Is Hatred Ever Justified??

[feral]

On the news, in the new Michael Moore film and in person I have seen and heard people expressing hatred for Iraq and indifference towards the killings of civillians there. I've overheard statements of contempt for the goals and values of Arab peoples and Muslims, and disrespect for their lives, both on this board and in my hometown. Comments on this board like "blow it up" (in reference to Iraq after the Fallujah bridge hangings) and "friggin stupid A-rabs" (regarding Saudi Arabian beheading policy) make me wonder why there is so much hatred, but what I really want to know here is if hatred is ever justified or morally acceptable.

According to your personal values, religious beliefs, common sense, etc - is it okay to hate other people? Is it ever justified, especially in cases like anti-Muslim, anti-Arab or anti-Iraq sentiment where the hatred encompasses a group of strangers and not an individual who as specifically done you wrong? Why or why not?

 

[challenger]

Hatred of people? No, I don't think that can ever be justified, we're all in this shnizt together
Hatred of ideas or actions? Sometimes.

 

[Existential1]

Many Brits will when questioned, hunt around almost perplexed, then answer that they hate Tony Blair: for what he has done to his party, his country, and in the wider world.
This is a new phenomenon in British politics, certainly as to the breadth of spectrum that shares this visceral hatred.
It seems to have a lot to do with Christianity: politicians who have arrogantly driven on, sustained by personal conviction; to outcome and destination marked more by incompotence, than by any high value.
It seems to be similar in the USA: this combination of the highest aspiration of conviction; crashing to the crassest of outcomes.
Maybe its the same in the Islamic world: zealots taking hold of the levers of power; and driving their society into downward spirals.
So people are feeling hate.
Is it jsutified? I would say so.
When the only world we have is trashed by zealots, Islamic and Christian: then I think its time to wheel out the excoriating big guns; lets hate the sons of *****es, and drive them all out of the political establishment.

 

[challenger]

Many Brits will when questioned, hunt around almost perplexed, then answer that they hate Tony Blair: for what he has done to his party, his country, and in the wider world.
This is a new phenomenon in British politics, certainly as to the breadth of spectrum that shares this visceral hatred.
It seems to have a lot to do with Christianity: politicians who have arrogantly driven on, sustained by personal conviction; to outcome and destination marked more by incompotence, than by any high value.
It seems to be similar in the USA: this combination of the highest aspiration of conviction; crashing to the crassest of outcomes.
Maybe its the same in the Islamic world: zealots taking hold of the levers of power; and driving their society into downward spirals.
So people are feeling hate.
Is it jsutified? I would say so.
When the only world we have is trashed by zealots, Islamic and Christian: then I think its time to wheel out the excoriating big guns; lets hate the sons of *****es, and drive them all out of the political establishment.

Why do you feel that it is necessary to hate the misguided? Don't you think you might be being a wee bit harsh?

 

[joebudda]

We can only base an opinion on the information that we have.
Our information we receive is very generalized.

Today we live in a time of 60 second news stories on the evening news. The evening news is all about ratings so they pretty much only show what they think will grab someone’s attention. This leaves a lot of opinions and news never known. They would rather show a car chase for a whole hour then an important issue for 30 seconds that might loose the watchers attention.

If someone wishes to learn more about a particular issue they have to actively seek it out for themselves.

I believe that most of the hate in the world is a direct result of ignorance. It is so easy to hate what one knows nothing about. This also leads to the reasoning of “Why would I care to know more about them, just look at them” mentality.

Because people tend to believe what the people around them believe, this type of mentality spreads, and breeds more hate.

 

[transientlife]

I'm with challenger and joebudda on this one.

 

[Existential1]

Why do you feel that it is necessary to hate the misguided? Don't you think you might be being a wee bit harsh?

I feel so threatened, on so many levels, by so much that politicians like Blair and Bush do: the world of perspective and value, and human arrangement and possibility, that I love and must have; is dissapearing before me, and generally through agenda following that is never honestly presented.
These guys have got my world by the nuts, and they are destroying it. They are making the world my children will inherit, more inherently unjust and unsafe. They are characterised by an arrogance of conviction, and a poverty of compotence.
Ultimately they are both hucksters and charlatans. They both engage routinely in what, in any other person, stripped of their self validating complacency, would simply be lying.
Harsh?
In some part of my wee being, I'm jumping up and down in frustration. The civility of people like me, keeps these bums in office, and out of jail: and that is wrong.
We need genuinely honest and compotent leaders, to such extent: that it would be unethical to do anyhting other than hate and harry the bad ones.
I'll withdraw the hate, as soon as these incompotent and dishonest men are out of office.
Even the powerless, and much more biographically evil SH, now earns my sympathy. There is a time for hate, and that is when we gird loins for action; to take down tyrants.

 

[Wolverine502]

It has nothing to do with hatred. War is very ugly and uncivilized. When you go and level a city; you do it because it has to be done not out of hatred.

 

[joebudda]

It has nothing to do with hatred. War is very ugly and uncivilized. When you go and level a city; you do it because it has to be done not out of hatred.

Please give me an example of when it is okay to level a city.

 

[Wolverine502]

Please give me an example of when it is okay to level a city.

A perfect example would be when we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.

 

[joebudda]

A perfect example would be when we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.

So us dropping bombs on innocent people was a good thing? Yes it did end the war, but was it really necessary. Japan wasn’t targeting innocents the way we did. All of their targets were military.

We dropped bombs on innocent people with the intent of killing innocent people. Please explain to me why this is okay to do.

 

[transientlife]

One thing I will say...just as an FYI to the aforementioned situation:
is that if we had not dropped the bomb, and instead would have invaded Japan, all of our POWs would have been wiped out by the Japanese. And by wiped out, I do mean WIPED OUT as in NO TRACE TO BE FOUND. Such was the order from the top, apparently.
I know I'm glad I didn't have to make the choice. Preservation of lives vs preservation of lives...it definitely had to be tough choice.

And if anyone needs a source for that, consider it first hand from an army soldier held at Camp Cabanatuan for a 4 years during WWII, whom I interviewed for a history project.

 

[Existential1]

A perfect example would be when we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.

We (you) did it, that's for sure.
But it wasn't okay.
It was horrifying to a degree that freezes the human soul and imagination.
Only when we have a simulcrum of this reality, when we have actually led the reality go; can we imagine it was okay.
If we were together in Nagasaki, and I was shielded by some wall, and you were shriven by some blast in fornt of me: then my soul dies, for I cannot comprehend or accept what has happened to you; it has not been okay.
Hate does not have to lead to violence or destruction. Violence and destruction are generally the evil resort of the impatient.
What did Jesus hate? It seems he hated those who mislead people put in thier charge. He hated the pharisees and the money changers: those who took peoples hopes as to the divine, and returned false coin.
Hate is, or should be just a high octane emotional judgement, ideally just of a moment and not sustained: that jacks in the turbocharger of faith; and takes one through a veil of collective restraint, to where one stands only on truth, come what may.
So there is hate and hate. Hate that serves God, the integrity of the whole, seems okay to me. I don't allow myself to hate Blair and Bush, to wreak anyhting on them personally; they are mere ciphers of what is going wrong currently. I hate, only to change the whole, to see them removed from office. When hate becomes conjoined with powerlessness, and becomes evil vindictiveness: then we are just on a bad path; best left as quickly as possible.

 

[Wolverine502]

We (you) did it, that's for sure.
But it wasn't okay.
It was horrifying to a degree that freezes the human soul and imagination.
Only when we have a simulcrum of this reality, when we have actually led the reality go; can we imagine it was okay.
If we were together in Nagasaki, and I was shielded by some wall, and you were shriven by some blast in fornt of me: then my soul dies, for I cannot comprehend or accept what has happened to you; it has not been okay.
Hate does not have to lead to violence or destruction. Violence and destruction are generally the evil resort of the impatient.
What did Jesus hate? It seems he hated those who mislead people put in thier charge. He hated the pharisees and the money changers: those who took peoples hopes as to the divine, and returned false coin.
Hate is, or should be just a high octane emotional judgement, ideally just of a moment and not sustained: that jacks in the turbocharger of faith; and takes one through a veil of collective restraint, to where one stands only on truth, come what may.
So there is hate and hate. Hate that serves God, the integrity of the whole, seems okay to me. I don't allow myself to hate Blair and Bush, to wreak anyhting on them personally; they are mere ciphers of what is going wrong currently. I hate, only to change the whole, to see them removed from office. When hate becomes conjoined with powerlessness, and becomes evil vindictiveness: then we are just on a bad path; best left as quickly as possible.

You always hope that you never have to wipe out a complete city. However if it has to be done; you have to step up and do it. You may not want to do it, but sometimes it has to be done.

 

[transientlife]

Hate and power -hand in hand- can be an explosive combination.

 

[joebudda]

One thing I will say...just as an FYI to the aforementioned situation:
is that if we had not dropped the bomb, and instead would have invaded Japan, all of our POWs would have been wiped out by the Japanese. And by wiped out, I do mean WIPED OUT as in NO TRACE TO BE FOUND. Such was the order from the top, apparently.
I know I'm glad I didn't have to make the choice. Preservation of lives vs preservation of lives...it definitely had to be tough choice.

And if anyone needs a source for that, consider it first hand from an army soldier held at Camp Cabanatuan for a 4 years during WWII, whom I interviewed for a history project.

I do agree.
We can only look at it in hindsight though.

We will never know if there were other options or if we just went with the easy way out.

This is a tuff subject because of the loss of so many innocents and the potential loss of… well we will never know.

Personally I feel it was bad to target innocents and I do know that it happened and maybe it was the only solution. If the tables were turned and it was us who got hit like that, you think we would take the taking of innocent lives personally.

Yes it is all hindsight and therefore all hypothetical.

 

[joebudda]

Hate and power -hand in hand- can be an explosive combination.

Agree completely.

 

[artofwar]

Hatred is actually a version of fear, especially racism etc I believe Human hatred is not justifyable at all , hate is a very strong word too so I dont think it is ever justified anywhere

 

[transientlife]

Agreed, Joebudda.
It's easy to look back on it now and say this or that and whatnot.
But considering technology at the time, as well as mentality, etc., it's hard to venture exactly what other options there were. Perhaps the bomb was the last resort - but we will never know for sure.
I find any loss of innocent civilians in military battle tragic, no matter the degree.

And scary as it is, I kinda see Wolverine502's point about having to do some things when you wish you wouldn't have to, but doing them because they need done. Who knows how long the war would have gone on, what else would have happened had such a drastic measure not been undertaken.

But what's done is done, we cannot undo anything --- best is to remember it and learn from it all.

 

[feral]

It has nothing to do with hatred. War is very ugly and uncivilized. When you go and level a city; you do it because it has to be done not out of hatred.

I agree with that, and I hope we didn't go to war over hatred, but let me ask about something else. Do you think the war has affected the attitudes and outlooks of people back home? I have noticed a lot of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment, even feelings if disregard or contempt for the citizens of Iraq. How do you think this has come about, and is it okay? Is it right to hate someone or a group of people like Arabs just because you're at war with the leadership of someone in one Arab country? Do you think the assumption many have that most Muslims are terrorists is okay, or is it ignorance that breeds hate?