ERIC KIM

The Birth of a Hater

Towards a philosophy on ‘the hater’.

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Why do haters come into existence?

To hate means to have a strong emotion about something or someone. It seems that strong emotions are part of human nature.

When we think of ‘hate’, we mean to say:

Desire to inflict physical harm on another for reasons x, y, z.

Now.. where does this come from?

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Nature vs nurture?

Big question:

Is ‘hate’ innate to our human nature, or are we socialized into hating others?

My thought:

Perhaps human nature is more about domination. Every human desires to become maximally dominant. And thus it isn’t necessarily ‘hate’ which drives us. Perhaps fear … fear that someone else is going to supersede us and become more powerful than us.

No, the Mexicans aren’t gonna steal your job

Consider the fear we had a while back that Mexicans were gonna steal the jobs of hard working Americans. This is false. No (lazy) American would want to do the literally back-breaking work of a Mexican, for a quarter of the pay.

What is the cause of xenophobia and all this ill sentiment and hate towards the other?

My theory:

Media is to blame.

We love the violent, lurid, and hateful

I believe that deep down in every human, we delight in cruelty.

Consider the child … they will burn ants (with zero moralistic qualms). We only learn it is ‘evil’ to be cruel to animals and bugs via our parents, teachers and society.

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Is it wrong that human nature is cruel?

The word cruel comes from ‘crudus‘ (Latin) which means ‘raw, bloody, bleeding.’ It comes from the Proto Indo European ‘krewh-‘, which literally means ‘bloody; blood outside the body, like a wound.’

Now the moralistic and ethical question:

Why is it seen as bad and evil to be cruel?

Simple; we humans don’t want physical violence committed upon us. Certainly any other human that physically wounds us or tries to kill or main us is bad.

Therefore, fear of having someone else inflict a flesh-based wound is wise. I don’t want nobody to attack or harm me in order to draw (my own) blood.

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Why we like to witness violence

Let us consider:

Almost every single sport, video game, spectator sport, comedy etc involves the pain and suffering of another person.

Comedy: to laugh at the misfortune of another (schadenfreude) with a good conscience.

Organized sports like NFL: organized violence against two armies; desire to see a certain group being more dominant than another.

UFC: we love it.

Video games, FPS, etc: We like to kill stuff, but with a good conscience … that is why when we kill digitally on a video game it is ‘ok’.

Strong emotion (hate) and violence (delight in cruelty?)

My thesis:

Humans like to exert their strong emotions (hate) via the cruelty (violence towards another human or animal).

Perhaps when that gets blocked, we look for other forms. For example, Christianity (self-violence toward oneself). Or video games (desire to commit violence towards other humans, without inflicting physical harm). Or as a spectator (when we watch a boxer fight another boxer, we feel as if we embody the boxer, and we feel dominance over another human being). Violent sports as living vicariously through the fighter, but with a good conscience. This is why I would never trust a vegan who is vegan for ‘ethical reasons’, but still delights in watching a UFC draw blood from another fighter.

Next

Next essay will be on the topic of violence, society, and what we really want from our society.

ERIC

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