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Natural Hate

Posted on 30/06/2010 by admin

Hate is not a feeling I think I know. We usually use descriptions such as loathe or intensely dislike, but hate has always had the connotation of wanting to eradicate, be happy to see dead, and such feelings I have never had. But being told I ‘hated’ someone has made me think about hatred and wonder what its purpose is and how it springs from reason.

Many years ago they brought out a game where the payer was a ruler and could make decisions. The game threw up cards which gave the ruler problems and the journalist who was playing for the article said after a while it became very enticing just to wipe out the tribe or group who were saying no to his ideas, or the progress of his agenda for the make-believe country. He was quite surprised at his reactions. But that is where hate comes from, within all of us given the situation.

And it isn’t just rulers who we can see are disconnected with the day-to-day lives of others and therefore able to disconnect their feelings from their well-being. It is the neighbour who is culturally different so we make fun of them. And by making fun we belittle them. And once belittled they become ‘the other’. Then we can imagine things about them that are not true but fit our dislike. And so disaffection uses reason to make ‘the other’ hateful to us.

And it works with animals; the uglier they are the more we dislike them.

Which is the way the ancient polytheistic world used to believe the gods acted and reacted. A reflection of ourselves.

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Children’s author, novelist, editor and poet.

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