It’s almost impossible to think practically and rationally when every fibre of our being screams ‘NO!’ at the thought that human beings just like you and me - who live a life not entirely dissimilar to our own - are choosing to act this way. To acknowledge this is to accept our own capacity to do the same. Even worse, to acknowledge this is to recognise our neighbour’s capacity to behave this way. That’s some scary shit. Most of us don’t have the courage to admit this reality to ourselves. THIS is why we hate. — Possibility

I see hatred as based on projection, infantile rage and unconscious self-loathing. When people conclude that it's ok for them to hate, they also feel justified to do whatever they want to those they hate. There's a lot of self-righteousness that characterizes hate behavior, which creates a catch-22: I don't have to stop hating because I am right to hate. I'm "protecting Southern womanhood" or I'm "keeping the world safe for democracy." Of course, that's not what's really going on at all.

Anyone can choose to live without a moral code or can pretend to follow a moral code while not doing so in reality. I think those are the folks who tend to hate with the most impunity. When people feel no sense of responsibility in terms of how they relate to others, it's like an anti-ethics of anything goes--which is no ethics at all. It's fundamentally anti-social. Those who believe they have a moral responsibility to refrain from doing hateful things to others are practicing ethics. Practice is good!

Exactly. A negative reality, while our love biases push us to what we see as a better loving reality. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You think you can choose what your reality is simply by preferring it a certain way - this is the problem. You can’t just block out the parts of reality you don’t like. Hate is a delusion that prevents us from understanding what it is in the world that we want to change and how we can change it in order to actualise the potential of this ‘better loving reality’ that we perceive.

Love is not a bias: it’s a capacity to perceive potential in the world and take action - by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration to manifest it gradually across spacetime. When we allow ourselves to love freely without denying our fears or the ‘negative reality’ that persists despite our preferences, then we can perceive the potential in our circumstances for positive change, regardless of how dire our current situation is in reality.

You may not see unconditional love, but the potential is there, nonetheless.

I see hatred as based on projection, infantile rage and unconscious self-loathing. When people conclude that it's ok for them to hate, they also feel justified to do whatever they want to those they hate. There's a lot of self-righteousness that characterizes hate behavior, which creates a catch-22: I don't have to stop hating because I am right to hate. I'm "protecting Southern womanhood" or I'm "keeping the world safe for democracy." Of course, that's not what's really going on at all. — uncanni

Thank you for your contribution. I think projection, infantile rage and self-loathing are forms of hate, but hate also takes other forms that some people here are less likely to condemn. The argument being presented here, which I dispute, is that hate, when generated by ‘love’, is justified. The OP question is what triggers hate - specifically, how do we go from love to hate, and is the process useful?

Anyone can choose to live without a moral code or can pretend to follow a moral code while not doing so in reality. I think those are the folks who tend to hate with the most impunity. When people feel no sense of responsibility in terms of how they relate to others, it's like an anti-ethics of anything goes--which is no ethics at all. It's fundamentally anti-social. Those who believe they have a moral responsibility to refrain from doing hateful things to others are practicing ethics. Practice is good! — uncanni

Personally I think some people’s ‘moral code’ is part of what leads them to hate, and to justify that hate. When we have a strong sense of morality that we live by, how do we respond to what is ‘immoral’ in the world? Do we accept a reality that includes people doing hateful or ‘immoral’ things - a reality where we are certainly capable of ‘immoral’ things ourselves - or do we accept only this ‘better loving reality’ where everyone does the ‘right’ thing? When we encounter someone doing something ‘immoral’ or hateful, do we strive to understand why, or do we blindly attack this threat to our ‘better loving reality’?

When we hate those who hate, are we justified?

When we encounter someone doing something ‘immoral’ or hateful, do we strive to understand why, or do we blindly attack this threat to our ‘better loving reality’? — Possibility

Here are some concrete examples: the shooters at Black churches and synagogues break my heart. The history of lynching pains me deeply; so do the Holocaust, rape, incest, My Lai, serial killing, etc., etc. ad infinitum. The kind of mentality that is capable of such actions is a very scarey mentality to contemplate. In general, I conclude that probably the people in those categories never developed a conscience and experienced severe abuse and trauma themselves. I've read about Hitler and the German family unit for the generations prior to the rise of nazism (Rosembaum's Explaining Hitler, and Alice Miller has a few books on the German ethos of the period) as well as many books on psychopathy. I've read a lot about the kind of trauma and abuse that result in the developmental disabling of conscience and the ability to use other people merely as things.

I will admit that during the past three years, it's been very hard for me not to hate Trump. I am hoping that he will be impeached so that all the damage he's inflicting is stopped. I understand that he's deeply traumatized and that he has found it quite easy and probably comfortable to view other people more as things than as subjects like himself. So I guess I'd have to say that I hate the destruction, cruelty and deprivation that very sick people inflict on the world.

'Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated' - George Bernard Shaw

I think hate is unnecessary and a completely illogical response to a situation. I think, any action or crime which results in hate from an audience has been ill judged and analysed. The more we understand, the less we hate.

You may not see unconditional love, but the potential is there, nonetheless. — Possibility

If you think love has no conditions, you are sadly mistaken.

That is why you love family and friends more than others.

If you do not, you do not know what love is.

Regards
DL

When we hate those who hate, are we justified? — Possibility

Reciprocity rules say it is.

To tolerate those who do not tolerate others is empowering them. It rewards evil with good.

One is either for them or against them.

Regards
DL

I think hate is unnecessary and a completely illogical response to a situation. — Fruitless

Really.

What emotion would you feel if you got home and found a rapist on your wife?

What is the logical emotion you should feel?

Regards
DL

I'd never let that happen, ever.
1). Because I'm not a homosexual and 2). Because I wouldn't marry anyone that stupid.

I see what you're trying to say though, about situations and events out of your control. Events like someone close to you dying from a drunk driver, or your exam mark wasn't enough to get into the dream university but you found out years later that it was a mistake, but it's too late and you lived your whole life in ruin. I see what you're getting at.

I still stand by it. Although these events happen, there are simply some things you cannot control. So you can control yourself. The rapist? I'd stop the situation immediately, then I would tie the lad up until I understand what is with him. And fix him so he won't do it again.

Hate leads to impulsive behaviour, how many crimes and deaths and dreadful events have resulted because of hate and could have been prevented by peace? War.

You must understand that other individuals are no where near in the same thought pattern as you, we are all very different in our childhood and biological wiring. So the act of one person does not explain their entire situation.

That is why I find it very hard to hate.

If you think love has no conditions, you are sadly mistaken.

That is why you love family and friends more than others.

If you do not, you do not know what love is. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I love my family and friends - that I put limitations on my love for others I recognise as fear on my part, not a necessary condition of love. I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do.

When we hate those who hate, are we justified?
— Possibility

Reciprocity rules say it is. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Reciprocity rules? Are you saying we should go back to ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’?

To tolerate those who do not tolerate others is empowering them. It rewards evil with good.

One is either for them or against them. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Tolerate is an interesting word, isn’t it? It doesn’t mean that we do nothing about what is happening, but that we have the capacity to endure it for a time. It doesn’t empower at all - it only looks like that to those who cannot see the bigger picture, or that real change occurs in time.

The world is not as black and white as you like to think it is.

Here are some concrete examples: the shooters at Black churches and synagogues break my heart. The history of lynching pains me deeply; so do the Holocaust, rape, incest, My Lai, serial killing, etc., etc. ad infinitum. The kind of mentality that is capable of such actions is a very scarey mentality to contemplate. — uncanni

I’m with you here. That we are angered and frustrated by the pain humanity inflicts on itself and the world is heartbreaking. That people believe they need to add to that pain in order to end it is illogical, when you think about. But I also understand that most people aren’t prepared to think about it when they’re in the thick of these emotions.

That’s why we think about these things from a temporal distance. There are things we need to recognise in here about our own capacity to inflict damage when we justify our actions based on emotion.

What you’ve written shows a common approach to hate in recent times. Instead of hating the person, we seek to understand their thinking and the circumstances of their life. It makes it possible to conclude that this person is/was mentally disturbed, traumatized or very sick. I’m going to challenge your thinking a little further here. Because we can’t blame these people entirely for their actions, but we can’t accept them as part of society, either. Pity is an interesting emotion - it isn’t hate, but there’s a certain distancing effect that’s still a long way from love.

So I guess I'd have to say that I hate the destruction, cruelty and deprivation that very sick people inflict on the world. — uncanni

It’s easy enough to make this distinction while we’re talking conceptually, but I think we need to be honest here about what that means. When face to face with one of these ‘very sick people’, could we NOT hate them? Could we treat them with the dignity deserving of a human being - or would it be very difficult to respond to the person and not the behaviour or mentality that we hate?

Hate is a decision to deny reality based on very real feelings of fear, anger and frustration. That we can refrain from hating others by directing our emotions towards attacking the behaviour or mentality is certainly a step towards eradicating hate. The next step, I think, is to recognise how easily we can cause this destruction, cruelty and deprivation ourselves - how dangerously close all of us are to this ‘mentality’ or ‘disabling of conscience’ we define and separate out as pathological.

It’s frightening to be this honest about who we are as human beings, but I think that until we can look at people like Trump or Hitler and see ourselves in similar life circumstances, we won’t be able to effect the kind of change that we want to see in the world. Until we see that hate in these circumstances is not only understandable but also unnecessary, then we won’t recognise or be able to show others how to look for the potential to manifest a ‘better, loving reality’ from these adverse circumstances, too.

When face to face with one of these ‘very sick people’, could we NOT hate them? Could we treat them with the dignity deserving of a human being - or would it be very difficult to respond to the person and not the behaviour or mentality that we hate? — Possibility

I wouldn't hate them, but I'd probably be quite frightened of them; it would probably be very hard for me to control my fear. But I don't hate people--not at this point in my life.

That we can refrain from hating others by directing our emotions towards attacking the behaviour or mentality is certainly a step towards eradicating hate. — Possibility

I'm not attacking the behavior: I'm describing it. I have always sought to understand why people behave the way they behave, including myself.

but I think that until we can look at people like Trump or Hitler and see ourselves in similar life circumstances, we won’t be able to effect the kind of change that we want to see in the world. — Possibility

You know Stanley Milgram's experiment, right? Not everyone is going to be that obedient to authority. The Stanford prison experiment?Not everyone who gets into a position of power will abuse it, even if all those around are abusing their power.

It's patently obvious to me that not all humans have the same capacities for whatever we care to refer to: intellectual achievement or "genius," self-abnegation, goodness, badness, ambition, corruption, etc. There are anti-social personalities and there are social personalities!!

My point is not that I am an angelic being without flaws as far as my interpersonal relationships go, but to say that all humans can be this or that way seems (to me) tantamount to saying that all humans can be sexual predators, serial killers, psychopaths. This I absolutely do not believe to be true.

And fix him so he won't do it again. — Fruitless

An eye for an eye is your law so zipper down or break your own law.

Hate leads to impulsive behaviour, how many crimes and deaths and dreadful events have resulted because of hate and could have been prevented by peace? War. — Fruitless

I hear you and you have exemplified your hate of what you do right here with you fixing that rapist.
You became your enemy.

You must understand that other individuals are no where near in the same thought pattern as you, we — Fruitless

I'm not sure I follow. What pattern do you see?

That is why I find it very hard to hate — Fruitless

Hating is a demonstration of what is loved.

That is why I used the rape scenario.

I put what you loved in jeopardy and poof, there was the hate I wanted ti show you in yourself.

You would not give it up just as I would not give up mine.

Regards
DL

Reciprocity rules? Are you saying we should go back to ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’? — Possibility

Back?

I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do. — Possibility

You break the law of the excluded middle. Put that in the dust bin.

When did we stop trying to make the punishment suit the crime?

Regards
DL

You became your enemy.

- @Gnostic Christian Bishop

Please elaborate how I did this? I'm getting the idea that fixing something means you hate the way it is? That's like saying you hate children because you teach and discipline them until they contain enough logic to survive.

I put what you loved in jeopardy and poof, there was the hate I wanted to show you in yourself.

- @Gnostic Christian Bishop

Where is the hate? I did not express any hate?

I'm not sure I follow. What pattern do you see?

- @Gnostic Christian Bishop

Well this is rather straightforward, every person you meet has a personality cultured by their context and beliefs, values and attitudes. They didn't pick and choose their personality, they didn't choose to be that way - and therefore since the person is only restricted to their memory and environment, you can see a familiar pattern of the way they behave.
(You either get it or you don't)

And Lastly, Can you describe your definition of hate?
Hate to me is the desire to remove that thing from existence.

Back? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yes, back to when it was written down and people lived by it without considering the damage it causes.

You break the law of the excluded middle. Put that in the dust bin. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

The law of excluded middle refers to truth value. How does it apply here?

When did we stop trying to make the punishment suit the crime? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

The legal system is not my concern here - I’m talking about person to person relations.

(You either get it or you don't) — Fruitless

Nice teaching method.

And Lastly, Can you describe your definition of hate?
Hate to me is the desire to remove that thing from existence. — Fruitless

That is killing, IMO.

Not hate.

I offer no definition that would contradict or add to the dictionary.

I think you have with removing things from existence.

Regards
DL

I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do. — Possibility — Possibility

The law of excluded middle refers to truth value. How does it apply here?[/quote]

Let me rephrase for clarity and you breaking that law.

I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends more.

I hope you see how you painted yourself into an illogical corner.

You, of course, have to love others less if you are to love those close to you more.

Regards
DL

And let me emphasise the distinction between your statement and mine for clarity:

I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do.

I don’t need to love those close to me more. That’s the point.

That is killing, IMO.

Not hate.

- @Gnostic Christian Bishop

Well where do you expect to go with hate? Otherwise it's an unreasonable burden on your shoulders you have to deal with. What is the point of hate?

and

Nice teaching method.

- @Gnostic Christian Bishop thanks :)

I don’t need to love those close to me more. That’s the point. — Possibility

You do not need to for sure, but if you do not love those close to you mare than others, you do not know how to love.

If you had to save either your child or an acquaintance from fire, (lets say), who would you choose?

Regards
DL

What is the point of hate? — Fruitless

All our biases are in us to protect us, be they love biases or hate biases.

When you create a love bias, you automatically form a hate bias against anything that will jeopardize that which you love.

Regards
DL

Well where do you expect to go with hate? Otherwise it's an unreasonable burden on your shoulders you have to deal with. What is the point of hate? — Fruitless

It's a bit like asking 'whats the point of reflexes?' or 'what's the point with immune system imflammation around a wound`?

The organism is reacting to outside stimuli. And then in some cases it is helpful to be mobilized by powerful emotions. One need not necessarily act on them, but to be mobilized and sometimes expressive without violence, given that we are social mammals, is often necessary. And then of course sometimes we need to defend ourselves physically.

if you do not love those close to you mare than others, you do not know how to love. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

And I think it is you who doesn’t know how to love. To love is not simply to feel - we don’t love when we desire or prefer or value, although we may claim to feel love. A love bias towards something or someone isn’t to love. These feelings call us to love. But what we love, whether a person or an idea/concept, is an experience regardless of its actuality.

If you had to save either your child or an acquaintance from fire, (lets say), who would you choose? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

This is not a question of love. It’s the same as asking me which of my two children I would choose in the same situation, and then trying to tell me that choice has anything to do with love.

All our biases are in us to protect us, be they love biases or hate biases. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Not true: they don't protect; they sicken and weaken--in this case, the human psyche is weakened by the defenses one forms to avoid the pain and trauma of abuse. You call them biases, but you're really referring to the defenses you use to justify your opinions. And the conclusions you jump to, expecting the reader to accept them!! Loving more causes hate: just plain silly, and stupid. Dumb. Dull-witted. You can do better than that!!!

t is helpful to be mobilized by powerful emotions. One need not necessarily act on them, but to be mobilized and sometimes expressive without violence

- @Coben

Makes sense. Essentially it's our primitive counterpart.

I'd say it is part of our processes and who we are. A counterpart sounds like something that is not us.

The organism is reacting to outside stimuli. And then in some cases it is helpful to be mobilized by powerful emotions. One need not necessarily act on them, but to be mobilized and sometimes expressive without violence, given that we are social mammals, is often necessary. And then of course sometimes we need to defend ourselves physically. — Coben

Nicely put.

Regards
DL

This is not a question of love. It’s the same as asking me which of my two children I would choose in the same situation, and then trying to tell me that choice has anything to do with love. — Possibility

So you can see yourself saving your neighbor's child instead of your own.

Wow.

Don't tell your wife why or she, if smart, will drop you like a hot potato. Your a pathetic human.

Regards
DL

You can do better than that!!! — uncanni

You are the stupid one if you think you can do better than nature and the instincts that guide you.

Regards
DL