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How to Deserve Hatred

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Clarissa

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In his book España, Manuel Vilas says:

It doesn’t matter how many sincere friends a man has because if there is just one person who hates him to death, it means his life has been a failure. Hatred of one matters more than the love of hundreds. It’s true: the hatred of one person is a condemnation.

I think Vilas is absolutely right. Profound, true hatred is a costly and a very energy-consuming proposition. A person who hates you (and I’m not talking of a passing bout of anger here, I’m talking about real hatred that burns with a steady flame and stretches into eternity) willingly undermines his or her health and stunts his or her existence for the purpose of hating you.

One has got to be a really shitty human being to deserve something like that.

 

18 responses to “How to Deserve Hatred”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    But many people are more than willing to undermine their health in various ways. I know that many Palestinians sincerely wish for my very painful death for being an Israeli Jew. For proof, see how they celebrate terrorists, like the young Israeli citizen Arab man who killed Itamar family, including a little (<1 year) baby girl in her bed. If you mean personal hatred only than too it's a problematic definition – M. L. King was hated by many white people. Is it somehow not a real hatred if the other person is racist? He was murdered, isn't it a sufficient proof of hatred? And, the third possibility is the situation of choice, in which no good solution is available, so you choose the lesser evil and somebody gets hurt and starts hating you for this. Don't have a truly good example now for it, but it doesn't have to be a political issue. I would define it more precisely as "if you've done something worth to deserve hatred till the hater dies".

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “. If you mean personal hatred only than too it’s a problematic definition – M. L. King was hated by many white people.”

      – I was talking about personal hatred, of course. And you can’t hate somebody personally unless you know them as a person. All of those white people have never met MLK. Hence, they can’t hate him personally. It’s the concept, the message, the idea they hate. And they’d hate the ideas no matter who proclaimed them, right?

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  2. twicerandomly Avatar
    twicerandomly

    I think hating someone with a burning flame into eternity sounds romantic but is actually just a sign the hater is damaged. I’m one of those people who thinks life is too short to let it be ruined by someone you don’t even like. If someone provokes that much emotion in you, they have too much control over your life. Also, I have done some stupid, thoughtless things in my past, which probably didn’t provoke anyone to hate me with a burning passion forever, but probably did provoke them to hate me for a couple of weeks. Now that I am older and wiser, I regret acting the way I did. If these people did choose to hate me forever, is the fact that I admit I was wrong and acted badly irrelevant? Is my life still a failure? If someone chooses to hate you forever over despite the fact you sincerely apologize, doesn’t that say more about the hater than the hatee?

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    1. el Avatar
      el

      // If someone chooses to hate you forever over despite the fact you sincerely apologize, doesn’t that say more about the hater than the hatee?

      Depends what you’ve done. F.e. in extreme cases killing one’s relatives or making them or the person in question invalid for life because of being a drunk driver. There are many less extreme cases, when damage is irreversible and saying “Sorry” doesn’t help.

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I don’t like apologies. Usually, I perceive them as just as offensive as the original act that the person is apologizing for. (Read more here: https://clarissasblog.com/2011/05/30/apologies/)

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      1. twicerandomly Avatar
        twicerandomly

        I understand what you are saying about apologies. If you are the victim of some tragedy, two words from the perpetrator are an affront. But if a drunk driver kills someone you love, are you going to hate them forever with a burning flame? You can do what you want, but I don’t think that makes your life better, and I don’t think it makes the drunk driver’s life worse. It’s like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. And if you are the drunk driver, and you are horrified at what you have done, and take all the steps that you suggest in your post, and the person you have wronged still hates you with a burning flame forever? And you go to jail and do your time and devote the rest of your life to good works? Then I don’t think the drunk driver is a failure. I can understand hating the drunk driver whenever you thought about him, but if you hate him “with a burning flame that stretches into eternity” I think you’re just unhealthy.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          ” You can do what you want, but I don’t think that makes your life better”

          – Everybody decides that for themselves.

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      2. Titfortat Avatar
        Titfortat

        @Twice

        There is really good movie that makes your point quite well.

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  3. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    I also think we are getting confused on the terminology here. In order to really love somebody, you need to know them very well. It’s the same with hatred. You can’t hate a person if you don;t know them. In the case of the drunk driver, it’s their action that you hate. But you can;t hate them personally if we are talking about a stranger.

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    1. Titfortat Avatar
      Titfortat

      Hate is waste of time and energy, period.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        No. It’s a way to turn the accumulated aggression outward, rather than inward. Repressing aggression leads to cardio-vascular diseases and it is always a very dangerous proposition. You can’t reason aggression away by logical arguments. All that can be achieved is driving it “underground”, so to speak, and there is hardly anything as bad for one’s health as that.

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      2. Titfortat Avatar
        Titfortat

        No, anger may be ok to express, hatred is seething and is definately not healthy for your emotional or physical health. There is a BIG difference between the two.

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      3. twicerandomly Avatar
        twicerandomly

        It looks like a good movie. I like Nicholson’s acting. The person, not so much. For a pop culture reference, I was thinking of the House episode, where House was the instigator of a series of events that led to the death of the girlfriend, Amber, of his best friend. They were lying together in bed for the last few minutes of her life, and he said, “How can you not be angry at him,” and she said, “I don’t want to spend the last few minutes of my life angry.” That’s how I feel. Life’s too short.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I like House, too. People say that it’s a show about me. 🙂

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      4. twicerandomly Avatar
        twicerandomly

        Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that people think you are like House!

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  4. Titfortat Avatar
    Titfortat

    Actually there is a great quote about resentment that is pretty applicable for hate too.

    “Resentment is letting someone live rent free in your head” 😉

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  5. FD Avatar
    FD

    Mmmm. I’d agree with this if I didn’t know a sociopath personally who hates me. Seriously, if he thought he could run me over with a car and get away with it he would. And the only thing I’m guilty of is being an obstacle to his wishes.

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  6. scratchy888 Avatar
    scratchy888

    bloggerclarissa :
    No. It’s a way to turn the accumulated aggression outward, rather than inward. Repressing aggression leads to cardio-vascular diseases and it is always a very dangerous proposition. You can’t reason aggression away by logical arguments. All that can be achieved is driving it “underground”, so to speak, and there is hardly anything as bad for one’s health as that.

    It’s possible to sublimate aggression into a political and philosophical agenda — which is why I attack identity politics every chance I get. I’m getting good at that too. People will find what they consider to be their firm intellectual foundation swiftly undermined by me, and shown to be a feature of historical ressentiment.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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