Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: moonfire on 22/05/2007 19:09:39
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Thinking about this word hate and how it is defined. Is it possible for us to know what hate is really or the closest thing we can possibly do with feelings in our emotional range?
Do we have an emotional range?
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Aren't emotions little more that a package of preconditioned reactions (part habitual conditioning, part instinct) that form a particular pattern that we class together as an emotion?
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Many people say that hate is just a higher form of dislike, some say it is impossible to realy hate someone. I think you have to be in a situation or have a series of events happen to truely know hate and all other emotions.
In a time when we are supposed to be calmer and more intouch with our feelings, we are supposed to be a nicer society. I think this is all part of "the plan" to make us more submissive, can you realy hate? Oh yes.
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Aren't emotions little more that a package of preconditioned reactions (part habitual conditioning, part instinct) that form a particular pattern that we class together as an emotion?
Yes, but is it an accurate measure of we can classify as a real emotion or what we term it from our emotions/feelings?
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Many people say that hate is just a higher form of dislike, some say it is impossible to realy hate someone. I think you have to be in a situation or have a series of events happen to truely know hate and all other emotions.
In a time when we are supposed to be calmer and more intouch with our feelings, we are supposed to be a nicer society. I think this is all part of "the plan" to make us more submissive, can you realy hate? Oh yes.
Higher form of dislike...hmmm, interesting. I think dislike is better than hate as it maybe easier to define.
How can I hate if is dislike a situation, person, or something in particular?
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Do we teach our young to hate? I hear kids spew out all the time "I hate you!" I don't recall many people going around screaming I hate you and I am sure it happens...but kids tend to use that phrase more.
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Do we teach our young to hate? I hear kids spew out all the time "I hate you!" I don't recall many people going around screaming I hate you and I am sure it happens...but kids tend to use that phrase more.
We don't teach kids to hate*, they use that word because it causes more hurt to their "victim" or through poor vocubulary skills.
Kids may hate sprouts, or doing homework. But that is realy dislike
*you could argue that abusers of children teach them to hate.
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Yes, exactly my point....Kids hate sprouts, homework and it is really dislike.
Dislike is not a word that means we can easily forgive or forget.
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Well don't you need love, to know what hate is? If there isn't love, you wouldn't be able to compare to something, thus you wouldn't realise what hate was!
And it is vice versa. You need hate to be able to love. If you didn't hate, you wouldn't have anything to compare, to make it feel like love! Comprendo? Heehee
It's a bit like Yin-Yang!! Evil - Kind.. Dark - Light.. Black - White.
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Oh wait sorry.. I may have gone a bit off track!
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Well don't you need love, to know what hate is? If there isn't love, you wouldn't be able to compare to something, thus you wouldn't realise what hate was!
And it is vice versa. You need hate to be able to love. If you didn't hate, you wouldn't have anything to compare, to make it feel like love! Comprendo? Heehee
It's a bit like Yin-Yang!! Evil - Kind.. Dark - Light.. Black - White.
This could turn quite philosophical. How do you define love, is it not just affection? I personally don't think you have to know one to appreciate the other.
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Oh wait sorry.. I may have gone a bit off track!
No, you are on track...and it is interesting what you wrote and I will respond accordingly.
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Well don't you need love, to know what hate is? If there isn't love, you wouldn't be able to compare to something, thus you wouldn't realise what hate was!
And it is vice versa. You need hate to be able to love. If you didn't hate, you wouldn't have anything to compare, to make it feel like love! Comprendo? Heehee
It's a bit like Yin-Yang!! Evil - Kind.. Dark - Light.. Black - White.
This is good Seany....but from a baby's standpoint they learn love first or rather bonding to a parent/parents. It is a way of survival as a parent loves, nurtures a child....but I have never taught my kids to hate...pushing them away, telling them I hate them or their actions....is there an absence of hate in our emotions? We like or dislike and it appears easier to define...but hate...how extreme could it be is this the ultimate of dislike and you can't possibly dislike in this arena of emotions?
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Many people say that hate is just a higher form of dislike, some say it is impossible to realy hate someone. I think you have to be in a situation or have a series of events happen to truely know hate and all other emotions.
In a time when we are supposed to be calmer and more intouch with our feelings, we are supposed to be a nicer society. I think this is all part of "the plan" to make us more submissive, can you realy hate? Oh yes.
I do not see hate as an extension of dislike, and I think it often has more to do with fear. Detestation is extreme dislike, but hate is something else.
You don't need to destroy someone or something that you merely dislike, or even detest them; you simply avoid them. You do need to destroy that which you fear. To hate someone, you usually fear they are out to destroy you, which you fear, and so need to destroy them.
It is true that the alienation that starts with dislike or detestation can develop into distrust, which them develops into fear and hatred; so dislike may be a seed that creates an environment for the fear that leads to hatred, but I don't think you can have true hatred without that element of fear.
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I do not see hate as an extension of dislike, and I think it often has more to do with fear. Detestation is extreme dislike, but hate is something else.
You don't need to destroy someone or something that you merely dislike, or even detest them; you simply avoid them. You do need to destroy that which you fear. To hate someone, you usually fear they are out to destroy you, which you fear, and so need to destroy them.
It is true that the alienation that starts with dislike or detestation can develop into distrust, which them develops into fear and hatred; so dislike may be a seed that creates an environment for the fear that leads to hatred, but I don't think you can have true hatred without that element of fear.
So. we can start of with simple dislike leading to detest, distrust, fear, then at it's greatest hatred. Where does loathing come in?
I agree in part, George. Some hatred does need or stem from fear, but it can also be straightforward hatred nothing to do with fear. The fear factor would only come in to play if you thought someone was out to destroy you, like you said.
I have never thought anyone was out to destroy me, but i do know hate.
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I have never thought anyone was out to destroy me, but i do know hate.
There you have an advantage over me, if advantage it be, because I cannot feel that I can rightly say I have ever hated anybody.
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I have never thought anyone was out to destroy me, but i do know hate.
There you have an advantage over me, if advantage it be, because I cannot feel that I can rightly say I have ever hated anybody.
It is no advantage, George.
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I agree in part, George. Some hatred does need or stem from fear, but it can also be straightforward hatred nothing to do with fear. The fear factor would only come in to play if you thought someone was out to destroy you, like you said.
OK, I would ask the following:
Is the hatred returned in kind, or is it unrequited?
Secondly, does the hatred include an element to desire harm upon the person (I don't mean that you have serious criminal intents upon them, only that if you had the opportunity to cause some slight harm, or to undermine them in some small way, would you do so)? Do you believe that they, whether you feel they hate you or not, would choose to undermine you in any way?
I should add that hatred can be a habitual thing, where a past fear was converted into hatred, and lingered as such even when the thing you once feared no longer gives rational reason to be feared, but the memory of that fear still lingers.
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OK, I would ask the following:
Is the hatred returned in kind, or is it unrequited?
No, maybe my mistake. I am not the one that hates, i am the one that is hated! I do not return the hatred, although i do detest the other person/s
Secondly, does the hatred include an element to desire harm upon the person (I don't mean that you have serious criminal intents upon them, only that if you had the opportunity to cause some slight harm, or to undermine them in some small way, would you do so)? Do you believe that they, whether you feel they hate you or not, would choose to undermine you in any way?
Now i think about it, my previous statement that "I have never thought anyone was out to destroy me" is wrong. When you say "does the hatred include an element to desire harm upon the person", i would say yes. This has been a factor and an attempt. Even serious criminal intent has been a factor, on more that one occasion
I should add that hatred can be a habitual thing, where a past fear was converted into hatred, and lingered as such even when the thing you once feared no longer gives rational reason to be feared, but the memory of that fear still lingers.
Almost spot on, there was never any reason for the hatred. Well no logical or rational one, it was all to do with religious beliefs and doctrines. They still play a role, but a minor one now. You have it spot on when you say it is habitual, it has become so instilled that nothing i can ever do or say will change that.
This is just like therapy! but without the stones and fee.
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I must say I have harbored hate in my heart in the past. There is a huge difference in my humble opinion between hate and dislike or strongly dislike.. It is different..
I agree with George about the fear..In both of the instances where I felt this there was horrendous fear... and even now reading this thread I feel it seeps back up inside .. not the hate but the fear!
I had no control over things that happened as a child and again as an adult.. It was not until I faced the fear that I was able to let the hate go away.. It had eaten at my soul.. Made me bitter and cynical I had no faith in myself or anyone else I was always afraid and never trusted anyone..I still have trouble with the whole thing.. Always looking to find out why on earth should I believe someone loves me or that I am worth loving..LOL I think that is where the hate slipped in.. It eats away at you making you defenseless emotionally as well as physically. at times..sometimes it is easier to harbor the hate then to face the problem so it eat's away at you and grows until it swallows you up. It changes how you feel about life love yourself and others trust belief etc. I have lots more I could say, and I thought I could tell you more why I feel this way.. but I cannot.. elaborate..at present..I will read along until I can..
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Okay, now I am going to twist this around so you can look at this scenario. If they know them, is murder hate? Is it hate if they don't know the person and murders? Can murder occur through hate or pure detestion, dislike, or what?
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Okay, now I am going to twist this around so you can look at this scenario. If they know them, is murder hate? Is it hate if they don't know the person and murders? Can murder occur through hate or pure destestion, dislike, or what?
I don't think you need to hate someone to murder them, you may have to have intent but not hate. it could be vengance, revenge, or you could be a contract killer...the reason to murder someone could be endless.
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Yes, but they will call some of the crime committed through murder a "hate crime" such as murder with racism involved..... You are right Paul, the reason to murder could be endless. (I really need to quit reading these type of books...lol)
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What type of books do you have there, Lo?
I think "hate crimes" are an American thing, thats why i never mentioned them. Any way are hate crimes not just a fancy way of wording and legislating for racism?
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I know...I read mysteries and it will stem these ugly thoughts from me....trying to find out the motive of the crime. I think our worst dislike towards a thought, person, or thing may not really be hate and it has made me curious.
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Yes, but they will call some of the crime committed through murder a "hate crime" such as murder with racism involved..... You are right Paul, the reason to murder could be endless. (I really need to quit reading these type of books...lol)
That people call it so does not make it so.
With regard to racism, but racism is itself is often based upon fear, and so has the potential for hatred.
That having been said, not all racism is the same either. Some is just habitual, some is just a lack of self confidence (the old problem of any bully, he feels weak, so he tries to make himself seem stronger by bullying someone weaker than himself).
It is interesting that the strongest force for racism is often not the guys at the top, but those people with little power, who need to feel they have power over someone else.
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if enough people call it a hate crime, it will be a hate crime. wheather we agree or not, if enough people call it, and then legislate for it then it becomes a hate crime.
but not all racism is related to fear. Racism can be taught, the children of far right groups (NF, C18, BNP) do not fear, it is pure hatred, the Hitler youth were not taught to fear, just hate. religious factions do not fear, they just hate.
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not all hate crimes are based on race, either. there are hate crimes aimed at gay people. there are people who hate just to hate. i don't know that anyone can define hate, as it is an extremely diverse thing based on the individual. same with love.
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but not all racism is related to fear. Racism can be taught, the children of far right groups (NF, C18, BNP) do not fear, it is pure hatred, the Hitler youth were not taught to fear, just hate. religious factions do not fear, they just hate.
I agree that racism can be taught, but what is taught is actually fear.
When the Hitler youth were taught to hate, they were taught that the people they hate will destroy the good people of the world, and so they must fear, and so hate, these people. There was much propaganda in Germany at the time, aimed not merely to say "you must hate Jew/homosexuals/communists", but that you must fear these people, and showing all the dastardly acts these people were supposed to have done, or would do if they were not destroyed.
If you look at what the far right are saying about race, it is very much the language of fear, a language that says unless we stop these alien people, they will overrun us, and we will become powerless within our own country.
So too, religious extremists will argue that their hatred is out of a desire to protect their own lives from what they see as the evil threat of others.
Fear is the root in all of these cases. Irrational fear, but then fear is often at its strongest when it is irrational.
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Okay, now I am going to twist this around so you can look at this scenario. If they know them, is murder hate? Is it hate if they don't know the person and murders? Can murder occur through hate or pure detestion, dislike, or what?
I think HAte in the case of random murdering is based on self hate more then anything I do not think there is always the hate of the victim. I believe that people become so overcome by fear of what they don't understand in their own mind that they misinterpret feelings and memories and begin lashing out at themselves and sometimes I think they try to use their actions as a way to get help because they know no other way! So demented but I have seen it often.. I don't understand it but have seen it!
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Okay, now I am going to twist this around so you can look at this scenario. If they know them, is murder hate? Is it hate if they don't know the person and murders? Can murder occur through hate or pure detestion, dislike, or what?
I think HAte in the case of random murdering is based on self hate more then anything I do not think there is always the hate of the victim. I believe that people become so overcome by fear of what they don't understand in their own mind that they misinterpret feelings and memories and begin lashing out at themselves and sometimes I think they try to use their actions as a way to get help because they know no other way! So demented but I have seen it often.. I don't understand it but have seen it!
Yes, I can agree with that.
It is not even that uncommon for people who later go on to commit murder to actually ask to be treated, because they know what is happening within themselves, and they want someone to help them stop it from happening, but then society (or the institutions of society) do not know how to respond to this request for help (they see murderers merely as the enemy, and cannot understand that sometimes they are also people who need help), so they do nothing, and the inevitable happens.
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This could run forever, how do you define a random murder and attribute it to hate? The down and out who kills someone for money, or because his home (cardboard box) has been moved, that is not hate. The person suffering schizophrenia murders but not through hate - his murder in random.
Racism can be a hate crime, but racism is not always due to fear.
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Okay, I will stop asking even though I still have questions about this and will jump to another forum to seek that answer then. Thanks for your time! Bye!
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i don't think paul meant for you to stop asking questions. this could just be a rather long debate
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Lo, that's not what i meant! You keep asking the questions, we all have different views on what emotions are and how they affect us. What is your next question? Maybe start a new topic as i think this one may run for quite sometime on it's own.
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Racism can be a hate crime, but racism is not always due to fear.
Where racism does not involve fear, then I don't believe it involves hate.
Yes, racism can include one person dehumanising another, and just as little boys might catch and pull the legs off a spider, so maybe someone might consider it of no consequence to kill a person of another race, but there is no hate in either action.
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No problem. I have sent out a few questions on hate as I don't believe hate is possible or rather in a defined way..most people have a hard time explaining it when I ask them. This does not have to be a long debate as it is a choice a person makes to answer the question or not. I just don't want to make anyone feel that they are forced to answer this as there IS no expert on defining hate. I did call a few of my old colleagues who I used to work with and 2 are Psychologists and a Psychiarist...funny, even their definitions are not clearly defined either. I am not taken offense, I am just wanting an answer. I clearly appreciate all answers here. I just have a very curious mind. :-)
I was told by one of my past esteemed colleagues that hate is a varying root to many humanistic emotional evils...LOL Such as fear, dislike to a higher degree, but there is no way to measure hate on any scales.
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funny... earlier today i seem to remember posting something in this topic... it was earlier this morning. it's not here... hmmm
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Where racism does not involve fear, then I don't believe it involves hate.
Yes, racism can include one person dehumanising another, and just as little boys might catch and pull the legs off a spider, so maybe someone might consider it of no consequence to kill a person of another race, but there is no hate in either action.
But George, it does not matter what you think, or what any of us think. Unless you are a racist, a bigot, homophobic... you can not know if hate is a factor. You can believe, we may all want to believe that hate is not involved. But you don't know.
As for the spider analogy, i would put that down to a little boys curiosity. Little and big boys, may get a kick out of killing spiders or cats but that does not mean they hate spiders or cats. They are curious and sick. There is no hate involved. But that is not what the questioner is asking.
The question is "Is it possible for us to know what hate is really or the closest thing we can possibly do with feelings in our emotional range?"
Like any question such as this, how you define hate, love...is not what i or another will define it as. The Hitler youth were taught to hate, but that was not based on fear. The government needed someone to blame for Germany's problems and the Jews were an easy target for them. Hitler did not fear the Jews, he thought they were the lowest race and not worthy, Life unworthy of life.
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But George, it does not matter what you think, or what any of us think. Unless you are a racist, a bigot, homophobic... you can not know if hate is a factor. You can believe, we may all want to believe that hate is not involved. But you don't know.
I would have to disagree on a number of factors.
Firstly, and most importantly, a word only has a useful meaning if its meaning can be agreed upon, and can be used in comparison between different situations.
A racist alone cannot know if he hates in the same was as someone who hates for some other reason, so if one only uses the word hate in a context where a person decides for themselves whether it is or is not hate, then one looses any ability to compare one situation to another. You could even find a situation where two racists clearly (from all external appearances) have the same motivation, yet one will claim to hate and the other will claim he does not hate – and you have no way of making any comparison between them because you have said their own self definition is paramount.
Secondly, you may believe you cannot know what drives another person to the action they take; and to some extent, that is inevitably true; but what you can quite reasonably say is that we are all human beings, and we are all substantially similar, and you can ask yourself under what extreme situations might you behave in the way that the person you see behaves, and what would be your driving forces in that case.
If you genuinely believe that you are incapable of doing bad things, and therefore find it impossible to look deep within yourself for all the forces that may be deeply hidden within you, but for some people have welled to the surface, then I would suggest that you are dangerously naïve. In NAZI Germany, in Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people conspired to commit the most horrible of acts. I just cannot imagine that these hundreds of thousand, or even millions of people were anything other than ordinary people, people like you and me, people who in the preceding years would have honestly said they were incapable of doing anything hateful or bad.
To my mind, it is only by understanding how these perfectly ordinary people, people like you and me, could be turned into monsters (or, maybe more accurately, that the monsters that were deep within them were let loose) that we can have any hope of not following them should we get caught in a similar tide of events that these unfortunate people found themselves.
To say that we cannot know how another thinks until one has experienced what they experience (and no two experiences are ever exactly the same) is defeatist. You cannot change the future unless you understand what the future might hold, and if one says one cannot understand without having first experienced, and by the time you have experienced it, it is too late to change it, is in effect to surrender to the future without a fight.
As for the spider analogy, i would put that down to a little boys curiosity. Little and big boys, may get a kick out of killing spiders or cats but that does not mean they hate spiders or cats. They are curious and sick. There is no hate involved. But that is not what the questioner is asking.
Ofcourse it does not involve hate (assuming you are willing to step back from your position that an outsider can never know what another is feeling) – but that is why I took that example.
Some forms of racism do not involve hate either, but merely involve one human being dehumanising another human being, and so regarding that human being as being no more than a little boy looking at a spider or a cat. But, as you say, that was not what the question was – but it merely is to say that race crimes and hate crimes are not synonymous.
The question is "Is it possible for us to know what hate is really or the closest thing we can possibly do with feelings in our emotional range?"
Like any question such as this, how you define hate, love...is not what i or another will define it as. The Hitler youth were taught to hate, but that was not based on fear. The government needed someone to blame for Germany's problems and the Jews were an easy target for them. Hitler did not fear the Jews, he thought they were the lowest race and not worthy, Life unworthy of life.
That is wrong on a number of counts.
Firstly, what do you think all of the propaganda the the German government promoted (such as the Articles of Zion – first published by the anti-Semitic Russian authorities at the end of the 19th century, but then taken up by the NAZIs). This, together with portraying Jews as rats, combined both to dehumanise and to instil fear of the Jews.
If one looks at the Rwandan genocide, the campaign against the Hutu children included the the imperative that “to exterminate the 'big rats', they said, one must also kill the 'little rats' ”. Again, rats are something society has always feared for their destructive effect and disease carrying capacity, as well as having the effect of dehumanising effect of classing these human beings as non-human, thus both legitimising the necessity of exterminating (by fear) that which was a threat, and undermining any moral objections by claiming they are not human anyway. This is exactly the same that the NAZI regime did to the Jews.
To be fair, most of politics is typically about fear, which is why even in fairly ordinary political campaigning, it is negative campaigning that carries the greatest weight. The general assumption is that people will have a greater imperative to vote against what they fear than to vote for what they actually believe in (in any case, if you can cause the populous to fear the opposition, then you don't even need to convince the populous to believe in your policies, since you remain their only saviour against the terrible alternative, however distasteful you might yourself appear).
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No problem. I have sent out a few questions on hate as I don't believe hate is possible or rather in a defined way..most people have a hard time explaining it when I ask them. This does not have to be a long debate as it is a choice a person makes to answer the question or not. I just don't want to make anyone feel that they are forced to answer this as there IS no expert on defining hate. I did call a few of my old colleagues who I used to work with and 2 are Psychologists and a Psychiarist...funny, even their definitions are not clearly defined either. I am not taken offense, I am just wanting an answer. I clearly appreciate all answers here. I just have a very curious mind. :-)
I was told by one of my past esteemed colleagues that hate is a varying root to many humanistic emotional evils...LOL Such as fear, dislike to a higher degree, but there is no way to measure hate on any scales.
Clearly, all words are to some extent subjective, and contextual. Fore instance, when I say that I hate broccoli, it really is not meant in the meaning that I assumed most people were using the word hate here.
On the other hand, if one uses words with an absence of agreed meaning, then one in effect is unable to use the word, since the message you think you are sending in the words you use is different to the message the listener is hearing. Clearly, there are even occasions when one deliberately uses forms of words that have a different meaning to different audiences, but this is usually intended to obscure a common understanding, often as a means of deception, rather than to facilitate a common understanding of ideas.
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I can concur with your response. Paul, made some good points too. I thank you all for your thoughts on this particular word!
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I'd say hate can be possible. I think it is rather akin to love - a feeling of such intensity that you can't be quite sure what it is you are feeling. Although, I think hate, again like love, had become a word so overused and usually used where it shouldn't, that noone is quite sure what is it anymore. Just remember Nietzsche saying that nothing can be born from it's opposite. Hate is opposite to love and that exists.
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Marzipan, this is interesting....but maybe hate is not the opposite of love? Just a thought!
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The idea that hate is the opposite of love is not uncommon, but first it might be wise to define what an opposite is.
Essentially, two things are opposite if they are for all practical purposes identical in most respects, but at opposite extremes only in one dimension (i.e. a tall building and a small building are opposites only because they are essentially the same thing, buildings, and they are different only in one respect, their size).
It is fairly apparent what the differences between love and hate are, so if they are indeed opposites, then the interesting question must be to ask in what ways are they identical?
I am not at all sure that all forms of love and hate are opposites (or at least there are some forms of love which are not opposite to some forms of hate, but it might be then argued, but I am not sure how successfully, that each form of love has its mirror is a particular flavour of hate).
Certainly, I would agree that obsessive love and obsessive hate are sufficiently similar to be regarded as opposites; but is all love and hate to be considered a form of obsession, and if not, would the non-obsessive forms be regarded as opposites to each other?
Certainly, I have found that couples who are more likely to have a life long loving relationship are more capable of harbouring a lifelong hatred - so this may lead to some support of the argument that in some of their forms the two emotions are closely linked, and are valid opposites.