Back in high school, (senior year) my teacher assigned us a writing project. take something universally accepted in one way and try to redefine it as its opposite or alternate. for my project, i tackled hate. i lost the paper i wrote, but i am thinking about doing a rewrite just to exercise my brain and i wanted an opinion on my idea. I imagined that hate as it is usually seen in the world is completely flawed. it comes from environment, peer pressure, socio-economic hardships and basically ignorance in general. But what if hate was purified, made clean by a lack of all that? hate beyond notions like race, creed, background.... it is not personal. it is not aware of anything more than simple rage at something that it has to lash out against. I am talking hypotheticals here, but could something like hate be clean and pure and simply a blind reaction to an event? predators don't hate, love or like their prey, yet the the brutal act of killing remains. it isn't good, it isn't bad; it is just an action. last thought here: i have heard 2 definitions of courage from war vets my dad knows. One, Courage is being too damn stupid to be afraid. Two, Courage is being where hatred of your situation drives you to do anything to change that situation. i am thinking about that second one as a stepping off point for writing about a bad thing having a shot at being somewhat positive (for a change.) any ideas or opinions on my idea?
I hate writing, I hate English classes, I hate this thread and I hate you. Actually that was a serious sentence, while I don't actually hate any of those things the word 'hate' is bandied around so much its meaning has been diminished. If you go to school, kids will throw the word hate around all the time. 'I hate you' if you don't want to play with them. That sort of thing. That would be my take on hate, about how its supposed to be such an extreme word, yet these days it isn't. If I had my topic I would choose anger, and how anger, generally a negatively viewed emotion can push you to do better things. For example, when I'm angry behind the wheel, I don't let it take control, I use it to speed up my reflexes. Anger can motivate you. That kind of thing.
actually, you are thinking what i am thinking- using a negative as a positive. rocky balboa gets mad/angry in the ring and uses it to ignore pain and just brawls his opponent to the mat. i still revere the word hate enough to not let its meaning slip away (and when i see certain food, i use "hate" with all my conviction, lol) so i am keeping it the focus of my experiment. before i go to bed, (in about 20 min.) i will finish a 2nd brainstorming session, then sleep on it and then start a rough draft. My English teacher misses me, she says. my essay on the Benefits of Poverty was a fave of hers.
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Love and hate are both attractive forces; love is a positive attractive force, and hate is a negative attractive force. Think about it -- when you love someone or something, you are drawn to it, it fills your every waking thought almost to the point of obsession, and when you hate someone or something the same exact thing happens, but with a negative subset of emotional responses instead of a positive one.
Not really on topic, but courage to me has always been best defined as being afraid to do something...but doing it anyways. If you're not afraid, you're not really courageous. Which I suppose is more of the latter definition you provided. But even then, you don't have to hate a thing to face it with courage. You can just as easily be driven by a love for a thing...which I guess just drives home how valid Lance's point is. tikgnat also makes a great point. "Hate" is entirely too overused. To me, hate is the most powerful negative emotion there is. To hate a thing means you simply cannot accept its existence, and the need to destroy that thing consumes you and supersedes all other concerns. I don't think that's the case with most uses of the word.
What about loathe or abhor? I always thought those were more hateful than hate, as "hate" has become so commonplace.
The inflation of the English language is not an acceptable justification for the compromise of my standards! Harrumph! Honestly, I think I reserve "hate," regardless of its overuse, as the penultimate descriptor of antipathy because of its use in the Bible. While I'm not religious, the Judeo-Christian belief system is sufficiently influential with me that I'm comfortably using it as a standard in many cases, this being one of them. I actually prefer "loathe" or equally often, "despise," for situations in which others might use "hate."
I hate planes. I hate small towns. I hate train yards. I hate the water. I hate subways. I hate tunnels. I hate sewers. I hate stairs. I hate hospitals. And doctors. And lawyers. And cops. I hate elevators.
Is there anything you dont hate? But seriously, I'll have to agree with the posters here. Hate is tossed around so much these days, especially on the internet, that is loses most it not all meaning. Plus, loathe sounds more edumacated.
hurm. i guess i am trying to take something that is seen as bad and make a point that it can be a good thing. have you ever considered that evil (for sake of argument here, only) has a redeeming quality? like it isn't discriminatory, it will prey on anybody equally. it isn't a great quality, but it still has better ethics than someone hating something just because they were told to or lead to believe something deserved it.
