Hatred and love from Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
I’m tongue-tied once again. When I feel this way it’s not usually because of having nothing to say, but rather having too much to say, and struggling to find a way to say it coherently. And when a difficult topic is percolating, that makes it even harder.
So, somewhat reluctantly entering unpopular territory, but following the rule, “If you hear cannon fire, go towards it,” today I take as my subject, hatred. There is at least one person in my life who hates me. So far I haven’t been able to muster the juice to hate her back — not with any gusto — and I think that’s a problem for me. I mean, what about the law of reciprocity? To be clear, I have plenty of uncharitable thoughts toward this person, but I can’t say I hate her. In Darwin’s photo above however, I can claim personal familiarity with both facial expressions.
So what is hatred exactly? I think it starts with anger — anger mixed with frustration. But it becomes petrefied anger, old anger that has sunk, settled, solidified, and become a thing. Anger fresh from the source is in motion, it is a force. Anger is about wanting change. That’s what’s so good about it, it can give us energy for change, sometimes a great burst of it. (The civil rights movement would have been nowhere without anger for fuel). But hatred, inert and stolid, cannot even hope for change. When the weight of hatred is laid upon you, you feel it. It’s heavy. Sometimes so heavy it is almost unbearable. It sucks your energy unless you are eternally vigilant about protecting yourself.
Why does hatred last for so long? How can it live on and on? In the case of the person I reference, almost a lifetime. I believe it’s habit forming — an addiction. And probably to stop hating suddenly would be traumatic. Hating offers temporary satisfaction, but not a truly enduring one, because it leaves the underlying need unmet.
And here’s what I’m wondering now: just what are those needs that hatred appears, on the surface, to satisfy or appease? Is hatred like heroin, offering a temporary high and an apparent cure for the pains and terrors of human existence?
Some friends I have discussed this with don’t know what I’m talking about. I suspect they have not experienced real hatred, neither as the hater nor the hated. I think, or I like to think, that many lives are free of it.
Most of us have witnessed hatred as a pair-bonding and a group bonding activity. If we all hate the same person, group, or belief, them we feel closer to each other, united against a common enemy.
I came just came across this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.” Can that be right? I think it’s part of the hatred dynamic, at least when it occurs on a one-to-one basis.
As Leonardo wrote repeatedly in his notebooks: dimmi — tell me. Tell me your experiences and thoughts on hatred.
Lately I feel that emotions are like weather; anger develops like a thunder storm, not necessarily for a reason so much as a fact of energy moving through space. Fear plays a part in hatred — fear of not being able to survive in the social group can create a bond turned against an individual, group, or minority. Maybe that’s just restating Shaw’s remark. When rigid beliefs define the way things are, it’s easier to allow emotions to determine actions rather than dismantling where the beliefs came from; such as from a higher governmental power manipulating pawns for their own self interest. Or maybe anger is the natural result of feeling tired and stressed all the time.
It’s hard not to hate those who have injured us or especially, IMHO, done us an injustice. And unfortunately we are then poisoned by our own hatred, so they nail us twice, the crummy bastards. Friends have told me about a kind of therapy in which you re-imagine trauma with a different response and outcome, that gives you more power and a chance to do things differently and they say it helps. But I have to say, one of my favorite Blake poems is The Poison Tree:
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree
I think there is something about helplessness in regard to hating. I have been grazed by being hated. It was a momentary realization in the midst of a lifelong troubled relationship. It was a fleeting moment of clarity that was overwhelming and hard to believe. I felt helpless in the face of it. I could take no action. I was in awe. I’m not sure I have ever hated someone – I think I might have the same reaction.
Hatred joined by others seems to be quite the opposite. It seems to be contagious, weirdly empowering, and frighteningly righteous. t is cathartic perhaps. What a horrible thought!It seems to take on a life of it’s own moving ever faster. I A virus.
Think if we could remove just that one thing from human experience – amazing.
Thanks Sally for the mind jog!
Wow. I can’t tell you how fascinated I am by these thoughtful responses. Gwen, I have heard that Blake verse quoted so many times, but only the first stanza, those dissembling weasels. The end of it is mighty satisfying!
And Laraine, yes. fear is part of this picture — don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it– undoubtedly it’s a key ingredient in the recipe for hatred.
Sydney, the helpless part, I think it’s related to feeling the annihilation wish coming from the hater. When that happens you feel unsure you can even go on being. And yes, you are right, group hatred is so different, I see now… Maybe solo hatred is cold, and group hatred overheated?
Is hatred more than strong dislike, extreme aversion? Of the people I have known directly, only a few drew even that reaction from me. I remember seeing a man who I felt had done me a great injustice enter a restaurant as I was leaving. With some difficulty I changed course and made a circuitous and clumsy exit so as to avoid coming close to him, I felt such revulsion. I believe he saw me, to my great embarrassment and shame at showing him the power he had over me. But I didn’t hate him. As I think about it, I’m having trouble identifying anyone whom I have personally known and hated.
I hate George Bush for all the wanton killing and destruction, for the mindless ignorance and smug unawareness. I hated LBJ for the same reasons. I’m talking visceral, you-disgust-and-appall-me hatred. But these are people I never met. Does hatred require knowledge of, or ignorance of, the other person’s particulars?
It seems upside down to me. One would think that truly profound hatred would depend on intimacy, yet it doesn’t work that way for me. I never hated the person who hurt me worst in my life, my once greatest love, I just wanted complete separation. I willed her out of existence — is this beyond hatred or merely passive aggression? (Hatred and aggression: there’s another strand. That might be where your \juices\ come in.)
Isn’t the classical notion that hatred is love betrayed? I’m thinking of the Apocalypse story: Lucifer, the great light (and favorite?) cast out of heaven to become the enemy, hater of God. (To say the reverse would be a contradiction in terms.)
Another fine piece, Sally.
Aristotle viewed hate as a desire for the annihilation of an object that is incurable by time. That’s the best definition I’ve seen. Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness. Because hatred is generally long-lasting, many psychologists consider it to be more of an attitude or disposition than a temporary emotional state. I think that’s right, it’s an attitude, not an emotion.
Sally, and others — great post and thread. If it’s an emotion or an attitude, it still takes up prime time. That’s the best reason for not wanting to be involved. If you are over 50, you are old enough to cultivate detachment from people who have brought you pain and negativity, old enough to know why hating them keeps you on terms of intimacy with them. There was once time for that, but it’s over. As for me and Monsanto, however…
I couldn’t agree more, Elatia. But what about the experience of being hated. What do we do with that? Can we metabolize it? Or just do the Hoky Poky and \take your whole self out\? (Not to mention \Shake it all about.\)
Trying to define “hatred” is like trying to define “crazy.” It is so subjective a word that it changes with every person’s use of it. To say a person is crazy can mean just about anything you might think is odd. To say you hate something or that someone hates you is shorthand for a more complicated or fluid negative sensation. A child may stomp his foot and say, “You stupid-head. I hate you, I hate you.” You may come to hate the schoolbus in front of you that needs to stop every two hundred feet while you are trying to get to work on time. You may hate brussel sprouts. A clansman may hate the black man that moved into his block. Same word, different sensations. Yes, it’s related to anger, but anger is fluid. Whatever we call hatred, we experience it as something more static, something that stays with us, something that we feel is part of our identity. I am a person who hates brussel sprouts. I am a person who hates my mother-in-law. I am a person who wages jihad against the infidel. But those are different one from the other. The same as the behavior we might call crazy is different.
Ok egg man, that’s a valuable addition. I’m pretty sure you are correct that hatred is hooked to identity. And not only of the hater, but also the hated. As in: “I hate who you are, what you are…”
Sally, since you ask. Being hated.
You’re nobody if you don’t have your detractors. If your behavior is such that it can never be misunderstood, then you are probably a poodle. I’m guessing you mean stone hatred, not people taking against you for reasons that needed to be left in the 8th grade, and could be sorted out if there were will for that. If someone hates you, they probably respect you — otherwise they would despise or detest you. If they respect you, they may bring an element of jealously to the table — otherwise they would not bother, any more than you would bother, to flash-hate someone you could instead, and in honesty, dismiss.
Can we agree that hatred is a form of recognition? Not the kind you want, but… Take the radical negativity one alpha may feel for another, the first nanosecond of their encounter. Sustained, that could be hatred, but it will more likely change to disquieted esteem. To have a real enemy, you have to be pretty sure that party seeks to do you harm, consistently and implacably. Not because they are angry or jealous, or because for them to win you must lose, but because they hate you and want to hurt you, and will, and do, without ever feeling small or silly or bad. Thank Goddess that’s rare.
There’s that wonderful saying. Native American? “Choose carefully whom you hate, for you will become that person.” To me, that says it all.