Anger v Hatred. What is the difference?

[bertha katzenengel]

In a thread I posted yesterday (was it just yesterday?) I opined (paraphrasing) that hatred was bad. Anger is good. I wrote "anger... I understand. But hatred?"

From some of the responses I got, it seems that folks misunderstood, or misread, or otherwise interpreted my post to say that anger was bad.

I believe anger is good when channeled into change.*

I believe hatred is destructive and can lead to the worst possible results.

The two are not the same.

Discuss.

* Christ, I spent so much time as a fundy I'm starting to sound like a fundy preacher, with the alliteration. God, are they fond of alliteration.

[cleofus1]

1. good question

someone gives you anger...you decide to keep it or to reject it...hate is something you generate all by your little lonesome...

[MuseRider]

2. Good morning

Bertha!

I can love the person I am angry with. I can get over it and I can attempt to understand what I am angry about and then get on with loving the person.

If I hate someone I will never be able to listen with an open mind.

That is always one way for me to differentiate the two.

[bertha katzenengel]

5. Wow.

"If I hate someone I will never be able to listen with an open mind."

Wow. My god, how true that is. Imagine listening to GW Bush with an open mind. I don't hate him but my mind is damned sure closed to anything he says. Kinda a shame.

:hi: MR :hug:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. Well said...

I find that anger is something I can't avoid; but I can choose how I react to it.

Hatred on the other hand is a choice. I've been tempted to hate many times; but on the few occasions when I allowed myself to indulge, it hurt myself far more than any enemy.

[Heidi]

3. Generally, when I'm angry,

there's an emotional investment involved. I don't hate anyone, but imagine this would involve me being completely indifferent toward the object of my "hatred."

You're right, though. I believe anger and hatred are quite different.

[GOPisEvil]

4. Anger is an emotion. Hatred is learned behavior.

Anger can lead to hatred if not channeled appropriately, which gives rise to the Hitlers of the world.

[tuvor]

6. IRRATIONAL hatred is learned.

I don't agree that all hatred is learned.

You don't have to learn to hate someone who does something you believe is evil.

And that's about the extent of my reasoning abilities so early in the morning. (West coast, 7:15 am) Sorry.

[bertha katzenengel]

7. Why does one have to hate someone who does something evil at all?

Why is it necessary to hate that person?

[tuvor]

18. I don't know. I'm just certain that it isn't a learned behaviour. n/t

[bertha katzenengel]

8. Is the weather too good for a serious discussion?

Hell, I'd've posted this back in GD, where I posted my locked thread, but I'm not ready to be slammed to the floor & called a freeper again.

Oh, well.

[MissB]

9. Well, now that it is raining

:evilgrin:

I do agree that there is a difference between anger and hatred.

But where that gets realllly confusing for me is... George W. Bush. I hate him. Absolutely hate the idiot. I don't feel anger towards him. I hate him.

:shrug:

[bertha katzenengel]

10. I agree, there are certain people

whom it's hard not to hate.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

15. I pity him...

I know it sounds crazy, but while I despise the things he does, I also understand that it's all a result of his ignorance. All his wealth and all his prayers cannot diminish that log in his eye.

And oddly enough, the suffering that he's responsible for is where compassion and enlightenment are born. Unless he suffers himself, he'll wallow in ignorance forever.

[redqueen]

11. I agree with you.

I hate when I hear myself thinking that I hate people, but I still catch myself doing it. I often tell myself that really I hate the actions people are enging in, not the people carrying out those actions.

I think when people repeat the actions I hate... that's when I start thinking that I hate them. But I try to hang onto the fact that everyone can change - they have the ability, if they choose to do so. And because of that, hating the person is - IMO anyway - counterproductive.

It's reeeeeally reeeeeeeeally hard, though... especially living in TX.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. I think you summed it up nicely

Hatred is a conscious act - bad and unproductive and ultimately self-destroying. Hatred is anger channeled in a wrong direction.

Anger is a value-less emotion (as all emotions are value-less (not meaning "not valuable", but meaning neither morally/ethically good nor morally/ethically bad)). It's what we do with anger that we judge as morally/ethically good or bad - if anger becomes hatred, or violence, or self-destructive, that's bad.

But anger, when channeled properly, is the only thing that will inspire us to make the world better. Anger can be an amazing source of energy, when used properly. Think of the civil rights movement - that came out of anger. Gandhi's movement started out of anger. Women's suffrage came out of anger. Heck, most everything good has come out of anger, because people finally became pissed off enough that they felt the call to action and to do something other than just sit and bathe in the anger and do nothing but seethe and hate and eventually self-destruct.

Many people, though, feel that anger is bad, which is quite sad. Anger is essential.

[MuseRider]

16. Very nice Rabrrrrrr.

Anger has made me a local activist. Anger is making me reach out even more. Anger is a very needed emotion. I lived for a long time keeping my anger in, was taught that my female anger was not important. Weeeeelllll, that has changed as I have gotten older and learned more and I now know it is valuable and I can channel it where it needs to go and control it to such a degree that I can use it as a tool. It is only when we lash out without direction that it becomes entirely too destuctive. Been there too, it takes a while to learn how to use it properly.

[Redstone]

14. Anger goes away. Hatred doesn't.

Redstone

[Nikia]

17. Thanks for bringing this up

When I was a child and teenager, I was afraid of anger because of how I grew up. I only saw it as destructive. I didn't really even allow myself to feel it.
Now I can feel it, but I never know what to do with it. Thanks for discussing why anger doesn't have to turn to hate. It can actually be constructive.

[Nevernose]

19. I think you've got it backwards

To me, at least, anger is purely emotional. Hatred, however, is the product of a cold, logical calculation, and logic usually trumps emotion.

And alliteration is often the sign of an educated or well-read person. The first English poetry, for instance, was not based upon rhyme scheme, but upon alliteration.

[Mr. Flibble]

20. knee-jerk vs calculated response.

Respectively.

[sendero]

21. Dont' think they are remotely comparable.....

... I get angry at my kids but I don't hate them for a second.

I don't think anger and hatred are really related.