Hatred - good and necessary?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by wynn, May 13, 2012.

  1. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Defintly change it.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Since this is obviously a continuation of an exchange we were having on another thread, I'll feel free to jump in and say that once again you're misquoting. I've already chidden you for misquoting me, since I never said that hatred was good, merely that it was inevitable and that attempting to suppress it would be worse than tolerating it.

    But I absolutely never said that hatred is automatically equivalent to desiring "that someone would suffer or experience harm." In fact I wrote a lengthy tract on the point that no matter how we feel about any other member of this civilization, we have an obligation to civilization itself to treat him with a minimal level of respect or that civilization will collapse.

    I may fantasize about the guy who shot my cat taking a vacation in Mexico and being caught in the crossfire of America's out-of-sight-out-of-mind Drug War. I may write a short story in which the guy who ran off with my wife loses his testicles in an industrial accident. I may tell my friends who still work there how ironic it would be if the guy who lied about me and got me fired were slandered and lost his job the same way. I may dream of a certain president being the target of assassins from one of the countries he ruined by lying to us about WMDs.

    But that doesn't mean that I actually want those things to happen. It's just healthy daydreaming. If I saw any of those men lying in the street after an auto crash I would call 911 and see what I could do to keep them breathing until the paramedics arrived.

    They all have families who love them. I don't wish any grief on those wives, parents, siblings and children. Yeah okay maybe a couple of them should be in jail, but the reason is not that I hate them but rather that they did things that are illegal. Their friends and families can come visit them in jail.

    It is quite possible to hate someone, yet still retain your link to civilization and not do something disproportional to the magnitude of their offense. Or even hope that someone else does it to them. Or even hope that they die from a heart attack. Their wives and children will cry just as forlornly.

    This is the difference between the rules of civilized life and the rules of tribal life.
    You must have lived a blessed life if you don't understand how easy it is to fall in love with someone who is poisonous to you. I hope it never happens to you.

    Emotions are not logical. The way we handle our emotions, the way we respond to them, well now that can be logical. But the emotions themselves? No way.

    If you fall in love with someone poisonous, your job is to walk away from him. You'll cry your eyes out. Your dreams will be filled with elaborate fantasies about how your love is so powerful that you can change him into a person who is good for you. (In other words you'll actually consider clandestinely manipulating someone you claim to love!) If you can prevent those experiences from weakening you so that later that evening you find yourself in his arms (or more likely degrading yourself by chasing after him and his other girlfriend), you've mastered the art of overcoming poisonous love. And that makes you a one-percenter.

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  5. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Fraggle, you are a old man. You should understand the difference between love, and desire. Saying you are in love with someone does not mean you are in love with them. Love is such a mysterious emotion.
     
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  7. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Fraggle -


    Read the rest of this thread before replying.



    ***

    Please provide a reference to the Pali Canon for this assertion.
     
  8. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I already replied to you earlier in this thread.


    That is "healthy daydreaming"? Tell that to a psychiatrist or FBI profiler.



    I have become infatuated with a toxic person. But I didn't call it "love."


    Of course they are, if you just look closely enough. This is the basis of psychological counseling. There's a reason why we feel what we feel, and that reason isn't simply high blood glucose or neurons firing or some such.


    You've never watched Oprah or what?
     
  9. Gustav Banned Banned

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    if counseling is required, it is probably an inappropriate depth of emotion that is being exhibited. hatred would be an good example in most cases. any counselor worth his salt should then embark on a lengthy exposition on the irrationality of it all.

    a stiff upper lip please
    thanks


    indeed
    heaven forbid frag becoming the grand poobah of anything

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  10. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

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    Love and desire are different (though the love of a toxic partner is more agape than eros in most cases, as it really does seem to be unconditional), but I think you may simply be begging the question by defining love as attachment to a person who's good for you.

    Let's imagine it in a different context. Imagine the parent of a child who is a meth addict with a criminal record and several children, and so this child is screwing up her own life and the grandchildren's lives. I think we can all imagine that it would be proper to say that such a parent could still "love" that child even though her addiction and bad choices are making the parent miserable.

    If a parent can truly love a screwed-up child, then why would it be impossible for a someone to feel genuine love for an unrelated man or woman? Why must that always, necessarily and with no exceptions, be merely "desire" and not "love?"

    It seems to me that unless you define love in such a way that parents only "really love" their healthy children and not the toxic ones, then you probably need to concede the possibility that unrelated people can also feel love in situations where their partner is toxic.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    If the Buddha is an authority, then all Buddhas are an authority. I'm more recent than a sacred text.
    I have referenced the Canon within. I will never again have to consult a book to find out what Buddha was talking about.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2012
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Love has many dimensions. I'd venture to say that no two loves are identical. We love our parents, our friends, our pets, our spouses and our children, each group in its own general way and each individual child, dog, etc., in their own specific way. Furthermore we love entertainers, political leaders, religious figures, etc., again not in precisely the same way.

    I've been in love romantically many times, set up a household with a few recipients of that love, and married twice including my ongoing 34-year marriage. I can state from experience that no two of those loves were the same. Not even close. Some had a high component of desire, others of friendship, others of collaboration, others of shared interests, others of comfort, others of dependency, and so forth. Eventually (e.g., after 34 years) the loved one becomes part of the lover. And even that is not limited to decades-old marriages. I can identify bits of other girlfriends in my personality. Hell, even my first dog is down in there. So is Johnny Otis, my first beloved rock star.

    Every love is unique.
    I've been to my share of psychotherapists and they understand the role of fantasy. It's fine, in fact it's a healthy outlet, so long as you maintain a firm grip on reality and understand that fantasy is not reality. You get to "act out" things in your head, but you should strive to continue the fantasy beyond the climax. If you can see the weeping widow and feel shame for being the cause of her weeping, then you're still civilized, i.e., a hell of a lot less likely to lose control and live out a violent fantasy.

    This is my beef with military training. They deliberately train soldiers to never think about the bereaved people in the enemy country. They turn these poor kids into uncivilized people.

    Read about the unofficial, unsanctioned Christmas Truce in World War I, to see how strong our instinct for civilization is, and how hard these unspeakable bastards who take us into war have to work to overcome that instinct.

    Despite your hatred, if you can still recognize the person you hate as a real person, with family, friends, job, etc., then while you may daydream about killing him, you will almost certainly never actually do it.

    I think the newspapers could do a better job of reducing violence if they'd show more front-page photos of people grieving over murder victims, rather than the victims themselves. How long did we have to wait before we found out what Trayvon Martin's parents look like? By then they had regained their composure and weren't crying.

    As for FBI profilers, you're talking about government employees here. Are they any better at their jobs than the TSA staffer who tore apart the luggage of the Iranian-American in front of me but waved me through without a second glance? Or better than the cops in New York City who only shake down Afro- and Hispanic-Americans, looking for guns?
    Tomayto, tomahto. If you'd gone so far as to set up housekeeping, you might have. If you had married him, you certainly would have. Several people marry toxic partners every hour.

    If I can say with all honesty and with a lump in my throat that I love my little dog who almost died last year from the side effects of phenobarbitol, I'm pretty sure I can say just as accurately that I loved the girlfriend who treated me like crap in 1976. She introduced me to the woman I married, after all.

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    Yes but forgive me because I don't understand the point of your question. I learned a lot from her show.
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    How utterly modest of you.

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  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Oh yeah, I'm boasting that I finally realized I'm a fool. Worship me, I'm an idiot! What do you think enlightenment is, an achievement? :roflmao:
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, look - the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Is that what that is? I thought I was on fire.
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Wooohooo. Wooo - hooo -- ooooh.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, I gotta work on the poetry thing, so I appear deep.

    The wind is shining and the sun is blowing,
    cherry blossoms fall on my pubes like nature's dandruff,
    awkward tan line!
     
  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    That is NOT a proper koan! A koan is 5-7-5.

    And so ambiguous as to be inscrutable.
     
  20. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    *tsk tsk*

    Spidergoat's could pass for a koan, allright, but not for a haiku.
     
  21. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    I think love is a step above severe like. Who's to say we will all experience love? Do we even know what love is?
     
  22. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    A "severe like"?
    Fancy that! How utterly nice!
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Oh shame on me. Wrong word! Of course a koan in the form of a haiku would be supreme.
     

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