[moonfire (OP)]

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?

[paul.fr]

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.

[moonfire (OP)]

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)

[paul.fr]

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?

[moonfire (OP)]

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.

[another_someone]

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.

[paul.fr]

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.

[kdlynn]

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.

[another_someone]

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.

[Karen W.]

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!

[another_someone]

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.

[paul.fr]

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.

[moonfire (OP)]

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!

[kdlynn]

i don't think paul meant for you to stop asking questions. this could just be a rather long debate

[paul.fr]

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.

[another_someone]

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.

[moonfire (OP)]

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.

[kdlynn]

funny... earlier today i seem to remember posting something in this topic... it was earlier this morning. it's not here... hmmm

[paul.fr]

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.

[another_someone]

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).