Hatred is also a choice, and I will leave it at that.

[Phoenix Wright]

Anyone who thinks hatred is a choice has a very difficult question to answer: why is it so hard to stop hating something?

I wish I didn't hate Anohana, because it seems like a good anime, but I do because of bad memories relating to it. I can't help but hate it, and I can't just will myself into not hating it.

I wish it was a choice, but it's not.

it's not hard to stop hating something at all. or maybe i've just never hated anything.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Phoenix Wright

[IceBrand]

Hatred is definitely a choice. Lets say you have two family members. Member A hates member B for certain reasons. Member A wants member C to also hate member B for what they did to member A. Member C can understand the reasons as to why member A hates member B but can still form their own opinion on the matter. Member C can choose to hate or not hate member B. Hatred is a cycle of ignorance among anothers. We have learn how to understand and love one another. Even then love is a choice. Just because someone does a lot of nice things for me doesn't mean I love them.

[Baldrick]

The latter definition is not really about the emotion, it's just the end result. It is about the knowledge you have and the perspectives you look at (which you can control) in order to make a judgment and feel the appropriate emotion.

[IceBrand]

The latter definition is not really about the emotion, it's just the end result. It is about the knowledge you have and the perspectives you look at (which you can control) in order to make a judgment and feel the appropriate emotion.

Basically. You don't have to hate Hilter but because of his actions, you'll have a pretty hard time finding any reasons to like the guy.

[Rehab]

The little I've experienced of cognitive behavioral therapy (or at least the skeletal fragments of its message I've been introduced to) has seemed to suggest the position:

How you think can have at least some effect on what you think.

Like, one person is capable of more than one emotional response to a single input. I can hate somebody for saying something I find repugnant, but if I choose to think about the circumstances that led to them saying that, and their position, my emotions towards them may change (or may just become more fully formed, but anyway), and I may end up thinking of them differently than just "uoogh I can't stand that fucker."

Similarly, if I have feelings of self-hatred (which can be pretty emotionally charged), simply asking myself, "why do I think that?" and following the trail of why's behind the why's can lead me to a new emotional state, and of course to having different things on my mind the next time I'm presented with a situation which before made me jump to thinking "god I'm stupid" or whatever.

[Chiki]

it's not hard to stop hating something at all. or maybe i've just never hated anything.

Sounds like the latter. You can't choose to not love someone: many people want to break up when their partner is horrible, but they can't because they love them. This happens all the time.

The latter definition is not really about the emotion, it's just the end result. It is about the knowledge you have and the perspectives you look at (which you can control) in order to make a judgment and feel the appropriate emotion.

Then that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

[IceBrand]

Love and hate are two halves of the same coin. You choose which side to use. Also, if one partner cheats on another, then that partner has stoped loving the other.

[Chiki]

Love and hate are two halves of the same coin. You choose which side to use. Also, if one partner cheats on another, then that partner has stoped loving the other.

What a stupid generalization. Life isn't that simple. Someone who is married might love two people equally and end up cheating anyway. Or the married person might be drunk and unintentionally cheat.

[IceBrand]

Yeah, not the best explanation. I know life's more than just black and white.

Edit: Why can't both answers be right? You can choose to hate or love BUT sometimes your emotions take over and you can't control yourself.

Edited April 6, 2014 by AllAroundGamer9

[Esau of Isaac]

What a stupid generalization. Life isn't that simple.

Except when you say it is, of course.

[Chiki]

Yeah, not the best explanation. I know life's more than just black and white.

Edit: Why can't both answers be right? You can choose to hate or love BUT sometimes your emotions take over and you can't control yourself.

I think it's a matter of degree. I think it's obvious you can't just want to feel hatred, but I also think it's possible to have some control over your hatred. For example, maybe if I browsed Anohana fanart, and gave it a few more chances I could get over my hate of it. But you can't just say it's a matter of choice, like most people here are saying, that's just plain stupid. You can't just say "ok, I don't want to hate Anohana anymore" and stop hating it.

Except when you say it is, of course.

Your life may be simple; most others don't have simple lives.

[IceBrand]

So really it all comes down to time?

[Chiki]

So really it all comes down to time?

It seems you can have some power over what you like and dislike if you force yourself to. But if you can't just get over hating something instantly, then it's obvious that it's not just a matter of choice. You do find that you get over hating things as time passes, but that's just because your opinion of things changes over time, and not really a choice. When I was a kid, I hated tomato seeds, but I don't mind them as much now. I didn't "choose" to like them. I just got over it.

[dondon151]

so i actually think that there's only one correct position on this topic, and it's what i've already stated in my first post.

Do you … just have some personal vendetta against eclipse or something? This is like the second time you've done something like this. It makes you look petty.

eclipse warned me to not go off-topic, and so i complied with her request. i thought this was a topic that would be good to address because it seems that quite a lot of people have this conception of "hatred is unequivocally bad" when it, in fact, isn't. i'm not sure why you suggested that i did this out of a personal vendetta. if you want to accuse me of being petty, please don't be the pot calling the kettle black. you're in no position to accuse me of being petty.

on semantics: this is a red herring. there are no "alternate" definitions of hatred that include consequential actions or possess the caveat of the sentiment being uninformed. hatred is "a feeling of intense dislike." that's it. i don't really care about your definition of hatred. so i mostly agree that what one chooses to do with his hatred is mostly divorced from possessing the feeling itself, but the consequent action is not part of the definition.

on the very difficult question: i have not yet heard a satisfactory response.

[Baldrick]

I'll go straight to my point then. Do you think eclipse was saying "A feeling of intense dislike is a choice"? No subtext at all?

[Phoenix Wright]

hatred and love aren't choices because you can't change the way that a certain person is or the way a group behaves or what have you. with 'love' as the example, there exist character traits and behaviors in your partner that you find extremely admirable/cute/attractive, and because you can't change any of those properties, you can't change the way you feel, either. same with hate, though instead of being attracted to one another you repel.

so, instead of having the "choice," time is the one answer when it comes to powerful emotions.

do you guys that 'hate' things ever actually devote thinking power to hating that thing? like, the exact opposite of love, in this case? i don't think i've ever actually hated anything because i don't think about things i heavily dislike, usually--they just don't ever come to mind unless brought up by someone or something else.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Phoenix Wright

[dondon151]

I'll go straight to my point then. Do you think eclipse was saying "A feeling of intense dislike is a choice"? No subtext at all?

there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

[Shin]

The thread poses an interesting question, although I kinda got bored reading the answers!

Hatred isn't as simple as a single concept. There's several levels of it, the lower of which blur with intense dislike. It's entirely possible to dislike something without the associated feelings of anger and aggression, which are typically tied in with hatred. Of course, it's not a clear line, but the decision to act on this dislike or to wish for the stimulus to be disrupted tends to be more of a choice than actually disliking something alone.

A lot of it is to do with how someone is as a person, it's easier for some people to hate than others, but a decision has to be made to act on any ill will.

[jiodi]

oh lol. This is so much more simple than it is made out to be.

To say that hatred is not a choice is shirking your responsibility as a human to manage your own lower-level brain functions.

Why do we try so hard to subjugate certain aspects of our more primal tendencies and yet allow others to run rampant because it's just easier to leave in the "oh, that's just human nature" bin?

Being blessed and cursed with self-awareness gives us the responsibility to control urges. I use this example in these kind of nature-vs-nurture argument (because it ultimately is):

We are not wired for monogamy. And yet we have created a societal construct of monogamy. Adultery is inherently a bad thing. You are hurting another human being by betraying their trust, etc. So we fight these urges on the basis that we do not want to hurt those we love.

We can be hard-wired to hate others but we can also pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and take a breathe and think about WHY we hate and WHAT causes this emotion. We are great with pattern recognition, but we're also great with false pattern recognition. You have a negative experience with something more than once or twice it's easy to start "hating" that experience, or any of the things tied to that experience.

[Tamanoir]

I have no idea where all of this comes from...

You can't choose to hate something, but you can chose to nurture your hatred. Can we agree with that ?

To take another example, you don't choose to be attracted by a girl. But what you will do with that (talk tp her or not) is, to a certain extent, your choice.

Obviously, their choices are, to some extent, determined by a lot of social and personnal factors. All the things that makes you influence your choices.

@jiodi : Our entire society is formed into controlling our actions, for good reasons, or ohers. That's why we punish rapists and murderers : Because they weren't able to repress their lowest instincts, and by doing that caused wrong to others.
You don't chose to hate your neighbor. But you chose to let it go, move on, or shoot him in the head.

[--------------------]

I have no idea where all of this comes from...

You can't choose to hate something, but you can chose to nurture your hatred. Can we agree with that ?

To take another example, you don't choose to be attracted by a girl. But what you will do with that (talk tp her or not) is, to a certain extent, your choice.

Obviously, their choices are, to some extent, determined by a lot of social and personnal factors. All the things that makes you influence your choices.

@jiodi : Our entire society is formed into controlling our actions, for good reasons, or ohers. That's why we punish rapists and murderers : Because they weren't able to repress their lowest instincts, and by doing that caused wrong to others.

You don't chose to hate your neighbor. But you chose to let it go, move on, or shoot him in the head.

Baisically the root emotion vs the external symptoms. But I agree with you.

[jiodi]

@jiodi : Our entire society is formed into controlling our actions, for good reasons, or ohers. That's why we punish rapists and murderers : Because they weren't able to repress their lowest instincts, and by doing that caused wrong to others.

You don't chose to hate your neighbor. But you chose to let it go, move on, or shoot him in the head.

Sure, but my point is hatred is a construct as well. We CHOOSE to express the negative feelings towards something as "hatred". And the connotation of that word gives it more weight than were we to choose another way to express it.

If I say I hate you then your reaction would be different than were I to say I dislike you, no?

There are more than just the internal repercussions of the emotion to account for.

[dondon151]

oh lol. This is so much more simple than it is made out to be.

To say that hatred is not a choice is shirking your responsibility as a human to manage your own lower-level brain functions.

to insist that hatred is a choice is to deny the incontrovertible existence of these functions. you are once more substituting the real definition of hatred with your own, which is not really the same thing.

We are not wired for monogamy. And yet we have created a societal construct of monogamy. Adultery is inherently a bad thing. You are hurting another human being by betraying their trust, etc. So we fight these urges on the basis that we do not want to hurt those we love.

monogamy and adultery are actions. hatred in itself is not an action. monogamy and adultery are choices. love and lust, the emotions that precipitate monogamy and adultery, are not.

Edited April 8, 2014 by dondon151

[Original Alear]

to insist that hatred is a choice is to deny the incontrovertible existence of these functions. you are once more substituting the real definition of hatred with your own, which is not really the same thing.

monogamy and adultery are actions. hatred in itself is not an action. monogamy and adultery are choices. love and lust, the emotions that precipitate monogamy and adultery, are not.

There's more than one definition of hatred, and I don't think there was anything in Jiodi's post that seemed to mention something as hatred that didn't fall into one of those definitions.

As far as hatred being an action, merriam webster offers one definition of action as "the bringing about of an alteration by force or through a natural agency." From that, while hate would not be an action, hating or coming to hate would be. I'm sure you mean something different when you say that hatred is not an action, but as far as I'm concerned an interior judgment of the intellect is as much a choice as an externally based action.

Moreover, as has been mentioned by a large number of people in this thread including Jiodi and myself, hatred is something that can be nurtured, maintained or stifled depending on how one reacts to it, and in that sense hatred can be a choice.

I admit that (perhaps as a result of not reading the relevant parts of the thread very carefully) I'm not totally sure about the relevance of the monogamy/bigamy discussion.

Edited April 8, 2014 by SeverIan

[jiodi]

to insist that hatred is a choice is to deny the incontrovertible existence of these functions. you are once more substituting the real definition of hatred with your own, which is not really the same thing.

I do not deny the existence of emotions that can be branded as "hate". I deny the cynical view you peddle assuming we have no power over our own emotions. "Hatred" is just a word. A man-made construct. It is used to apply meaning to an emotion. You can clear hatred from your mind just as you can clear hope and assume the world is just a giant shit-fest.

monogamy and adultery are actions. hatred in itself is not an action. monogamy and adultery are choices. love and lust, the emotions that precipitate monogamy and adultery, are not.

Hmmm, it seems to me there is a disconnect to this argument. We are going to circle the drain for days unless we get what we're talking about clear. I could be wrong, given the context of the debate.

Hatred, the feeling of intense dislike or ill will. Do we choose to feel it?

- You say we are bound by these emotions and cannot be expected to choose to feel them, correct? In this context I completely agree with you. Emotions are illogical and a lot of rough shit has come to our species from suppressing (and ultimately repressing) them.

- I may have overstepped the debate itself, because I argue that even if that is the case, we have the capacity to control our emotions. We can even evolve ourselves emotionally and culturally given the right ingredients. You see families of murder victims fighting the death penalty of the murderer because of principal or because they have rejected hatred. You see soldiers on the east and west sides of the Great War putting down their arms and engineered propagandized hatred and playing soccer and exchanging Christmas gifts. You see certain types of people in certain types of faith cleansing themselves of negative emotions and truly experiencing the beauty that life has to offer.

I believe that in the grander scheme of things, when all is said and done and we can truly understand the magnificence of everything around us and really come to terms with the amazing feat it is just existing and breathing and thinking, we will have no room for hate. It will be obsolete. We will make the choice to not bother ourselves with such pettiness. This is the basis of my argument.

If this is overreaching the context then I concede the point to you :)