1 EAGLETON NOTES: Never Hate Anything

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Wednesday 30 December 2020

Never Hate Anything

Warning: This post may be regarded by some as containing politically incorrect words or sentiments.

When I started blogging 1n 2007 my blog was simply a way of telling my family and friends in the country I wasn't living in at the time, what I was doing on the other side of the world. Since then it has altered and so has my Blogland friend base. The only people, so far as I can recall, who still follow regularly who followed in the first couple of years are Monica (Dawn Treader) and Adrian with Meike (Librarian) following on. There are some who still pop in and out who were New Zealand friends in the very early years too. You may find this post familiar.

There have been a lot of bloggers and non-blogging commenters recently who have become rather controversial and, for me, that takes a lot of the fun out of blogging.

If, as a child (and when I was an adult come to think of it), I ever said that I hated something my Dad always responded by saying "You should never hate anything in this world". I don't think he ever did. I'm not sure that I have ever hated either. I abhor things like intolerance and discrimination but I don't hate them. I have certainly never hated a person. Hate is too self-destructive an emotion.

When I was a child growing up in Liverpool there was a joke which went "What's green on one side, orange on the other and has a white line down the middle?" The answer was "Netherfield Road North". That road was notorious for being the boundary between the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities in Liverpool. The area was poor and largely comprised of slum dwellings. It was not wise to walk down the 'wrong' side of the road.

I digress. When I was 21 I was the deputy in the Housing Committee Section in the Town Clerk's Department (the legal and administration department of the Liverpool Corporation - City Council). That Section also dealt with slum clearance and compulsory purchase. Anthony Wedgewood Ben was the Minister of Technology at the time. He was visiting Liverpool. Even in those days (1965) politicians had press officers spinning for them. We were told that he had to be referred to as WedgeBen of MinTek to make him look modern and with it. He arrived and decreed that the word 'slum' was no longer to be used. Houses were henceforth to be referred to as 'unfit for human habitation'. Never use four words where one will do - unless you are trying to make your own title look modern.

Back to the story. Netherfield Road North was a hotbed for the violence of man on man caused by religious hatred. I recall, for example, the discrimination where the Lybro Overall Factory had a notice in huge letters outside the main entrance "No Roman Catholics (or was it Protestants?) employed". I was a Protestant but I had been sent to a Prep School owned and run by an Irish Roman Catholic family. So why did religions hate each other? Even as a very young child I wondered that and found it incomprehensible.

Liverpool Corporation in one of the most courageous and far-seeing practical acts of anti-discrimination almost eliminated the physical divisions of religion in Liverpool when it cleared the slums to the new high-rise blocks in Kirby. They took a decision to mix the orange and the green. People became next door neighbours with people whom they would not previously have tolerated on their side of Netherfield Road North.

But nothing has changed in the world. Liverpool may no longer have a significant problem with religious hatred. But the rest of the world.......

One amusing thing that always sticks in my mind was my partner's daughter who whenever she said that she hated something and I responded as my Dad had done, used to stamp her foot in mock annoyance and say "OK, Graham, I don't like it a very lot then!". And she wasn't yet a teenager.

As Andy used to say "It's a funny old world, Dad."

40 comments:

  1. That was brave, popping Fenians in with normal folk. It's a wonder that you hadn't built double the anticipated amount of housing. Glasgow is much the same, probably what makes them so amusing, I can imagine needing a good laugh after beating seven bells out of ones neighbour.

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    1. Liverpool folk and Glasgow folk are very much the same in many ways, Adrian.

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    2. I guess it's the Irish influence.

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  2. As I read your post I thought that, yes, I don't think that I have ever actually hated anyone in my past, despite being appalled by their obnoxious behaviour. However, earlier today my niece sent me a short video of her two children wishing me a happy birthday. Poppy, aged 7, was singing with a big, cheesy grin on her face and little Zac, aged 2, was happily blowing on a harmonica to accompany her. At that point I was suddenly overwhelmed with the thought that, if anyone caused harm to either of those two little ones then I believe I would truly know what hate is.

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    1. JayCee (I hope that you are about to enjoy a lovely evening by the way) I'm not sure that hate would even begin to describe how I would feel in those circumstances but until we are tested we may never know how we would react (and I hope that we never find out).

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  3. Thoughtful post and timely

    Since very young, I say...hate rots the body. However, I reserve hatred for decribing my feelings towards lima beans. Nowadays, it appears there are people so consumed with spreading hatred, no matter what, they totally ignore the truth, and e en their own flaws. I pray for them.

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    1. Maywyn, hate is s very corrosive emotion as you say and I hope we are never put in a situation that makes us feel it.

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  4. My father’s saying was the other side of the coin from your father’s. If I ever said I loved a book or a sweater or a new pair of shoes (for example), he would always say, “You can’t love something that can’t love you back.” I learned the lesson. He was right. I may love people and animals, but clothes, cars, and the like? I may like them very much but I cannot love them.

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    1. I think, Bob, that love and hate are emotional responses (although we may try to rationalise them) and the way we feel about clothes and cars and books are essentially rational (or even irrational) responses.

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  5. I have never hated anyone either. I have disagreed with many politicians, disagreed with many decisions made in the House of Commonds over the decades, disagreed and discussed them, but hate an individual, never. Wish bad things to befall them, no never that either.

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    1. Rachel, given the relatively little I have learned about you since we 'met', I am not surprised at what you say.

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    2. I'll steal that Rachel. House of Commodes is wonderful.

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    3. It is Graham and perhaps more applicable to the Upper House.

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  6. I like your father's saying, it is very true. It disturbs me to see hatred growing around the world, and it is an ugly experience to come face to face with it. I would much rather people lived by "love your neighbour," we are all human after all.

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    1. Margaret, we are indeed and I think probably the majority would agree that it is better to love thy neighbour than to hate him. Unfortunately there is far too much negativity in the world.

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  7. I am fortunate enough never having suffered so at the hands of another person as to hate them. Of course, I have had my share of verbal abuse, unjust, unfair or simply inconsiderate treatment, but never any violence. It has been - so far - a life so good that hate has not really featured. When, as a youth, I said things like ‚I hate this song‘, I was never in earnest, knowing full well that what I actually meant to say was that I disliked it. And another person? Not even one particular teacher, who was thriving on his fear-inspiring image at our school, did I truly hate.

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    1. Meike, to me hatred is such a strongly negative emotion that does more harm to oneself than it does to anyone else and so is pointless. I just cannot imagine you ever hating anyone.

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    2. I agree that hate is so strongly negative that it does do more harm to the hater than the hatee. I've been thinking back over my life a lot lately and I can safely say I've never hated anyone. There have been some folks I really didn't like, but looking back even those emotions have faded.

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    3. Jill, I think that's a great thing to be able to say of oneself.

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  8. I am not really sure how I feel about this, which side I come down on. Without getting into details, I had a truly awful childhood and can cast back to that and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for hatred to become a valid emotion - at least for me. I am not sure whether a concentration camp inmate, whose entire family was exterminated, could resist moments of hatred for his captors, especially the sadistic ones. From a personal standpoint, I came through it relatively unscarred, I think, although to this day I have the odd awful nightmare, but my life now is filled with the anthesis of hatred, and for that I am grateful.

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    1. David it sounds very much as though your emotions were strongly enough aroused to feel real hatred or at least to understand it. As I said earlier, hatred is (in my way of thinking) an emotional response and the things that you describe would certainly seem to be able to trigger that response in almost anyone who has experienced it. I am fortunate enough never to have been subjected to anything that would engender true hatred as far as I can remember.

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  9. When a blogger veers into different territory it makes for an interesting post and a more interesting blog. You're on one of my favorite topics...discrimination.

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    1. Red, discrimination in all it's forms is absolutely abhorrent to me and, I would suggest, to all right-minded people.

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  10. It makes their hatred of each other even more incomprehensible when one knows that they both revere the same 'book'. It was always said in N Ireland, that you knew someone's religion by their address and who they worked for. What a strange bunch.

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    1. Cro, in Liverpool you knew a person's religion in a number of ways including their address, school and name. Theresa Green was definitely not a Protestant.

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  11. I'm like you, I find that hating someone kind of festers and eats you up, personally I think it's a waste of energy. I dislike people though but I just don't have anything to do with them and move on with my life but it's sad that people can't move on but then who am I to judge.

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    1. Amy, I agree with you and disliking is quite different to hating.

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  12. I agree with your statement, Graham, that many bloggers and commentators have at times become controversial, which takes the "fun" out of blogging. I found that to be true during the recent US Presidential elections and so I would just stay away from certain blog posts. As for the term, hate, it is a strong emotion and also a strong word which I rarely, if ever, use. I dislike a great many things, liver as an example. But I've never thought of hating a person or thing. of course, that's not to say there might not be some future incident that would alter that stance, but I certainly hope not.

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    1. Beatrice, I agree we none of us know what we may do in response to future happenings. For me substitute 'tripe' for 'liver'.

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  13. I have many times used the word hate for inconsequential things " don't you hate when there's a spoon in the sink and water goes everywhere" but never for a living being. I was taught that way and similarly taught that love is a word not to be thrown about unthinkingly.

    I don't think of hate as an emotion so much as an action. It takes effort and commitment to maintain hatred, effort I can't sustain and don't want to bother about. Having said that I have suffered enough at others hands to have entertained a few revenge fantasies in days past.

    Your blog is so level headed, I doubt the dramatic people would maintain much interest

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    1. Kylie, I certainly agree that hatred requires a lot of energy. I'm sad to hear that you've suffered to that extent. It must be very unpleasant. Mind you the occasional revengeful thought has gone through my mind on occasions I have to admit.

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  14. All intense emotions take more energy than I have to spare these days. I remember being told as a child it was wrong to hate anyone. Maybe I got the wires crossed but I understood it was OK to use other words, like abhor, loathe, contempt. And I took from that message to choose my words, hate is a bad word but some others that mean much the same things are not.
    Once upon a time I had reason to have strong negative feelings towards some things, I don't think ever towards people, oh OK maybe once or twice, but I'd rather focus my energy towards happier things now.

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    1. Pauline, I think that it's the mental effort that goes into hate which rather separates it from the other things. Hate can, I think, destroy the hater with it's negativity. You are, if I may say, inherently positive so I can't imagine you wasting that much energy on hatred.

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  15. Very well said Graham. I have often wondered just how many world problems (not just now, but over past centuries) would have been avoided if it were not for the desire of man* to fight over his belief that "my imaginery friend is better than your imaginery friend".

    * sorry, but how many wars have been started by the male of the species, and how many by the ladies?

    As for hate? Takes far too much energy, occupies too much mental space.

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    1. Thank you, Jayne. I agree with your comment absolutely. I have used the war analogy many times.

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  16. Like one or two others above, I'm sure I've probably used the word hate sometimes about things and occurrences - possibly even people - but without intending to keep brooding about that for the rest of my life, or seeking revenge etc. One saying that comes to mind for me back from my youth is "hate the sin, but don't hate the sinner". (We all make mistakes and need forgiveness, now and then.) One can argue about ideas but using abusive language is not likely to do any good.

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    1. I think, Monica, that we have all used the 'h' word at some time or the other but without, as you said, any really deep feeling. I agree with you about abusive language.

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  17. I too was taught that the word hate was never to be used lightly or thoughtlessly - and as a result I rarely (almost never) use it myself, and never about a person. It’s distressing to hear how lightly some members of society use the word - claiming to “hate” supporters of a rival sports team, or drivers of a particular brand of car, for example. It always makes me want to quiz them further - “really? Hate? Isn’t that rather....extreme?”

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    1. Robyn, I think that I have come to the conclusion that lots of people have no real notion of what the word really means. To treat it so lightly just doesn't make any sense to me.

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