Hate, and the Good

Hate is a nasty word because it represents a nasty state of being. It is about intensity, disliking someone so much, one is willing to abuse them.

Hate is both a noun, the feeling itself, and a verb, which conveys the feeling onto someone or something. You have hatred because you feel hate. Mostly, it is used as the verb, I hate, you hate, he/she hates, they hate.

The word was brought to us through the Dutch and German languages.

Hatred popped up over the Thanksgiving weekend in a post on LinkedIn. Irony, isn’t it, that hatred depicts a lack of gratitude? Grateful people don’t hate. They might not like a thing, but the grateful are more about contentment than happiness. Contentment comes from within. Happiness is momentary. It’s a result of some external event, not self-generated.

The content are practical. They accept their limits, and understand that life is far from perfect, or without struggle. I think that means they are more adult. The happiness crowd depends on certain things falling into place. As in, “If only I had a better job,” or, “If only I could meet the right person,” or, “If only women got equal pay.” All those sentences are conditional. Criteria has to be met in order for happiness to happen.

After time, an individual looking for externals to make him happy, realizes those moments are few and far. After time passes, and the right circumstances do not appear or take place, the individual becomes angry. And then depressed. If failure to grow occurs, that anger turns to hate. All of it beginning from within. If you are on the receiving end of someone’s enmity, it wasn’t something you did. They did it to themselves, but perhaps you got in their way.

It saddens me, that.

People who hate people are a bane to us all. To the hater, outwardly, you are what is wrong with this world. Inwardly, hate masks their own self-disgust.

Was there hate among Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the early Sapiens? Archeologists do not find evidence of wars among Hunter-gatherer tribes. Wars are a result of the materialism we find in our civilizations. It is land, and politics and gold that send men to kill others. Hunter-gatherers owned no land, though they had territories they thought of as their own. We know the tribes of the Americas fought one another. Is this how the Aztecs grew those civilizations? Did strong, leader-inclined men, decide, somewhere along the way, that they wanted to claim the territory for themselves? These charismatic, persuasive men, could get other men to die for them. They could also get them to build for them.

Did they hate the other tribes that would not go along with their vision? And who did the hating first? The followers or the leaders?

It is well understood that leaders will use hate to get their followers to do their bidding. Hate the enemy and fight him to the death, is as old as war itself. Hate the enemy’s family. Kill his children, rape his woman and then kill her. Or enslave her. And then take the land.

Of course, this enemy is hating back.

Jesus upset the apple cart when he told his followers to, “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who persecute and slander you.” Matthew 5:44.

What exactly does he mean here? That one simply dies rather than fight back? Or must one give up their land to the enemy? Will that keep the peace?

I think the key to this is the “Do good…” phrase. Nonetheless, what is the good we’re supposed to do? I suggest it is understanding that hatred is self-hatred. To know this, that the hater feels self-disgust, helps the hated keep his emotions under control. Because the hate is not about the hated. It is, then, objectivity that is the good we can do, to not buy into their game.

Greed and envy are a part of the issue, no doubt. But it is not only money we can be greedy for. We can be greedy for longevity. We can be greedy for pleasantries, and greedy for a political system we approve of. We can be greedy for friends, and greedy for love, and greedy for sex, and greedy for protection against all the ills of life.

The trouble with greed, and why it is frowned upon, is that eventually, it comes up against reality. We must all die of something, and we cannot protect old elephants forever, and diseases are the number one killers. For every beauty there is the ugly side. For every pleasure, a payment. And wanting others to do without because it assuages guilt, is envy.

Greed and envy are on the road to hate. Hate is its own hell.

Life is full of dichotomies, conflicts centered within ourselves. Indeed we do have the devil whispering in one ear, and an angel in the other.

Hatred, like love, is a subject worth much study. Questions need to be asked and answered. We can love the hater, but can we get them to leave off their hatred? I suggest the good we do is to let them stew in their own juices as we keep them from harming others. And remember, only the hater can save him, or her self. Recall that other prime directive given by Jesus: “And how can you see the splinter in your brother’s eye, and not the board in your own?” Matthew 7:3

God or man, Jesus was, and remains, wisdom itself.