The Biological Purpose of Hate

Chucky wrote:

vinceh4 wrote:Love and Hate are poetic terms. They may reveal a truth as "poetry" often does, but those terms are too subjective and have cultural and religious implications that don't help in understanding.

Indeed, and Def Leppard recognised this in their song: When Love & Hate Collide. By the way, what do you mean by 'feeding a need', just like Eros?

Eros, meaning enthrallment, captivation, extreme joy in the presence of another. Love, according to some. It is an emotion that we crave, it fills an emotional addiction to another. It is a way that we emotionally relate to another. An extreme way; the "honeymoon" syndrome.

Likewise "hate", contempt, disgust, are an extreme way of relating to another on an emotional level. It satisifies a hurt or resentment, just as eros satisfies a longing or craving.

I thought that you meant Eros, the God of love (from Greek mythology).

Chucky wrote:I thought that you meant Eros, the God of love (from Greek mythology).

I did, in a way. I used the term to break away from the cliches and conotations that are associated with the word "love".

It is interesting to note that the byzantine mystics did not define their experience with the divine just as "love", but as eros, even though they had several words that could be used in relating to different relationships such as love for a brother, father, mother, etc. or love in an ascetic sense. They meant the most intimate kind of relationship.

So do I.

When I use "eros', I am using it within the context you pointed out with the reference to greek mythology, and more.

Hate would seem subjectively be the need to defend oneself, one's resources or one's ego - or - to promote one's ego, or one's own agenda (divided into morality or other agenda derivatives). Simply that it provides an emotional cattle prod to the end of advancing one's own aims would appear to be it's purpose, but it is more selective in targeting those with the greatest conflict with your concepts. You can expand on this through reasons such as Jealousy (you can't be the best at something if you are jealous of another's accomplishments, they must be better) or even just as a convenient target for you to dominate (by hating them your objective of domination is emotionally easier).

Not sure how to reconcile this with women, who claim to hate the one's they love and their strangely shaped brains and I'm sure there are "cleverer" people than some poster on the internet who asked their questions but I can't be bothered to read about them - perhaps the purity of this answer (in not reading them) will be of use to another on it's own.

voice_of_reason wrote:Not sure how to reconcile this with women, who claim to hate the one's they love and their strangely shaped brains and I'm sure there are "cleverer" people than some poster on the internet who asked their questions but I can't be bothered to read about them - perhaps the purity of this answer (in not reading them) will be of use to another on it's own.

You've lost me with this paragraph. Women hate the ones they love?; strangely-shaped brains? Your first paragraph I agree with, by the way. While reading it though, i couldn't help but laugh to myself because your username - the 'voice_of_reason' - would seem to go against most of what being angry encompasses.

Kevin

YarlSoutan wrote: I hate death because it would strip me of everything I had ever learned.

hmmm....
i thought once that i would hate to die.
then i thought once (or twice or more) about commiting suicide.
then i thought, what if death is just like life?
needless to say i felt too deflated to carry it out.

totally off the subject, sorry, that just such an interesting comment. also alien to me.

hate...
is a tool, a gift.
because in this life sometimes you need the hole, and sometimes you need the spade.
just as love can be used to accomplish great things, it can also destroy great things.
hate can be used in the same fashion...to accomplish or destroy. how many times have you been pissed off full of hate and accomplished a task in half the time?
if i were a scientist i would consider devoting my career to proving that hate can be converted to energy. i would call it H=EC2.

it's not the hate that destroys, its the hater that chooses to do so.
hate, by itself on a plate, is merely hate, a blob, incapable of acting on it's own.
self-control makes the difference.

Chucky wrote:People also hate others because they are different - is there fear involved here?

it's very possible that there is fear involved in this without the hater realizing it.
Also different can mean unknown and/or unpredictable in this case which can lead to fear in certain situations.

I've seen people say "I hate him for doing that" when someone stretches his pinky when he drinks from a cup of tea or coffee. In this case, the hate about the action itself is primary while at the same time there's secondary hate about the person himself who makes the action.