Headline, August 30 2025/ ''' HATE -THEREFORE- HATE '''

''' HATE 

-THEREFORE-

 HATE '''

I FIND HATE TO BE VIRTUALLY OMNIPRESENT in our current culture. Libs hate conservatives, and conservatives hate 'em right back. People hate politicians, the elite, MAGA hats [ and their wearers ].

People hate social media [ though they cannot stay away from it ]. Some hate the rich. Some despise immigrants. People hate the media. They hate corporations. They hate capitalism.

DESCARTES HAD A FAMOUS DICTUM about the constitutive powers of the thinking self : I think therefore I am. Could it be that, today, I hate therefore I am? What if who and what we hate is who we are now?

Why might hate be constructive - crucially constructive - of identity at this particular point in time? And why should possessing identity matter so much to us ?

The traditional sources of stable selfhood have been significantly depleted over time. We live in an age of skepticism, often corrosive skepticism, about our institutions and their good intentions. Perhaps we are not wrong to do so.

To speak personally, the revelations about priestly child molesting sent me to a level of antipathy to the Catholic Church [ in which I grew up ] that stays with me still. Many others have had similar experiences - about bank bailouts or Covid school closures or President Joe Biden's reported mental acuity.

Once we could consolidate an identity by calling ourselves, say, a Boston Globe Reading Roman Catholic who votes Democratic and roots for the Red Sox.

Now, perhaps the only plausible entity in our list is the Red Sox. And with arrival of legal gambling in America's professional sports, it's hard to imagine that our games, even what was once the national pastime, will remain maintained for long.

What happens for those once-basic planks for building an identity become useless for many? What happens when they seem to be rotted out?

One may define oneself - one may define the self - through hate. One day you are a blank slate, a void.  But you can become yourself simply through hatred. You define yourself through your antipathies.

I hate the church. I hate my school. I hate my parents, hate the administration, hate the president, hate the fascists, hate the communists. And maybe you begin to hate the Red Sox, too.

I know any number of people who define themselves at least in part by hating sports team. Take a bow,  Duke University basketball.

Suddenly, you have stabilized the self. Do you want to be somebody? Well, now you are. You are the person with a stunning palette of hatreds. You don't need to have positive allegiances to define yourself : The negative one will do.

Suddenly, ambiguity and nuance disappear, and you become Someone, with all of whose energies flowing in the same direction.

Character is inner conflict much of the time. We tend to have warring internal lives in which we hate and love simultaneously. This is confusing, turbulent. But outright hate clears all that up.  

There are, I think, laudable ways to unite the spirit : Pursuing courage, compassion, creative expression and wisdom can do just that. But there are toxic ways as well.

Nietzsche says that people would rather have the void for purpose than be void of purpose. Having nothing. Having no purpose in the world, maybe a more threatening state to the individual than hating.  Hating gives you a plan for action.

Yet hating is like gathering dry brush from the fields and piling it. You do that and your friends do so as well. And there's a bit of pantomime to it.

The hate fests are all just among pals. I put my hate on the internet, but that's not real. Or so one says, and the dry brush gathers and gathers until one day there is a spark and the flames jump.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Hate, The World and Thinking continues. The World Students Society thanks Professor Mark Edmundson, University of Virginia.

With most respectful dedication to The Global Founder Framers of !WOW!, and then Leaders, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers.

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world - : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless