Managing Anger: When is it Healthy and When is it Destructive?

[Gale]

when is it ok to hate?



i'd say never. i don't think people should hate. ever. its not right to do. and we should control our emotions. and not hate people. no matter what they've done to us. hatred is dark and ugly, and it just brings more negativity into the world. but... well, i know some say its necessary... i don't think i believe that.

 

[selfAdjoint]

It used to be thought by US commanders of soldiers in battle that they had to inculcate hatred of the enemy in order to encourage their men to kill enemy soldiers, which after all is the combat soldier's job. Sociopaths could be relied to do this without encouragement, but normal men, especially devout Christians, had a lot of problems with it. I don't know if this is still the policy. Combat, of course is very different from the normal conditions of life.

 

[loseyourname]

It is natural to hate. Oftentimes, hatred is a gut response, and gut responses are outside of your control. It's best to accept that you will feel hatred from time to time. Accept it and then get past it. It only becomes harmful when you hold onto the hate and allow it to determine your actions.

 

[neurocomp2003]

i think it is not ok to "blindly" hate someone. racism, anti-interracial marriages etc.
I also don't think its ok to pass on "blind" hate like the example of the captian and soldier or even a family passing on racism or hatred for a culture that once did something bad to their ancestry.

I do think its ok to hate someone for doing something bad to you...stealing a spouse or negative attitude towards a child/friend/close family(not generations) of yours

 

[one_raven]

I disagree that we should control our emotions.
Nor should we deny them.

We should, however, control our reactions to emotions, and by denying those emotions in the first place that gets awfully difficult to do.

If you feel hatred, accept that you feel it, examine why and react with reason.

It is one thing to feel haterd, another altogether to act on it.

The same things goes for other emotions.

 

[arildno]

I do think its ok to hate someone for doing something bad to you...stealing a spouse

It is impossible to "steal" another person's spouse (that spouse is not your property; in addition that person has a free will), unless you're talking about spousenapping (the adult version of kidnapping).
Bad example..

 

[Bladibla]

It is most definately ok to hate. Maybe not for social interactions, but then again, what have they done for you?

Hatred drives a person to very pragmatic deeds which would be impossible with just the will of a friendly mind.

 

[Nomy-the wanderer]

We r only humans, and this hatred issue is always out of control...Sometime sit's just temporary...Soemthing happens and this is how u feel towards somebody.
Maybe u'll regret it later and ur feelings will change, but i could last forever. And I'm sorry this is out of control..

But it's not ok to hurt people intentionally because u hate them or because u think they deserve it, and it's not okay to let ur wild hatred feelings control u, i agree with neurocomp, it's not ok to hate someone blindly.

It's not a nice feeling when it takes voer you definitely, i had this experience once and i really hated myself, later things changed towards that person, and u know when u feel it's pathetic...

 

[sneez]

Love and Hate is a natural reaction of the 'heart'. Hate triggers emotion, like anger, fear, etc. toward something.

Hate is meant to protect love. One cannot stop hating it against nature of the 'heart'.

Our actions are under the control of our feelings, our feeling are under the control of our thought. If one think positivelly about something/someone then a feeling toward that something/someone will be positive and vice versa.

 

[Canute]

I'm not sure that thought always comes before feeling, but no matter. I like your point about hate protecting love. That seems to be the view of Christian mystics, who say that it is useful to hate, but that ones hatred should be absolutely dispassionate. It should never be allowed to disturb ones inner peace, and should under no circumstances be allowed to influence ones actions except to the extent that it motivates one to act rightly.

 

[sneez]

Feeling is determined by our thoughts. That means that how we feel about something at any moment is determined by cognitive process (there would be some exception of the new born baby but that also could be speculated about). Thoughts are dependent on our experience/environment/etc. In other words I am not trying to say that we have to think before we feel but any feeling even if not preceeded immediatelly by thought was determined by previous thoughts (beliefs).

 

[kant]

well, i hate people... I disgusted of being with anyone. Imagine when i realized there are 6.5 billion of them. It is a nightmere.

 

[loseyourname]

That seems to be the view of Christian mystics, who say that it is useful to hate, but that ones hatred should be absolutely dispassionate.

How on Earth is it possible to hate something dispassionately? It seems as if passion is implied in the concept of hatred, which is supposed to be the strongest possible negative feeling one can have toward a thing.

 

[arildno]

How on Earth is it possible to hate something dispassionately? It seems as if passion is implied in the concept of hatred, which is supposed to be the strongest possible negative feeling one can have toward a thing.

Perhaps platonic love has its counterpart in aristotelian hatred?

After all, we've all heard about socratic disgust and pythagorean contempt..

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Intellectual hatred as opposed to guttural hatred? It seems to me that either there are different kinds of hatred, or perhaps hatred has multiple components, including at least an intellectual and an emotional part. When I think of hating someone I think of rage or anger mostly, but there could certainly be intellectual reasons for hate; for example, a personal loss caused by the actions of another. It also seems possible to hate someone for no good reason; perhaps due to nothing more than chemistry, and with no intellectual component whatsoever. If so, maybe this relates to some primitive survival instinct.

 

[arildno]

I remember hating another boy virulently when I was about 14 just because he reminded me so much about myself...I was absolutely disgusted with him.

 

[kant]

I remember hating another boy virulently when I was about 14 just because he reminded me so much about myself...I was absolutely disgusted with him.

Do you still hate youself after 14?

 

[russ_watters]

It used to be thought by US commanders of soldiers in battle that they had to inculcate hatred of the enemy in order to encourage their men to kill enemy soldiers, which after all is the combat soldier's job. Sociopaths could be relied to do this without encouragement, but normal men, especially devout Christians, had a lot of problems with it. I don't know if this is still the policy. Combat, of course is very different from the normal conditions of life.

Not as a matter of policy, but I'm sure some individual commanders still do it. I think most soldiers just use the "me or him" rationalization. As you implied, hatred isn't really healthy in that situation and is part of the reason why you get Abu Graib type incidents happen.

It is natural to hate. Oftentimes, hatred is a gut response, and gut responses are outside of your control. It's best to accept that you will feel hatred from time to time. Accept it and then get past it. It only becomes harmful when you hold onto the hate and allow it to determine your actions.

That is my feeling as well - accept it, but don't let it control your actions. Again, people letting their hate control their actions is what causes violent crime, war crimes, and terrorism.

Intellectual hatred as opposed to guttural hatred? It seems to me that either there are different kinds of hatred, or perhaps hatred has multiple components, including at least an intellectual and an emotional part. When I think of hating someone I think of rage or anger mostly, but there could certainly be intellectual reasons for hate; for example, a personal loss caused by the actions of another.

The terrm "intellectual hatred" seems like an oxymoron to me and so I don't think I'd use it, but I guess its as good a term as any to describe what comes into play once the rage itself passes.

 

[Antiphon]

Hate is the intense desire to see something destroyed.

Like any tool of nature, it is not good or evil. That is determined by
the context in which it is expressed.

I hate cancer.
I hate poverty.
I hate sloth.
I hate one or two people I have known who have wronged me.
I hate evil.
I hate ideas and systems which want to destroy me or my ideas.

Anyone who doesn't constructively hate something is not using all the
tools nature gave them.

 

[sneez]

Our actions are only results of urges. All urges are valued based upon pleasure/pain value. One does not start an action unless there is an urge to act and one does not stop in action until satisfaction (perceived pleasure) is reached.

We hate to protect what we love. Hate initiates respective emotion to, through an urge carry out specific action.

On the same note pain is to protect pleasure. We do not hate cancer, we hate the result of cancer. We do not hate poverty we hate the results of poverty, etc. Pain is a protective 'tool' which informs us about change of our state. (mental or physical) which is apposite to pleasurable current state.

hate is natural reaction of heart. No one can claim he/she does not hate. One can train oneself to hate only certain things if he/she learns not to associate pleasure to items/things which are not important. This has a lot to do with beliefs. If i through my belief do not associate 'pleasure' values with material things, or opinions of others than i will be free from hate creating emotion in me when the pleasure is not delivered when i want or when taken when i do not want or any perceived 'harm' to my 'pleasure' association with those things.

This way we may think we do not hate but what we learned is put hate to a use which it serves (this is of cause result of our beliefs), to hate things which matter. One may think hate serves him well while trying to outrun materially a neighbor but that would be another discussion.

Children are not mentally complete creatures. Only adult can control his/her value (pain/pleasure)system. Kids only imitate and/or follow instant gratification. Not every physically incomplete being is a kid neither every physically being is an adult.

sneez

 

[Ivan Seeking]

IMO it does no good to hate. In almost all cases, the only real damage done is to the person who hates, and not the hated. Been there done that...

 

[arildno]

Do you still hate youself after 14?

Nope.

 

[rob at qsl]

People often express their anger by calling it hatred. We all experience anger. Often anger masks sadness or some other feeling. Maturity and mental health involve learning to express anger appropriately.