. I don't hate that person, so much as I hate aspects of myself I see in them.

I'm calling you on that one, EL. That's just BS. A cheap rationalization at best.

Hating takes energy. No one hates anyone unless that ultimately believe that the object of their hatred is hurting them - that they've taken something, or they're taking something, or they will take something. And they're "getting away with it". Hatred is the last ditch defense against the hurt that you feel helpless against.

As soon as you can convince yourself that the target of your hatred didn't, isn't, or won't hurt you (either by figuring out that they are not doing what they think you are doing, or that what they are doing isn't really so bad) you'll stop hating them.

[balon!]

Hatred always burns fast and short for me.

It ussually only amounts to a quick glare and some hand gestures to the a-hole who cut me off in their urban assault vehicle, making me jump out of the bike lane and onto the crub.

[Avatar]

Yeah, that's not hatred. That's just a mild dislike Balon.

I'm with Danlo. It's too much energy. The only person who suffers anything from it it yourself. (Unless you actually do things to the people you hate. )

--A

[Tjol]

Hate is largely good or bad in the way it is channeled.

Lord Mhoram's understanding of the paradox of hate and love (by the end of TPTP), and which is which, is a pretty useful starting point in my opinion. To hate, is not to be without love.... and to love is not to be without hate. The trick is to weild them correctly.

I only perused your post...and being out of a similar point of view in my teens I can offer you this much anyways on hate:

When in our lives we find ourselves nearly powerless to the hard events that break upon us, hate is an amazing buoy. Hate is a first ambition out of powerlessness, a craving to exercise the power that feels mis-exercised against you keeps from being content with choosing a helpless existence.

But there comes a point in our lives, where we break a certian point of equilibrium, where we realise more self determination, and less helplessness to the influence of others. When we become individuals, and acheive som measure of self determination, hate is only a doubt to stifle your ambitions of self determination. Hate is only a reminder of then that keeps your eyes away from now, and away from what's just up the road.

I occasionally still feel the same fire in my blood that I did then. But now it fills me with laughter, I recognise the limits of their influence upon me, and I recognise the great extents to which I have more power than they do over where I go and what I do. I laugh, because they can't make me waste the enrgy on hating them anymore.

Granted.... somewhere in reaching that equilibrium and passing it; somewhere in gaining self discipline and self control also is accepting that we cannot do everything, that we are not omnipotent. Humility goes a long way I think in being as strong as we might be as individuals, but so is recognising that point when hate is a burden rather than buoy, and letting that hate go.

[Avatar]

Good post Tjol.

--A

[Cagliostro]

Hatred always burns fast and short for me.

It ussually only amounts to a quick glare and some hand gestures to the a-hole who cut me off in their urban assault vehicle, making me jump out of the bike lane and onto the crub.

Yeah, I always have the same reaction whenever some smug bicyclist comes tooling along when I'm coming to a stop sign, and nearly puts a dent into my SUV with their body when I try to go when there happens to be a clear spot in traffic (other than the cyclist). Then, the bastards always seem to have to gall to yell at me and wave their limbs around in anger. Hey...what part of "I'm bigger than you" don't you understand? You need to look out for me, sucker.


I'm kidding...I don't drive an SUV.

[iQuestor]

Question: Is hatred self-defeating and a waste of time, or does it serve a purpose.

I think it is self-defeating UNLESS you can bend it to your will. It is also about context.

There are times I hate my wife. usually because she points out some flaw in me that is uncomfortably close to the truth. I stay really angry for a while, then usually try to reach a compromise with myself (not her) so I can come to grips with it. This isnt really hate for her, but hate for me.

I have also felt I hated people for some reason or another, and in carrying out that emotion I realized way too late that the emotion was indeed harmful to me, and took way too much energy. Hate for another person often comes from an inadequacy within yourself, that is unacknowledged or ignored. We are the heros of our own story, and we tend to rationalize our faults rather than confront them. When another person reveals to us our own faults, we tend to lash out rather than look inward.

Now, if someone harmed or killed my child, I feel I would hate them. Could gleefully end their lives. this is a different situation. But killing or otherwise punishing them serves no purpose, except personal satisfaction. I havent been in this scenario, but once in high school I beat the living sh*t out of a friend for some imagined slight, something I have never forgiven myself for. Nor he, me.

I hated being overweight, so I lost 50 pounds. really. And I am about 5 months from keeping it off for a year. In this case, it served a purpose.

so, the answer to me is , hatred can be either: self-defeating OR useful.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Hating takes energy. No one hates anyone unless that ultimately believe that the object of their hatred is hurting them - that they've taken something, or they're taking something, or they will take something. And they're "getting away with it". Hatred is the last ditch defense against the hurt that you feel helpless against.

As soon as you can convince yourself that the target of your hatred didn't, isn't, or won't hurt you (either by figuring out that they are not doing what they think you are doing, or that what they are doing isn't really so bad) you'll stop hating them.

Excelent!
Best post ever, imo.
Wayfriend, to me you're just like my brother-in-law, so long as we don't talk politics it's always a pleasure!



I'm familiar with hate.
My Father left my family when I was 10.
He left my Mom for another woman but there was never any good or even bad reason why he would walk away and not make any effort to contact any of his 5 children for over 29 years now.
I hated him for that.
Really really hated him.
I mean, we're talking an anger that would well up inside me that would shatter 100 Arch of Times if I had any Wild Magic handy.
Ravers had nothing on me!
Then I became a father myself and looking at my own kids and thinking what he had done to me I hated him even more.
Then one day last year after talking to a good freind about her Dad that she loved who had recently passed away I thought that my hate was stupid. That even though I had wasted very little time thinking about my Dad the time I did spend being pissed off was a waste.
So one night I spent a few minutes doing an internet search, found his number and called him up.
It was weird, I was as nervous as a ten year old confronting the bogeyman but I asked him some questions and he answered them like he should have.
And then.........
I was done hating.
And you know what?
There was no god-damn change of life for me!
Nothing was "lifted" and I felt no "release"!
It was just a kind of a "mellow out" now I can stop wondering experience.
I WANT MY HATE BACK!!!!
IT WAS A HELL OF A LOT MORE FUN!

I'm only half kidding.
But it does take a lot more energy to hate than to forgive.
And I really can "feel" some of that hate energy missing.
I'll assume that it's a good thing though.

btw, initially after talking to him I was so mellewed out I even considered meeting him and letting him see his Grandkids but other things in life kept pushing the idea back and now almost a year later I literally have no interest in doing so anymore.
But it's not because of any "hate" on my part holding me back just my own laziness. Which is fine. I like lazy.

[wayfriend]

Wayfriend, to me you're just like my brother-in-law, so long as we don't talk politics it's always a pleasure!

Thanks, and your kinda cute for a THOOLAH drone, too.

[iQuestor]

Wayfriend, to me you're just like my brother-in-law, so long as we don't talk politics it's always a pleasure!

Thanks, and your kinda cute for a THOOLAH drone, too.

The guy I really think is hot is....

oh. i thought this was the man-crush thread.

[lucimay]

Wayfriend, to me you're just like my brother-in-law, so long as we don't talk politics it's always a pleasure!

Thanks, and your kinda cute for a THOOLAH drone, too.

The guy I really think is hot is....

oh. i thought this was the man-crush thread.

yeah yeah we know we know...Cail and Malik, Malik and Cail!! all you guys have mancrushes on Cail and Malik. yeesh.

[Avatar]

Good post HLT.

--A

[emotional leper]

Thanks, and your kinda cute for a THOOLAH drone, too.

The guy I really think is hot is....

oh. i thought this was the man-crush thread.

yeah yeah we know we know...Cail and Malik, Malik and Cail!! all you guys have mancrushes on Cail and Malik. yeesh.

Ahem. It's called, 'Guy Love.' There's a song about it.

*sigh* David Bowie.

[iQuestor]

yeah. Lola.

[Andromeda]

What works best for me is to hate evil not people.

[emotional leper]

What works best for me is to hate evil not people.

What is evil? Can good ends be accomplished by evil means? Is evil absolute, or relative?

[Avatar]

*shrug* It's relative. It exists not in any sort of corporeal sense, but, if it exists at all, in the actions of people.

And it's "diagnosis" is made within a subjective, relative and contextual framework that can differ for every person.

--A