Hate is the Tragic Inversion of Love

As a lover longs for his beloved, so the hater cannot survive without the object of his hatred.

How We Can Avoid Becoming a Society of Haters

They say anger repressed turns to immobilizing depression and I can testify to that, but what about anger nourished and encouraged? The waters we swim in.

Everybody is not only angry, but keeping tabs on whether the rest of their tribe is angry at the right people on their behalf. And if they’re not--well, then they are “dead to us.” ~ Celia Farber

Like all haters, Trump Haters are members of a strange and curious fraternity wherein the cost of membership is nothing less than the relinquishment of an essential, but disowned piece of themselves. By fixating on his heinousness, Trump’s accusers have unwittingly made themselves dependent upon him to manage their bad feelings. Just as couples grow to resemble one another after many years of marriage, the more a hater becomes obsessed with the object of their hatred, the more they begin to resemble him in thought, word and deed. 

Just like love, hate is essentially an expression of a burning and absolute desire, although here, tragically inverted.~ Vaclav Havel

Hurt People Hurt People

Donald Trump is seen as the personification of evil by some and heaven-sent savior by others. This divisive split-screen imagery writ large is a product of our collective dysfunction that utilizes a common psychological defense mechanism known as projection: Bad feelings persist whenever we judge, ignore or deny them instead of accepting and facing them squarely. Each time an emotional sensitivity gets re-activated, the internal distress intensifies; it builds and builds until the discomfort reaches critical mass, when unacceptable impulses become unbearable to the psyche and are handled by vehemently attributing them to someone else. 

Projection is a trick of the mind which allows you to address your difficult needs, feelings and personality traits without ever having to fully recognize and own them in yourself. 

In the Anatomy of Hatred, Vaclav Havel, Czech statesman, author and dissident discusses the origins of hatred and the surprising characteristics it shares with love. He compares hatred to an inverted form of love wherein the object is longed for destructively rather than constructively. He asserts that hatred arises from feelings of injury and an insatiable desire for both recognition and submissiveness from others.

In other words, hurt feelings, the need for superiority and unmet emotional needs are the root causes of hatred. Overcoming these vulnerabilities will require a society-wide re-education, as very few individuals can accurately identify their feelings, needs or personal shortcomings. Instead, most of us desperately search for a culprit out there to take responsibility for the emotional pain we feel on the inside. Lacking critical objectivity and the ability to self reflect, we tend to justify those raw, angry, hateful feelings by identifying the source of our rage as those nasty people out there. Though common, this strategy of using another to handle our unacceptable feeling only ensures the spread of anger, hatred and war.

When you fail to take responsibility for your own needs and feelings, you will seek an object upon whom you can project blame.

Hating is Like Taking Poison and Hoping Your Enemy Dies

Tragically, most of us alive today have been socialized to conceal the fundamental human need we have for belonging, admiration and control. Discouraged from honestly sharing our feelings or asking for what we needed as children, many of us learned to suffer emotional deprivation in silence and seek our fulfillment in covert ways. Utilizing exaggeration, manipulation and little white lies, we learned to try to wheedle our needs out of others without realizing that being honest about our authentic needs and feelings would lead to happiness, fulfillment and fewer arguments.

When legitimate needs are not met, psychological distress and an insatiable but seemingly hopeless longing can arise and gnaw at your soul. This dis-ease will persist for a lifetime if left unexamined. It may present as depression, anxiety or addiction, but a disconnection from your authentic needs and feelings not only robs you of your vitality and your innate guidance system, it can turn you into a hater in search of an offender.

Judgment is the expression of an unmet need. ~ Marshall Rosenberg

Projecting scorn and hate on Mr. Trump may temporarily ease the psychological discomfort of long-repressed deprivation and pain, but over time, the cost of that hatred is the expansion of hatred within and among us.

Hateful feelings spread and densify the shared atmosphere of hate while making you magnetically attractive to hateful people. 

Oh, The Humanity:

We are the product of a culture steeped in violence and “enemy imagery.” Much of how we communicate—judging others, speaking without listening, criticizing others or ourselves, name-calling or judging who’s “good/bad” or what’s “right/wrong” with people—could indeed be called “violent communication.”

By imitating those around us, we not only learned to communicate violently, we also became trapped in unending comparison, competition and conflict; we learned to take sides, discriminate and judge; we were schooled in “analyzing wrongness” and “defending rightness;” we learned to assume that an experience of emotional deprivation or the agony of an insatiable longing was due to the evil, negligence or malice of another person instead of realizing that it may have been a cry for help from within.

Achieving a “Needs and Feelings Literacy”

To avoid becoming a society of haters, must outgrow the need to project our feelings (and our hopes and dreams) on to someone else. We need to learn how to fearlessly face all feelings, flaws and unmet needs and accept them as an integral, vital part of being human without shame or apology.

To become peacemakers in these divisive days, most of us will need to reverse the emotional illiteracy we inherited while unlearning reflexive judgment and violent communication. By replacing judgment with unconditional empathy and compassionate communication, you will be able to converse with anyone on any topic without resorting to name calling or argument.

It definitely takes effort to alter how you ordinarily communicate with yourself and others. But you will amaze yourself at how easily you can achieve inner peace and mutually beneficial solutions when you unlearn the violent communication style we were raised. Instead, cultivate an awareness of your needs and feelings and learn to communicate with others in an honest, direct and friendly way:

• Cultivate compassion: See the flawed human being with needs and feelings behind their projected image.

• Offer empathy as emotional first aid whenever feelings are inflamed.

• Communicate on a “feelings-and-needs level” and watch as solutions automatically present themselves. 

Sensitive Soul, to protect your inner peace and promote harmony within your sphere of influence, refrain from hating anyone, including yourself. Understand that unmet needs, unexpressed feelings and concealed or projected flaws are the source of all hatred. By skillfully identifying feelings and needs, you can fearlessly face yourself rather than unloading your bad feelings onto a perceived villain.

Can you cry in front of others without embarrassment, shame or apology?

Can you argue an opposing point of view without judging or attacking the character of your adversary?

Can you ask for what you want or need directly without guilt tripping, criticizing or demanding?

Can you accurately identify the feelings and needs of those closest to you when you disagree?

Given that we were taught to deny our needs and feelings, most of us failed to develop healthy emotional habits and the language skills to convey our needs and feelings to others in a friendly and effective manner.  Marshall Rosenberg, creator of a model of nonviolent communication, confidently states that any conflict can be solved within 20 minutes when each party can accurately describe what the other party needs and feels. Watch as he demonstrates this claim using puppets to represent a bickering, long married couple grappling with a seemingly unsolvable financial conflict. It’s cute, funny and revelatory at the same time:

Never put your “but” in an angry person’s face. ~ Marshall Rosenberg

Compassionate, nonviolent communication hinges on your ability to interrupt the reflex that causes you to (over)react to what someone says rather than to take the time and effort it requires to respond more thoughtfully and compassionately.

Next time, instead of reacting to an inflammatory person or situation, pause. Neutrally discern what you observe, what you feel and what you need. Then, if appropriate, formulate a request that would fulfill that need. Take a deeper dive into the method here: