this is something i've thought on and off about for a very long time, but i wanted to post a thread about it. recently as some of you will know i've been involved in a project to campaign against some fucking horrific animal cruelty stuff, and ive been involved in other stuff of a similar sort of nature over the years as ive become an activist and started campaigning around various issues. During that time I've often felt intense loathing, if not actual hate for the people who do these things and certainly fucking have done recently and did at other times too.
i was wondering two things. Is the concept of the sort of universal love of humanity, as preached by some religions such as Christianity, a good concept to follow? im aware that nietzsche said that it devalued the concept of love, because one cannot possibly love all people in the world, even if they were all good, and it devalues the real love that one feels for your family and friends. I've never read any of his work apart from various quotes here and there and I'd be really interested in finding more about his argument. Is it actually a good idea to aim for though? I'm coming to the conclusion that it actually isn't.
Secondly, is hatred always bad? Obviously if you think about the person or thing you hate all the time, it's quite self destructive, but we all have the capacity for hatred, so is it always a bad thing to feel as an emotion? I mean actually HATING someone or something, not just feeling angry. Could it in fact be turned into something positive, or for a good use? So when religions or anyone else tell you not to hate, could they be wrong, or could they only be right in the sense of that sort of all consuming hatred that eats you up? There are one or two people in the world I've known personally who I do hate and I'd like to see dead, I don't spend all my time thinking about it, yeah it's wrong, but is it necessarily any better than an abstract "loving" of everyone and "forgiving" that isn't really forgiving at all?
Sorry if this is a really daft thread but I'm hungover on a sunday afternoon
If it's the "essence of a thing" rather than the thing itself then that's essentially meaningless no? Do you love everyone in the world? If you do that then whats the difference between some guy in the street or someone you have some connection with emotionally?
Even in a religious sense, I don't.
Yep good to hate racism.
Yeah, I don't think just being racist's necessarily (NECESSARILY) a good enough reason to hate someone though. Depends what they do.
So, if they're mean to animals, you loathe them; but if they're racist against blacks, chinese, arabs or what have you, maybe, maybe not?
If you're going to love all these animals unconditionally, why not work on trying to love people, too?
You seem to be talking about who or what is deserving of love. The animals did nothing to deserve it; why should the people have to pass some sort of added test?
When you put down a dog because it has savaged a child in a moment of rage the dog is not going to understand why it is being killed. When you imprison a man because he oversaw a genocide he knows full fucking well why he is being jailed.
I think it's good to hate racism. I tried to hate a racist but I can only manage to despise him and slightly feel sorry for him.
Probably good to hate bad people, who are genuinely bad. Otherwise where would be the motivation to stop them doing what they do?
I don't think its meaningless at all, if you love a thing you don't love it because of reasons but rather love the thing in itself. Love can be universal because it doesn't necessarily have to be about anything at all, obviously this doesn't give you permission to go hugging some random person on the street unless your with some hippies or something
Why can't you hate though? It's an emotion like any other. Or is it a case of it actually being there but people wanting to call it something else?
I mean in terms of you hating someone but not wanting to call it "hate", the same way that people often love their friends but don't want to call it love.
But then it's not really love. It might be some kind of warm funny feeling but it's not love, because for it to be there has to be reasons behind why you love them in the first place even if it's unconditional, even as simple reason as "because it's my kid". Otherwise you might as well have that kind of vague warm fuzziness about a cardboard box.
I've got no problem with hate. If somebody commited an act of gross cruelty to someone I loved I'd want them to suffer. I'm quite comfortable with bloody revenge. It seems prudish to feel otherwise. Hate is part of our makeup. Nothing wrong with it.
I tend to go along with what Knotted said. I mean, hatred is one of the emotions, and so it's obviously there for a reason.
Is it? Does there have to be a reason? All, any, emotions have reasons do they? No, i can't see that.
Universal love is something that is beyond the coin that has love on one side and hate on the other side. Hatred means no liberation, no freedom. Hatred for its host means control, suffering. It is inconsistent with liberty and freedom.
Universal love i assume to be love for life itself, love for all that constitutes life. In that love for life, there cannot be room for hatred. How easy that is for a human is another story entirely.