Whether we are aware of it or not, we all love and hate different things; it’s a common human function. As people, we tend to be very passionate about both the things we love and the things we hate. These two terms, love and hate, are two very extreme emotions and we have to admit we invest a lot of ourselves to carry out both (yes, hating things can be very time and energy consuming).
Merriam-Webster defines the word ‘love’ as “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties”, and the word ‘hate’ as “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury”. Both very true, both very accurate.
Now, we all know that loving comes from a place of adoring and liking something or someone so much that we are willing to do anything to protect it/them. You might love your significant other/dog/food/self so much that you might be prepared to do just about anything to keep that safe. And that is okay, that is beautiful. As human beings, having the ability to be so devoted to something because of the feeling of happiness and fulfillment we get from that is one of the factors that keep us moving and living.
However, others think hate comes from a different place. Hate is everything that’s wrong in this world, the one and only fuel to the big fire that is injustice or resentment. Hateful people are sad; as a person who tries to look on the bright side (and I’m sure anyone who shares my views will agree) people who seem to only be able to hate are pitiful. We do things driven by hate that really make no sense or seem completely irrational.
The thing is, when you think about it, hate is just love’s emotionally beaten up relative. Let me illustrate my point with an example. Let’s say you hate the ever-so-disgusting patriarchy that seems to rule society. Why? Because you’re a woman, and as a woman you love who you are and think you deserve to be treated equally to men (which you should, that breach is out of control), or you love the idea of a non-gender-discriminating society.
Hitler committed one huge hate crime we learn about in History Class nowadays with the name of “the Holocaust”. How could that have come out of love? Well, he loved his country and his “pure race” and thought that by killing millions of innocent people, trying to dominate the world and taking everyone in his way down he was doing a good thing (or he just wanted to please himself. Bottomline is, he wanted to be happy in the most twisted ways known to human kind but happy nonetheless).
White nationalism is a thing. Why? Well, because it’s very easy to love the privilege that comes with being white, and if you’ve had that privilege for most of human history and you have a hard time sharing and accepting others you probably won’t like the idea of racial equality at all. Sucks, I know.
I’m not trying to justify all these things in any way, they are as wrong as can be and Satan is probably chilling in hell thinking “I don’t even have to do anything, you humans just really like to destroy yourselves”. But I do think that, if you dig deep enough into anything we label as hate, you’ll find some love underneath it all.
In the end, I do believe that we are all driven by some kind of love. Because when you think about it, haye comes from loving something so much that anything that might endanger it or opposes it must be eliminated. That’s how hate is basically love. No, we don’t love the things we hate (that’s BS in my opinion), but we love what is being put “at risk” by which we hate.
Again, by presenting this view I’m not trying to romanticize hate or hate crimes in any way; gotta punch that patriarchy right in the face when it’s least expecting it.
