HATE

[DavidV]

There has been a movement among leftist types to “stop the hate.” “Hate groups” and “hate crimes” are frequently tossed around as if they were irreducible emotional primaries to be replaced by the equally irreducible and indefinable “love.” Someone could probably write a thesis about it, but I’m more interested in the questions of (a) What is hate? and ( Is it ever proper to hate someone/something?

I’ll skip the cliché of someone doing something to your mother/sister/significant other as candidates for hate – you can imagine those well enough yourself.

My personal policy is to invest as little emotion into feelings of dislike as possible. It is proper to detest evil and be glad to see justice done, but if you understand the inherent incompetence of evil, such emotions should be a very small fraction of their converse.

[RadCap]

If you were a rape victim, would you hate your rapist?

If you were a slave, would you hate your 'master'?

If you were a torture victim, would you hate your tormentor?

[DavidV]

RadCap, I am not saying that an emotional response is not justified in such cases – it obviously is. I would like to know what particular attitude would be proper, and what qualifies as “hate.” The common usage – that hate is an irrational/a-rational urge urging outbursts of violence is obviously wrong.

Furthermore, there are millions of assorted thugs, terrorists, and looters whom I would like to dismember/torture/shoot on sight/nuke (in that order) – but is it proper to say that I hate them? It’s certainly not proper to dwell on how much I loathe them all.

[Capitalism Forever]

Love and hate are results of your value-judgments. If your value-judgments are rational, you will evaluate bad things negatively, and you will hate them. Thus, hatred is an inevitable consequence of applying rational evaluation (which it is proper to do) to the evil (which, like it or not, does exist).

Of course, a rational person will do his best to gain and keep what he loves, and avoid that which he hates. Thus, he will spend as much of his time as possible enjoying the good things in his life, and will not waste any more time than necessary on thinking about what he hates.

(Leftist "anti-hatred" types, on the other hand, devote all their time to their hatred of "haters" !)

[Richard_Halley]

CapFo's post is as near a definitive statement on the nature of hate as I can imagine.

Good work CapFo.

[Capitalism Forever]

Thanks!

[y_feldblum]

To avoid evil is not (the defining characteristic of) to hate it. To go out of your way to destroy it is.

Hatred is more than aversion or loathing. To hate is to value the destruction of a thing, to be its bitter enemy.

[dondigitalia]

I agree with y's definition.

To hate is irrational. To devote any energy whatsoever to an anti-value is counterproductive to the maximum enjoyment of one's life.

Indifference and dislike, on the other hand, both maintain rationality.

[always_learning]

y_feldblum,

You avoid it (evil) because you hate it. It is perfectly rational to hate something or someone. It is irrational to dwell on what you hate, your definition of hate is incorrect.

1 : to feel extreme enmity toward <hates his country's enemies>

2 : to have a strong aversion to : find very distasteful <hated to have to meet strangers> <hate hypocrisy>

intransitive senses : to express or feel extreme enmity or active hostility

(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.m-w.com/)

[y_feldblum]

Hate is not irrational; in most contexts it is, but there are some where it is not. If one cannot value his own happiness while his bitter enemy (whatever or whoever it is) exists - if his life means nothing to him in the face of a monstrous evil tormenting him - hatred is the only rational response.

See Fransisco d'Anconia. He was the enemy of his own fortune and of all who held stock in it - and before he could live his own life, he had to destroy them.

[dondigitalia]

I didn't think of it that way. I've never been in that kind of situation before. Thinking about it, I understand, though.

[y_feldblum]

(I didn't think of it that way before, either; I'm making it up as I go along. I'm following the example set by our famed libel-theoriest. I do think it's right, though.)

Love and hate are exactly the same and exact opposites: the same in the action, the opposites in the target of the action.

Hatred is similar to loathing in the sense that the only way to shun the object of loathing is to die.

I think I've answered, with all of my posts, and to some extent satisfactorily (did I say anything with that phrase?), GreedyCapitalist's question.

[Praxus]

I certainly hate all islamists, to the point I would go out of my way to see them die.

Do you believe this is irrational?

[y_feldblum]

What I described was the essence of pure, unadulterated hatred - which, when appropriate, is appropriate.

Can you personally enjoy anything in life before destroying a quarter of the globe? Perhaps your loathing has a bit of hatred mixed in.

Loathing - and in some quantity hating - those who utterly hate you is perfectly rational.

[Tom]

Hatred is an emotion, not an action or a motivation for action.

The object of one's hatred is evaluated negatively.

The intensity of the emotion varies in accordance with the relative importance of the value involved and the extent to which that value has been jeopardized.

Can evaluations be irrational? They can if the standards are irrational. But that's not what the anti-hate position is against. A person holding the anti-hate position would say that he has nothing against the *views* of a hate organization's members, only their *hatred* as such.

The cowardice of that approach is left for the reader to evaluate.

[Capitalism Forever]

The cowardice of that approach is left for the reader to evaluate.

I hate them!

[y_feldblum]

If your hatred were confined to an emotion, I would call it loathing or abomination, something which signified being repelled. Moreover, what would one call Francisco d'Anconia's actions?

[Betsy]

(a) What is hate? and ( Is it ever proper to hate someone/something?

Hate is the inescapable automatic emotional reaction to that which threatens ones values. Emotions, being automatic and unchosen, are not subject to moral evaluation as "proper" or "improper."

What is subject to moral evaluation is (1) whether you subsequently make the mental effort to understand whether the value threatened is rational and whether it is really threatened and (2) if and how you act on your understanding.

[MasterScowler]

I do not like to worry; it produces nothing, and so is a waste of time. It has no value. I will ponder a trouble, but if I cannot resolve it, I put it away until a later date, when a resolution might be possible.

Likewise, hatred produces nothing, at least nothing worth producing. I do not consider hatred a virtue, it is not one of my values, and I will not sacrifice my values to anybody for any reason.

(BTW, feldblum, pardon that I can't recall the source, but I believe the opposite of love is indifference, not hatred. Maybe it was Rand... Anyway.)

Looking at hatred at its most irreducible level, I think Nietszche summarized the inherent danger (and contradiction!) of such a thing quite well (viz fighting dragons).

To wit:

What can be said of she that steals only from thieves, but that she is a thief?

What can be said of he that kills only killers, but that he is a killer?

What can be said, thus, of he that hates only the hateful...

[Richard_Halley]

Scowler, hatred is an emotion, not an action. Particularly, it is the emotion which one feels for that which one percieves destroys ones values.

Based on that, ask yourself: what are the dangers of ignoring ones hatred?

Would that not be a neagation of ones values?

[BlackSabbath]

Looking at hatred at its most irreducible level, I think Nietszche summarized the inherent danger (and contradiction!) of such a thing quite well (viz fighting dragons).

To wit:

What can be said of she that steals only from thieves, but that she is a thief?

What can be said of he that kills only killers, but that he is a killer?

What can be said, thus, of he that hates only the hateful...

This is a straw man.

It is rational to love the good and it is rational to hate the evil. (Objectivism covers the concepts of good, evil and value judgements elsewhere so I will not repeat them.)

I hate Nazis, Communists and Islamic fundamentalists because they are evil, anti-mind and anti-life.

I love reason and capitalism because they are good and pro-life in the proper sense of the word.

[DavidV]

I think I just realized my original confusion on the matter.

I was unable to settle on a criteria for hate because there are two: how much of a threat to your values someone is, and how evil he is. I think one should take both into consideration when deciding how much to hate someone. The potential error is to fail to account for the malice of the offender in addition to the harm they have done to you.

For ex, suppose someone steals your car. You want to nail the bastard that did it – but the response should be different for a professional car thief versus some punk kid that took it for a joyride.

The other confusion I had is when one should seek someone’s destruction – whether physical, social, or professional. Certainly if a man has initiated force, justice is due.

But what if he is just an all-around vicious and vindictive individual like James Taggart or a power-lusting altruist like Toohey? If one takes the example of Roark, such people don’t deserve any consideration at all.

[MasterScowler]

If one takes the example of Roark, such people don’t deserve any consideration at all.

Exactly!

Emotions ARE actions, because they are a form of thought, and thinking is an action. Emotions are a value judgment, and the emotion ascribed to that jugment will tell you its value.

So the question is: Do you value hatred?

The response should be different for a professional car thief versus some punk kid that took it for a joyride.

Why?

(I need to read Fountainhead again, because now I'm thinking it was Roark who said that the opposite of love is indifference.)

[Richard_Halley]

Emotions ARE actions, because they are a form of thought, and thinking is an action. Emotions are a value judgment, and the emotion ascribed to that jugment will tell you its value.

So the question is: Do you value hatred?

Emotions are not actions, at least not volitional ones. They are subconscious, and, while they are based on ones values, one does not directly control them.

Hatered is an automatic response to something which threatens your values. So, the question is not, "do you value hatred," but: "Do you value ANYTHING, and are any of those values threatened."

As for Roark, notice that he did have emotion... but it only "went down so far." Why did it stop? Did it not stop because his most important values were never threatened? Did it not stop because Keating and Toohey where impotent when it came to effecting his primary values in any way. Roark's primary values were placed completly out of the reach of others, that, I contend, is why we never see hatred out of Roark.

[AshRyan]

As for Roark, notice that he did have emotion... but it only "went down so far."  Why did it stop?  Did it not stop because his most important values were never threatened?  Did it not stop because Keating and Toohey where impotent when it came to effecting his primary values in any way.  Roark's primary values were placed completly out of the reach of others, that, I contend, is why we never see hatred out of Roark.

I just have to say: that is a really excellent point. Thank you.