According to psychologist Robert J. Sternberg, there is no definition of hate that is generally accepted. Depending on who the author is the definition changes. There seems to be some agreement that fear is one of the major contributors to hatred. It is said that we fear what we do not understand and there is no shortage in the world of misunderstanding each other’s tribes or cultures or ethnic group. In the age of social media there is an abundance of platforms for an individual to find a tribe to validate one’s feelings and not feel isolated, or alone by belonging to a group that they identify with. Finding a tribe, a community that shares your feelings viewpoint seems to provide a sense of security and validation for one’s fears and feelings of hate.  

From what Sternberg (2005) contends is a strictly psychological viewpoint he has developed what he refers to as a duplex theory of hatred. “The following are the tenets of his theory:

• Hatred is psychologically related to love.
• Hatred is not the opposite of love, nor is it the absence of love. Their relationship is quite complex.
• Hatred, like love, can be described as a triangular structure whose origin is these personal stories: the components of the structure are the negation of intimacy, passion and commitment.
• Hatred is one of the major mechanisms that triggers acts of great violence (massacres, terrorism and genocide).”

What seems most striking about Sternberg’s work is what he cites as the relationship between hatred and lack of intimacy, passion and commitment. In other words, if we can distance ourselves from one another it is easier to hate and have an aversion to what we see as different and what we don’t understand and yes even hate. Likewise, “intimacy seeks a connection with the other and denial seeks detachment.”  Distance therefore provides the platform to reject the other person or group. To demonize a religion, a race or a political party as less than is relative to the one who is doing the judging or distancing. Thereby treating the other as subhuman or inhuman in comparison. Furthermore, there is a burgeoning consensus in the field of psychology and spirituality that would contend that hatred begins with self-hatred and is projected outward onto others.

Hatred is an ancient emotion, in fact is it mentioned in texts that date back for centuries. Would you be surprised to know that hate is actually mentioned in the Bible? Yes, in the Bible it can be found in the Book of Genesis and in Indian Vedic scripture. The Greeks hated the Romans and pledged their hatred for an eternity.  Even though Holy Scriptures worldwide have admonished hatred since the fifth century B.C. it continues to grow and live in our world today.

The dictionary definition of hatred really does not entail the depths of what hatred is capable of doing in the world. According to Websters dictionary, hatred is an “extreme dislike or disgust; an ill will or resentment that is usually mutual: prejudiced hostility or animosity old racial prejudices and national hatreds”.  There are many theories on hate such as Gordon Willard Allport (1954) an American psychologist, who stated it is an extreme dislike or aggressive impulse towards a person or group of people. Eric Fromm a social psychologist (1973/1992) distinguished hate as either rational or character conditioned. The former is described as having a concrete motivation such as someone took your fortune. The later more insidious and does not have a concrete basis for its hate targeted group. The deep-seated prejudices that have a long-standing history of pitting one group against another for various reasons can be rationalized by the in-group looking at the out-group as somehow taking something away in terms of resources from the in-group which could be economic. Such as what happened in WWII, which is referred to as the Holocaust, during the period from January 30, 1933-May 8, 1945 when the war in Europe ended. During this period of time Jews were subjected to inhuman persecution and extermination. The numbers are quite astounding, 6 million Jewish men and women of which 1.5 million were children as well as 5,00 Jewish communities were affected. These deaths represented two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. This is what fear and hatred can do to a society pitting one against the other because of fear and misunderstanding of each other’s culture. I have decided not to make this paper a history of genocides in this world that began in the days or Romans and Greeks, instead just to let my readers know that this is not something that began in the 1900’s. If anyone out there is interested the web has a plethora of this information that can be read. Billions of people have been murdered for centuries for what I refer to as you have it and I want it so if you don’t give it to me, I will take it from you and kill you for it.

If interested here are a few web sites:

https://ourworldindata.org/genocides

https://www.history.com/topics/holocaust/what-is-genocide

https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

I was drawn to an article published in 2011 by a Yale research psychologist led by Laurie Santos who was interested in determining prejudice in humans by studying primates.  One of the premises that they were evaluating was how people respond to each other depending on whether you are in the in-group or the out-group. Which by the way would validate the above work cited by Sternberg. Santos confirms that humans evaluate each other dependent on whether you are part of the in-group or the out-group. “Pretty much every conflict in human history has involved people making distinctions on the basis of who is a member of their own race, religion, social class and so on.” Her team was very interested in where and just how far back these distinctions have been with humanity.  What the research team discovered was rhesus macaques demonstrated fear of the unknown monkey that was not part of their social group they seemed to know who was in their group and who was the stranger. The information that was gathered from this study suggested that “human prejudice dates back several million years”. Therefore, our ancestry shares a commonality that dates back approximately 25 million years. The reason I chose to include this information in this blog is to point out an evolutionary process that dates back millions of years which means that eliminating prejudice is a process that will happen in time and even though we may want it eradicated immediately it would appear that this too is a process of becoming more mindful of all beings and learning how to accept people no matter what their differences are and if you cannot accept yourself you will have a difficult time accepting others. Likewise, if you are fearful and you hate yourself you will hate others. This is always an inside job and we all have to do the work to make the world a better place.

While we are discussing in-groups and out-groups, I think there is another really important concept that deserves discussing and that is Tribes or Tribalism. This has become a very big buzz word in our society. Tribes didn’t begin in the 21^st century either even though the term is thrown around quite frequently these days. The definition of tribe “is a group of people, or community with similar values or interests, a group with a common ancestor or common leader.” This would be a very loose and broad definition of tribe. So, what does it mean to be a part of a tribe? “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. Furthermore, a group needs only two things to be a tribe, a shared interest and a way to communicate.” Okay now that we have the broad definition lets dig into this concept called tribe.

There are many tribes in the world, but we are going to focus mostly on the United States since currently there is so much unrest. Amy Chua a Yale Law professor and author of Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, “insists that this attitude is nothing new in the American story and that it’s not impossible to overcome, either.” According to Chua, tribalism is our most human basic instinct, we all want to belong to a group of people who are like us. Again, back to the basic group identity not so unlike the in-group or the out-group. Furthermore, Chua contends that for the majority of American history the population was unaware of tribes or tribalism because the dominate tribe was white. Everything was governed by the dominant white group, economically, politically and culturally. Therefore, the other groups which did not fall under white were smaller and outside the circle of power. However, things are changing in the United States, today those demographics project that whites will become the minority in a couple of decades. According to Chua this is resulting in a lot of anxiety and a powerful divide especially among white Americans. Furthermore, she contends what makes this situation most difficult is the premise this country was founded on which she describes as a shared set of ideals and less on a shared ethnic or cultural identity. Chua states that the only remedy for this is “reinvigorating a collective American idea.” Moreover, Chua stated, “this moment is unprecedented. That’s why it might take some time to renegotiate the American dream and our national identity.”  As we all know, or I hope most of us know that change takes time, patience, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion and communication this is no small feat.

IT ALWAYS BEGINS AND ENDS WITH EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US!

It is, therefore, very important for parents to educate their children and be positive role models that promote loving kindness to all beings. To be mindful of racist comments and prejudices of any kind is very important. I also believe that our educational system needs to address this problem of racism and prejudice earlier in school promoting more understanding and compassion for all.

There is also a shared human responsibility to mediate the computerized world and challenge racist and hateful messages on the internet. These types of communications should be reported to the sites so they can intervene and take down these messages.

Lastly, the more contact beings have with each other the more they learn about each other the less likely fear will intervene and play out as one against the other. This is a very important concept the greater understanding we have of ourselves and of others gives us a greater capacity to accept and be compassionate towards others. Recognizing that we are interconnected and that if one suffers, we all suffer is extremely important for the continuation of our world. The world we live in today is very divided and very polarized. For instance, Caucasians against Blacks, Blacks against Caucasians, Republicans against Democrats, Democrats against Republicans, Catholics against Protestants, Christians against Jews, Islamic against Jews, Christians against Islamic I could go on and on.  Let’s not leave out the polarity of our current pandemic those that want to wear masks and continue to social distance and those that want to get back to normal, there is no shortage of violence being expressed today. This problem is a collective responsibility for humanity to face the diversity in our country with acceptance and compassion. The only way we are going to change what is going on is to recognize fear and hatred and address it instead of repressing or denying that it’s there.  The only way we can protect each other in this world today is to get our heads out of the sand and take responsibility for what is going on by changing our minds about each other. We are not so different in our wants and needs if we were to take off our body suits and looked at the spirit that inhabits our body.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

According to famous German novelist, Hermann Hesse, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

There is saying that always sticks in my mind when you judge someone else you are judging yourself. When you point a finger at someone else remember three of those fingers are pointing back at you.

And of course, I cannot leave without quoting the Course in Miracles, “the holiest place on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.”

In conclusion humanity has a lot of work to do so let’s start doing it!

• Stay tuned to my next blog as I address violence and how that brings more fear and hatred. We cannot address fear and hate with irrational fear and hate. We can only accomplish this through courageous determination and radical love and acceptance.