Hate

[LucyStoner]

4 hours ago, nevergiveup said:

I look at hate as being a very, very intense emotion.  So, my question to all you haters 🙂 is do you feel other emotions with equal intensity?

 

Often, yes.  I have learned to manage it as as adult but there have been times in my life where feelings are all-consuming, in both positive and negative ways.  

[Murphy101]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

It’s interesting; it becomes a bit of a semantic argument sometimes. I think some people, through upbringing and/or religious teachings, cannot bring themselves to objectively consider they hate someone. So they will euphamize it, but it means pretty much the same thing, yet we can’t quantify a person’s emotions, so we can’t really argue with someone who claims not to hate, only “strongly dislike.” 

It’s a lot like that time we were talking about what is a lie. Some people simply cannot see themselves as having lied. Sure, they have fibbed, told a white lie, been less than perfectly truthful. But lie? Never! 

 

Oh no.  I have hated with a blinding rage. I believe I can hate someone.  I have hated people in the past.  I grew up with people who hated.  I knew plenty of people that seem to feed off hate.  I have purposely chosen to walk away from that.  Because frankly, hating people doesn't change them, but it changes the person doing the hating, and rarely for the better.

Same for lying.  Sure I've lied, but I don't recommend it most of the time.

[Pawz4me]

I don't have well thought out opinions on this, but --

I don't think hate always has to be an intense "hot" feeling. I think it can be a rational/logical "cold" conclusion that one arrives at after much thought.

I think telling people that they shouldn't feel hate, or that it will only hurt them in the long run, is misguided at best. It's simply a feeling, and not all that different from some others.

Many of our feelings may do us harm over the long run if we don't come to some degree of peace with them.

[gardenmom5]

8 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I understand.  For me the people are not people that have hurt me personally but have done evil to other people.  It’s not mine to forgive them really.

it's not on you to "hate them" either.

eta: you can hate what they've done, if in a position to do so - you can do things to prevent them from every doing it again. (ie: being on a jury and locking up a killer.)

Edited May 21, 2019 by gardenmom5

[LucyStoner]

6 hours ago, kiwik said:

Hate requires more energy than I have.  There are a few people whose death I would not regret - but if I were there I would still try and save them.  I dislike the principal of my son's school for a number of reasons but I don't wish him to be harmed.  I would like him to learn more compassion but I don't really hope one of his  kids develops major problems.  Not often anyway.  One day I will be indifferent but there is no point forgiving him  as he thinks he has done nothing wrong.

 

I can feel hate for someone without feeling the need for revenge.  I don’t wish ill on people in general, and definitely not on the children of people I feel hatred for at any given point in time.  

For me, hate is just a feeling, like anger or happiness, and doesn’t necessitate me forming intent to harm even a feeling of malice.  

I cracked open a bottle of champagne and toasted my mom when my mom’s mother died.  My grandmother was an awful and vile person.  I would never have cracked a bottle over her head but I long planned to toast her death (or more to the point a world without her in it) and when it happened, I did just that but didn’t feel any need for vengeance.  One of my brothers wanted me to fly across the country to say good bye to her.  When he asked me, which I was definitely not going to do, it dawned on me that the woman could be next door and I wouldn't walk over to either say goodbye or to harm her or even share a harsh word.  While I didn’t love her at all, one of my aunts did and certainly I wouldn’t have wanted to cause my aunt pain in any way.  

Edited May 21, 2019 by LucyStoner

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I don't have well thought out opinions on this, but --

I don't think hate always has to be an intense "hot" feeling. I think it can be a rational/logical "cold" conclusion that one arrives at after much thought.

I think telling people that they shouldn't feel hate, or that it will only hurt them in the long run, is misguided at best. It's simply a feeling, and not all that different from some others.

Many of our feelings may do us harm over the long run if we don't come to some degree of peace with them.

Exactly. There are two people I am thinking of and would say I hate. But it isn’t currently a “hot” hate; I just know that, if they died, I would be indifferent or possibly even feel the world was a better place with them no longer in it. So, I don’t have this burning ball of hatred for those people at present. They aren’t in my life much (though I may feel the influence of their existence from time to time), so, as long as I don’t have to be involved with them, I just have a cold indifference to them. IMO, that is still hate. It’s just not raging, hot, angry Hate. 

[Murphy101]

18 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I don't have well thought out opinions on this, but --

I don't think hate always has to be an intense "hot" feeling. I think it can be a rational/logical "cold" conclusion that one arrives at after much thought.

I think telling people that they shouldn't feel hate, or that it will only hurt them in the long run, is misguided at best. It's simply a feeling, and not all that different from some others.

Many of our feelings may do us harm over the long run if we don't come to some degree of peace with them.

 

I would not tell someone they shouldn't feel hate, because in the moment that's unlikely to be helpful.

I agree that hate is not about how hot or cold or cold the emotion is.

But I strongly disagree that hate doesn't have negative consequences or is no different from any other emotion.

 

[Lady Florida.]

For my mother, hate was a strong word that was not allowed in our house. When my brother and I were arguing, hate and stupid were the two words that would get you in trouble if Mom heard you say it. As an adult I just think of it as strong dislike. There's no one in my life I personally hate but there are some public figures (mostly political persons) I hate.

 

11 hours ago, Junie said:

When I read your post I immediately thought of the DC sniper.  I remember feeling relief when he was executed.

Interesting. I was friends with one of Ted Bundy's FSU victims. I thought I would feel something good - relief, closure, even some sort of happiness - when he was executed. I sat in my car the morning he went to the electric chair, and listened to the radio. I was teaching high school but had first period planning and that's how I spent my planning period that day. When it was over I was surprised to feel...nothing. That day started me on examining my belief on the death penalty. Up until then I had been for it, and he was one of the main reasons for my stance. I wanted him dead. When he finally was removed from this world I had none of the feelings I was expecting.

39 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

 

I can feel hate for someone without feeling the need for revenge.  I definitely don’t wish ill on people in general, and definitely not on the children of people I feel hatred for at any given point in time.  

For me, hate is just a feeling, like anger or happiness, and doesn’t necessitate me forming intent to harm even a feeling of malice.  

 

Yes, this. Well mostly. Actually I think holding on to anger is worse than holding on to hate. I grew up with someone who held on to anger and it was just as @Mergath said. It harms the person holding it more than the target of their anger.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Lady Florida.

[Pawz4me]

14 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

 

 

But I strongly disagree that hate doesn't have negative consequences or is no different from any other emotion.

 

You'd be disagreeing with two things that I never said. 

[Scarlett]

1 hour ago, Murphy101 said:

 

Oh no.  I have hated with a blinding rage. I believe I can hate someone.  I have hated people in the past.  I grew up with people who hated.  I knew plenty of people that seem to feed off hate.  I have purposely chosen to walk away from that.  Because frankly, hating people doesn't change them, but it changes the person doing the hating, and rarely for the better.

Same for lying.  Sure I've lied, but I don't recommend it most of the time.

Exactly.  

[Doodlebug]

Oh gosh yes.  I have hated, and I can't imagine being a Christian without that acknowledgement.  

If we didn't hate, forgiveness would be easy.  If forgiveness were easy, we could do it ourselves.  If we could do it ourselves... 

Edited May 21, 2019 by Doodlebug

[Momto6inIN]

16 hours ago, Garga said:

When I hear of despotic leaders and the details of what they do to people, I feel some strong stirrings inside of me and it’s probably hate.  

Mostly, I think I feel hate when I read about bad leaders and all the harm they cause groups of people—going all the way back through our studies of selfish leaders who let thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions suffer and die.     Whether it’s a current dictator or an ancient pharaoh, I think I feel actual hatred toward leaders who abuse power.

I can’t think of any regular person that I know that I hate.  

 

That's interesting, this is about the exact opposite of how I operate. How could I possibly hate (= feel an intense emotion about) someone I've never met or seen or even existed during the same time frame as? I realize that many people in power have done atrocious things that disgust me and I can feel comfortable denouncing those actions as wrong and ugly in no uncertain terms - but hatred seems like a more personal emotion to me and I would never apply it to some political figure I've never interacted with, unless it's using hyperbole, kind of like "I hate lima beans".

 

15 hours ago, Seasider too said:

Thinking on hate, I’ve heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. 

I think that’s the direction I go with public and historical figures. I feel indifference for them, and great compassion for the victims of their politics. 

Yes, this exactly. I can think any manner of unpleasant thoughts about a public figure (he/she is so wrong and off base and man he/she sure seems stupid and I can't believe he/she actually did that, etc etc) but not have any real emotions that actually touch my heart about them at all.

 

As far as hating people I do know and interact with ... well, as a Christian I try not to but like any other thing that Christians aren't supposed to do that doesn't mean I don't find myself falling into that particular sin from time to time. I guess my working definition of hating someone means I hope they die soon and that I don't end up meeting them in heaven, which my spiritual self really doesn't want to feel towards anyone even if my earthly self feels like they deserve it, so I consciously work to try to change my feelings about those people to be more charitable. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

[elegantlion]

6 hours ago, nevergiveup said:

This has become such an interesting conversation and has brought up other questions.

I look at hate as being a very, very intense emotion.  So, my question to all you haters 🙂 is do you feel other emotions with equal intensity?

Yes, I am intensely emotional - not like a pendulum of emotional instability. Most of the time it doesn't manifest into outward display of emotion. 

2 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I don't have well thought out opinions on this, but --

I don't think hate always has to be an intense "hot" feeling. I think it can be a rational/logical "cold" conclusion that one arrives at after much thought.

I think telling people that they shouldn't feel hate, or that it will only hurt them in the long run, is misguided at best. It's simply a feeling, and not all that different from some others.

Many of our feelings may do us harm over the long run if we don't come to some degree of peace with them.

Agree to the bolded. There are individuals that I have concluded I hate. I don't spend time mulling over it, I don't wish to physically harm them, and I don't think about them often really. Sometimes the hate fades to just intense apathy if I've blocked them out of my life. Most of them are people that have dug their own holes in their lives. Eventually some of them have seen the collapse of their lives because of their choices. It's hard to feel pity for them at that point. 

 

For example, there was a time I hated my ex. He lied - liars get bumped up the list of things I despise - and he hurt me and my son in some really crazy ways - not physically. I felt sorry for him while still hating him. I watched his life fall into chaos as mine was being rebuilt. His choices sank him in many ways. At this funeral I tried to feel grief for his death - but in many ways the man I loved died years ago. I am grieving but in a weird way. I can honestly say I hated him for what he ended up doing to our son, the one thing he claimed to love most in this world. My son has shed no tears over his father's death. 

There are others that fall into the hate category, so it's not just the ex. 

[Tanaqui]

2 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

From my perspective that's no different than a rabid animal. I don't hate the dog because it's rabid, there's no punishment in putting them down, it's just the sad state of things. And yeah, some people aren't any better than rabid dogs and for reasons we may never understand, they aren't likely to ever change their thinking. I don't hate them, I hate the injustice plenty though.

 

I don't hate the dog, but I hate the disease that makes them suffer and the virus that causes the disease.

[Garga]

2 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

 

I don't think hate always has to be an intense "hot" feeling. I think it can be a rational/logical "cold" conclusion that one arrives at after much thought.

 

2 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

 

For me, hate is just a feeling, like anger or happiness, and doesn’t necessitate me forming intent to harm even a feeling of malice.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Quill said:

Exactly. There are two people I am thinking of and would say I hate. But it isn’t currently a “hot” hate; I just know that, if they died, I would be indifferent or possibly even feel the world was a better place with them no longer in it. So, I don’t have this burning ball of hatred for those people at present. They aren’t in my life much (though I may feel the influence of their existence from time to time), so, as long as I don’t have to be involved with them, I just have a cold indifference to them. IMO, that is still hate. It’s just not raging, hot, angry Hate. 

 

The above is how I experience hate.  It’s not a burning rage.  I don’t get red in the face when I think about things I may hate.  It’s an unpleasant feeling, almost like frustration.  If I didn’t know the word “hate” I would use the words “frustration and horror.”  Like, I hate ticks.  I hate it that we can’t go out hiking anymore because I’ve chosen to avoid the ticks by never going in the woods.  I hate it that when my sons are invited on hikes (going on one in June) that I have to spray their clothes with permethrin so they won’t get ticks and possibly lyme disease.  I feel horror and frustration about the ticks, and to me that means “hate.”  I hate ticks.  I don’t scream and rage, but I have strong negative emotions about ticks. 

I don’t feel that way to anyone I currently know IRL...but I’m also very careful not to get to know people that I think might cause me to feel that way toward them.  I am introverted and carefully screen who I will hang out with.  And my family all lives very far away, so I have very few people I’m obligated to be around.  So, as I wrote earlier, I tend to feel strong negative emotions of frustration and horror toward despotic leaders and to me, that’s hate.  I hate Mao and Stalin and I also hate ticks.

 

Oh wait...it’s a loooong story and I’ll try to make it super quick, but my mother was friends with a woman who is probably narcissistic or sociopathic who purposely manipulated my mother into moving away from me.  She tricked my mother into moving to a place she knew my mother would be unhappy living in, and then told my mother that she’d done all this expressly to destroy the relationship my mother had with me.  It was a weird revenge thing.  I haven’t seen this woman in about 25 years, but I feel strong negative emotions about her—I find her horrifying and I find the situation frustrating and I think I hate this woman, though I rarely, rarely think about her. 

Edited May 21, 2019 by Garga

[SKL]

I mean I've had people do really bad things to me and to my loved ones.  But in retrospect, usually that person has some kind of mental disorder, diagnosed or not.  I just hope / wish that person would never be around my loved ones when that awful side of them comes out.  For evil criminals, I would hope they would stop hurting people, whether by being incarcerated or whatever.  I would not be sorry if they died, but that is not hate IMO.

As for political people - I don't think hate is the word - I can intensely disagree and distrust them, and feel that their position and their actions are unfair, and feel disappointed in others who are blind to what I see.  But none of that is hate.  If the worst of them were being attacked in a dark alley, I would try to save them if I could.  I don't want to see people truly hurt, at least not in ways that aren't the direct result of their poor choices.

[Junie]

1 hour ago, Momto6inIN said:

That's interesting, this is about the exact opposite of how I operate. How could I possibly hate (= feel an intense emotion about) someone I've never met or seen or even existed during the same time frame as? I realize that many people in power have done atrocious things that disgust me and I can feel comfortable denouncing those actions as wrong and ugly in no uncertain terms - but hatred seems like a more personal emotion to me and I would never apply it to some political figure I've never interacted with, unless it's using hyperbole, kind of like "I hate lima beans".

 

Yes, this exactly. I can think any manner of unpleasant thoughts about a public figure (he/she is so wrong and off base and man he/she sure seems stupid and I can't believe he/she actually did that, etc etc) but not have any real emotions that actually touch my heart about them at all.

 

As far as hating people I do know and interact with ... well, as a Christian I try not to but like any other thing that Christians aren't supposed to do that doesn't mean I don't find myself falling into that particular sin from time to time. I guess my working definition of hating someone means I hope they die soon and that I don't end up meeting them in heaven, which my spiritual self really doesn't want to feel towards anyone even if my earthly self feels like they deserve it, so I consciously work to try to change my feelings about those people to be more charitable. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

Yes!  In my post I expressed relief when the DC sniper was executed.  Of course murder is a terrible crime, but they have not done anything to me.

I'm not going to revisit my feeling to figure out if I truly hated him, but his crimes affected me.  A person should not feel genuine fear of getting picked off by a sniper because it takes her five minutes to load the kids in the car at the grocery store.

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

 

I don't hate the dog, but I hate the disease that makes them suffer and the virus that causes the disease.

 

I suppose I can see that, I just don't understand hating an inanimate object. 🤷‍♀️

[Lizzie in Ma]

No

There are types of groups and people I find distasteful, but I don't personally hate anyone.  When I was younger I had stronger feelings, but as I get older, I find I just don't have the energy to put into things I can't control.

[Mergath]

20 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

So what emotions are people supposed to feel about abuse and their abusers?

 

I think it's completely right and appropriate and in no way even a tiny bit wrong to hate someone who has abused you. I think where it becomes harmful is if instead of acknowledging the feeling and working toward letting it go, you hold onto it. The latter isn't wrong, either. I've held onto negative emotions for a long time, and I don't think I was in any way morally wrong for doing so. But, at the same time, it also wasn't good for me and my mental health.

ETA: Also, letting the feeling go doesn't mean you don't think the abuser did anything wrong, or that you forgive them. It only means a person has decided to try not to feel it anymore.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Mergath

[Murphy101]

5 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

You'd be disagreeing with two things that I never said. 

 

Except you wrote & I quoted:

I think telling people that they shouldn't feel hate, or that it will only hurt them in the long run, is misguided at best. It's simply a feeling, and not all that different from some others.

How is this not saying there's not a negative consequence to feeling hate?

How is this not saying hate is just a feeling like any other, if it is not at all different from some other emotions?

[Pam in CT]

re "the opposite of love is..."

20 hours ago, Seasider too said:

Thinking on hate, I’ve heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. 

I think that’s the direction I go with public and historical figures. I feel indifference for them, and great compassion for the victims of their politics. 

That idea was originally expressed by Elie Wiesel, who was of course a subject matter expert on hate.  The context, though, was a cri de coeur against indifference --  which he viewed as the greatest threat to peace, life itself, and stability between people.  He was not, in that quote, commenting on either *individual malice* or *personal love* between individuals; but rather on the extreme danger of indifference, which he viewed as a form of complicity that has enabled every genocide in world history.

That was the greatest and most consistent lesson of his long and immensely hard life.

 

19 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

 the opposite of love is hate - how many times do you see divorced couples who hate their former spouse, and seek to make their lives miserable.  if they were indifferent, they wouldn't care.

That said, the connection-of-personal-hate is still a connection, right?  People caught in personal hate are still entwined.  It's not as full and complete a break as indifference.  One could argue that indifference is further distance than hate even in the personal realm.

19 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Hate is tied up with love, for sure. But it can continue long past the time one ceases to love the nasty person because it is tied up with one's self love.

 

6 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

Hate is just a feeling of next-level dislike.  Very intense dislike is, by definition, hate.  

It doesn’t require action and it doesn’t mean letting oneself be consumed by it.  While sometimes it’s hyperbolic, most of the time for me there an an element of truth there.  

I feel hate for all kinds of things and people at times.  I love very intensely and that often comes with hating very intensely.  Or perhaps just feeling things very intensely in general.   It can be disruptive so I have had to learn to manage it.   I don’t think I gain anything by minimizing it or pretending I don’t feel that way sometimes.  

I’m not feeling a particular hatred this morning but the day is young on the west coast, give it time.  

ETA- and honestly I don’t understand it when people are neutral in the face of extremely upsetting situations.  Of course I can hate someone I have never met- if that person is precipitating horrific situations that are hurting people, why shouldn’t I hate both them and the situation?  I can process the hate and translate it into action but neutrality doesn’t engender action.  

 

 

[Pawz4me]

@Murphy101 --

You said "But I strongly disagree that hate doesn't have negative consequences or is no different from any other emotion." 

The first bolded statement -- I never said hate doesn't have negative consequences. I said "many of our feelings may do us harm."  "May do us harm = "negative consequences."

The second bolded statement -- I said that hate is "not all that different from some others." "Not all that different" does not equal "no different." It means it's not vastly different.

[Shoeless]

I thought about this some more, and there is a person that comes close to "hate" for me. 

There are people whom I do not enjoy spending time with, but I would still feel empathy if something bad happened to them.  They might be a pain in the socks, but I don't want anything bad to happen to them. 

There is *one* person where if something bad happened to them? My gut reaction would be "Good. Serves them right". But only low-level badness, not personal injury or illness.  Like, if they could be moderately irritated and inconvenienced for a long period of time? I would feel pretty satisfied about that. 

Petty, I know. 

[gardenmom5]

14 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

@Murphy101 --

You said "But I strongly disagree that hate doesn't have negative consequences or is no different from any other emotion." 

The first bolded statement -- I never said hate doesn't have negative consequences. I said "many of our feelings may do us harm."  "May do us harm = "negative consequences."

The second bolded statement -- I said that hate is "not all that different from some others." "Not all that different" does not equal "no different." It means it's not vastly different.

I have no dog in this fight - but I'm stepping in about this one.

you said:

many of our feelings may do us harm "May do us harm = "negative consequences."

May "could mean" negative.  may, could also mean neutral.  "may" means possibility.  it's not a positive.

Edited May 22, 2019 by gardenmom5

[Laura Corin]

On 5/21/2019 at 10:43 AM, nevergiveup said:

I look at hate as being a very, very intense emotion.  So, my question to all you haters 🙂 is do you feel other emotions with equal intensity?

I don't think I hate anyone, but I think my emotions are not very intense in general.  I suspect that if the range of possible human emotion intensity is 1-10, I probably run at around 5 or 6.

[fairfarmhand]

18 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

I don't think I hate anyone, but I think my emotions are not very intense in general.  I suspect that if the range of possible human emotion intensity is 1-10, I probably run at around 5 or 6.

Yeah me too. I’m like a 3-4. This drives my dh crazy (he’s like a 9-10 on the emotional intensity scale). This conversation is very interesting to me because of the way I process feelings. I can’t really think of someone that I hate. 

[Home'scool]

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Hate means you are still emotionally attached to the person and are still expending energy on them.

There have been people in my life that I have felt hate for but I always know in the back of my mind that if I hold onto that hate for too long it will start to corrupt me. I wait for the time when I can think of that person with indifference. Then I know that they can no longer hurt me. 

For an situation like the one with my STBX, and where I am still embroiled in the drama with him, I feel hate. There are many times in the car, when I am alone, that I will say out loud through tears "I HATE you". Because right now I do. But once this is over I will work toward indifference.

[Scarlett]

10 minutes ago, Home'scool said:

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Hate means you are still emotionally attached to the person and are still expending energy on them.

There have been people in my life that I have felt hate for but I always know in the back of my mind that if I hold onto that hate for too long it will start to corrupt me. I wait for the time when I can think of that person with indifference. Then I know that they can no longer hurt me. 

For an situation like the one with my STBX, and where I am still embroiled in the drama with him, I feel hate. There are many times in the car, when I am alone, that I will say out loud through tears "I HATE you". Because right now I do. But once this is over I will work toward indifference.

I agree.  Xh and I have a pleasant relationship these days.  I am helping him with the dna search for his bio grandparents.  I rarely find myself even thinking of the trauma he put me through.  Also, eventually I began to feel sorry for him.  I would hate to have to live with what he has to live with.  .