:dubious:
To me “hate” is like “help”; mostly a verb denoting that I am willing to spend time and energy on them. Why waste my energy on bigots and other forms of low-lifes? Its more logical (for lack of a better word) simply to not help them rather than make the effort to hate them.
Were all German solders Nazi’s and worth hating? My Dad was in WWII and toward the end of the war a group of German solders surrendered to him. He said looking at them that close he realized they were just a group of young men who wanted to survive and go home.
We can’t help having emotions like fear and hate. It’s normal. We do get to choose what we do about those emotions. Do we cling to them , embrace them, make them a part of our daily lives? Do we examine them, conquer them and move on.
We can defend ourselves against evil without hating.
or as Master Po, or one of them masters, said to young Cain
" You cannot stop evil in the world, you can only resist it within yourself."
So, no, it’s not wrong to occasionally feel hate, it’s self destructive to embrace it.
THat’s a good quote. Thanks for sharing it.
Brilliant.
+1 for your friend. 
Well maybe I’m not too fond of you too, bucko! :mad:
Some people need hatin’, just like some people need killin’. Often it’s the same people.
It’s always okay to hate. (Killing, less so.) It’s not usually a good idea to hate, but what’re ya gonna do?
This is an interesting topic.
I have often felt that sometimes–sometimes–popular social ethics can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, in which objection to evil ideas can lead to actions that in themselves, are, well…pretty much evil.
Remember the episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry and George lie their way into getting to take a limo from the airport that was meant for someone else? As it turned out, the limo had been reserved for a leading neo-Nazi figure, and Jerry and George (and later, Kramer and Elaine, who got into the limo with them) narrowly missed being beaten up by crowds protesting the neo-Nazis’ arrival and rally in NYC (because the crowd thought that Jerry et al were the neo-Nazis).
Yeah, it’s just a brainless sitcome episode, but it got me thinking: Why does it seem generally OK to us to assault neo-Nazis?? Isn’t that sort of behavior patently fascistic in itself?? Just like when people say, “I HATE hateful, intolerant people!”, there’s a strong element of irony at work, and a real danger of actually becoming what we most despise.
Another example, this one personal:
I’m a librarian. I’m also a fierce advocate of critical thinking and science, and a strong opponent of abusive woo-woo cults like the “Church” of $cientology. In the university library where I work, we have several books by L. Ron Hubbard, including Dianetics, and several $cientology “liturgy” manuals and apologetic works. As I was shelving them one day, I thought to myself, “These books are such bullshit garbage. If it were up to me, I’d just throw them away.” Then it hit me: How would that be any different than book burning, like the Nazis did? I had to remind myself that as a librarian, my job is to protect information, and make it available to all seekers, anytime, no matter what I feel about it. (Besides, there are academic reasons why we own these books; our professors in religious studies, history, sociology, and/or psychology use them in their research into the cult.)
Point is, everyone should always be careful not to let their hatred of evil lead them to do evil.
How is it helping you fight evil? Please be specific.
That is a great quote.
I have recently become very interested in the brain and neuroplasticity. One thing that all the books I am reading say is that the brain remodels itself based on its experience. An emotion like hate will help wire the brain for anger and hatred.
One of the books that I am currently reading says that morally we are responsible for doing the best for the people that we have power over. Further, who do we have more power over than our future selves? Based on this logic, it is my opinion that it is not OK to hate.
I will also add that I spent much too much of my life holding grudges, and I think much to my detriment.
“There’s so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it ill behooves the most of us
To talk about the rest of us.”
–John Brantingham
The most powerful evil organization in the world.
Disney?
It motivates me to get out and fight it. Knowing that evil is alive and working makes me work harder to advance goodness. It makes me get other people to vote, to write letters to the editors, to stop the spread of hate.
I don’t really agree that everyone hates those groups. For one, I feel some pity for (some) child molesters. I feel anger over what they do, and find their crimes among the most heinous, but at the same time feel some pity that there are people who have sexual feelings for a group that is not capable of feeling them back nor consenting, and that we have no medical solution to this problem. Likewise I feel pity for people who have mental illnesses that make them violent, even if their crimes may be unspeakable, and their punishments rightfully severe, because I find the idea of having powerful urges to harm others terrifying and people who endure them to be pitiable.
Hating really only makes things worse. Nazism created the monsters it did because of hating Jews, hate far beyond the point of any reason. Hate isn’t really an emotion that leaves a lot of room for compromise. If they said “Well, some Jews do really bad things, and that’s bad, but each individual is different, and it’s hard to judge people because there’s a lot of gray area” then you can’t really make a concentration camp out of that. The same thing applies in reverse. Realistically, there were Nazis who were good at heart, if misled or ignorant, and the same for Klan members. The ideology can be considered abhorrent without hating the individual that espouses it.
I’m only human, and I’m sure I’d hate someone who hurt me or those I hurt dear, but it’s really not a constructive emotion. ‘Evil’ isn’t really a constructive concept, either, as far as I’m concerned; it’s just another way of summarizing things into a black-and-white concept that can be misused. Wars aren’t about good versus evil. That’s not how the world works.
“I’m sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I **hate **people like that!”
- Tom Lehrer
You’ve just quoted a mantra. A sort of prayer.
Based on my own observations, a hate filled loon will always demolish a calm reasoner in a brawl, every time, without fail.
Hate the actions, not the person. At least hope that the person will change. Trying to stop the evil they do, like in Hitlers case, the only way to stop him seemed to be destroying him, and stopping him from harming anymore people. In the end he did a lot of harm even to his own followers and hiself. To me loving some one wants the best for that person so if they are harming themselves one tries to stop the evil actions!
A sentiment which, if adopted by all, would make the world a far happier place.