Hello there. Yes, you’re reading an essay about hate. No, I’m not a fringe lunatic, I promise. It’s an exploration of something we are all familiar with, but don’t talk about much. This is the fifth experiment in this series, and I’d appreciate your feedback as to whether it works. A good subtitle for this essay is, Understand hate and make more money, today!
Hate isn’t one of those things we joke about often. Don Rickles was great at making fun of hate, because his audience knew he was joking when he said that he hated everyone. He would then call them by every pejorative name known to man, and the audience would laugh. He was a comedian during the Civil War. Look him up.
Today, even though we live in an age of comedy, hate gets short shrift. Why is that? Are we afraid of it? Will the very mention of its name give it power, like Voldemort? Or are we paranoid? Let’s do a thought experiment and find out.
Got your lab coat on? No, not the one with long arms that nurses buckle in the back, the regular one. Alright, here we go.
Hello, Hate? How do you do. Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Reader. Gentle Reader. Gentle, this is Hate.
At this point you shake hands, and we all sit down for a drink. By the end of our chat you and he discover that you’re old friends! Turns out that we’ve all known each other for a long time. Well, perhaps not you and I, but we have Hate as a mutual acquaintance. Though I dare say, you and I certainly seem to becoming fast friends as well. But I digress.
It turns out that Hate has been with us since we were born! Surely, as wee babes we didn’t need his services much, Mum and Dad sheltered us enough. But as we grew and became mobile, more independent, and curious, his services were needed more. Mum had to prepare us infants for the real world.
She would say: Don’t touch that! Don’t go in there! Don’t put your fingers in the socket! Why, Mum, why? She’d explain, Because terrible things will happen. In the simplest of ways, Mum prepared us for survival. She taught us, in direct terms, to stay away from hot stoves, the stairs, electrical outlets, or trying to put pencils into our baby sister’s nose. Mum was brainwashing us! Some Mums continue even while we’re adults, but it’s particualrly important for a child to be properly brainwashed. Our brain is open and unorganized. We don’t know danger’s face.
Mum and Dad altered the way we think, without us having to know why. That’s the very essence of hate.
Hate, as we talk about him today, dresses like a Hollywood vampire (black or white hoodie, take your pick) and always has a darker side with a predilection for the dramatic and violent. Not so! This is not who Hate really is! Hate is a different animal than that charicature. Hate has depth and nuance, a ‘good’ side and a ‘bad’ side, much like anyone else once you get to know them well enough.
Let’s go back to that electrical outlet, figuratively. To make this more exciting, you and I are toddlers, and you found a paper clip! First off, the paper clip was tested for edibility. Yuck! Double yuck! So, paperclip edibility test has been performed AND replicated. This is very important in science, even babies know this! That’s why you often see them repeating their experiments, like dropping the spoon off their high chair. Conclusion – not tasty! But now I’m holding the paperclip, dust-free and dripping with saliva.
Ooh! I spot the electrical outlet. Exciting! We share the joy of discovery as we toddle closer. We go towards the outlet because we like it. It looks interesting, and what we like we are drawn towards.
But wait. You remember a lesson from Mum. “No” she said. “Bad” she said, along with many other words we don’t understand. Even No and Bad are meaningless to us, because we’re still learning the lingo. But Mum looked upset, angry, even agitated. And even as a newborn we know when Mum is upset. It’s one of many instructions we receive from the DNA machine as it’s putting us together. It’s part of our toolkit as soon as we’re out of the womb. We HATE to see our Mum upset, it’s part of our genetic makeup!
So, we no longer like the outlet. In fact, our Mum’s remonstrations have convinced you to stay away from the outlet. I give you the greater share of common sense throughout this, Gentle Reader, because history proves that I would always be the one most likely to put something into an electrical outlet. You stop. You scream. I stop, bewildered. What’s wrong with you?, I think.
In that moment you have turned from liking the outlet to hating it. Your hate, without reason, says “avoid the outlet!” You communicate that information to me in your inimitable voice, I ponder. I still like the outlet, and head towards it. At that moment, our stalwart Mum appears, instantly seeing what happened, and saves the day. Along the way, she gives both of us yet another lecture on why we hate outlets, and paperclips. Of course, baby lectures are nothing like college lectures. For one thing, they are very short, and usually entail one word, “No!” Then again, a bably lecture is very much like a college lecture in that none of us take notes, and our retention is about 5 minutes, or until dinner is served, which ever comes first.
Hate, by its very nature, means to avoid something without reason. It is a way to influence our thinking in the most basic of ways. Stay away! Bad! Don’t ask questions! These are the slogans of the Hate family. And we all have friends in this family, whether we admit to it or not.
In the next essay, we’ll explore our deeper relationship with hate. Why? Because there’s a good chance you’ve grown up and , by way of example, are no longer afraid of electrical outlets. In fact, I’m willling to bet you’re sticking things into outlets all the time. Go on! Tell me it’s not true. See? Your ealiest introduction to hate is gone.
But other members of the Hate family are still your friends, perhaps without you even knowing that they’re still living in your mental house. We’ll talk about some of them next, so that we can get a better picture of how hate still lives with us in society.
Now, lest you forget, Gentle Reader, the real reason we need to get re-familiar with the family of Hate is because it is one of our most powerful emotions. And understanding how it plays out in our own minds is crucial in making good business decisions. Good writers, directors, and politicians know this and use our hate as a tool for their own success. Isn’t it time you capitalized on their secret? Step right up and make some money off your hate! Master it and make a fortune! Are you ready? Can you handle the truth?
Behavior, study of... 