Bonded By Hate

hateHave you ever noticed that some are bonded to each other via hate? They like each other because they both hate. They hate George Bush. Or Sarah Palin. Or whoever.

I just wonder as I read truly horrible remarks on facebook if the people who write them realize their bond is based in a negative emotion and I wonder how it feels.

It’s like the Ku Klux Klan. The members bond, not necessarily because the like each other but that they have hate in common.

It is PC in some groups to hate black people. It is PC in others to hate Sarah Palin and these groups hang together to have their hate supported by others.

I am not sure what this is like – what is is like INSIDE a person like this. I unite with people because I love them, respect them, like them, or something like that. I have never aligned with people so we could both turn on a third… neatly avoiding the mirror or course.

Saturn (exalted) in Libra suggests that strong relationships are love-based.

What do you know about this?

36 thoughts on “Bonded By Hate”

  1. It’s not a bad feeling, it’s nice to have someone agree with you & stand with you. Solidarity & all that. In a weird way it’s a warm & fuzzy about something that’s really not.

  2. I wouldn’t necessarily say “hate” but it is helpful when someone else sees what I see in a third party’s character (nasty, self-centered, vicious, selfish etc.). It is especially helpful when said third party seems to have a whole lot of people who do actually “like” them – it helps me to know someone else sees through their b.s.

    But I have never aligned with someone just because we “hate” someone else.

  3. I’ve said, and seen it said repeatedly, that the opposite of love is not hate – it’s indifference. I tend to agree. Hatred is powerful and can be binding if you put your energy into it.

    I prefer not to, and align myself with people who prefer not to as well.

  4. I think the love bond is much stronger than the hate bond. The hate bond seems a relationship of convenience?

    I have known KKK folk and they dump their “friends” in an instant.

  5. I think hate’s not necessarily a bad feeling, especially if it bonds you enough to do something to change an unjust situation. Say I hate oppression. And you do, too. The two of us can do something about it.

    Just my feeling on it.

  6. Wowza, I think you are describing something different. In the scenario you outline, you and the other are uniting for your love of freedom as much as your hate of oppression.

    Example, two young people decide to become roommates to that can afford to leave home and not have to deal with their parents rules. It’s still a very positive thing.

    But I dunno. There may not be a hard core line here.

    This post is my reaction to 2 years of watching people on facebook pile on hate, appearing to bond over it, like, “I hate Justin Bieber”.

    I think it’s very strange and also very different from how I bond with people.

  7. “I think the love bond is much stronger than the hate bond. The hate bond seems a relationship of convenience?

    I have known KKK folk and they dump their “friends” in an instant.”

    This is what I was thinking. I don’t bond through hate – if I haven’t witnessed behaviour myself, then I wait and see (when it comes to something I’ve been told). When the same person was involved in something that affected me, I started to believe what I’d been told.

  8. Wow, the stick figure cartoon is making me sad.

    I think hatred is probably pretty strong glue for the short term. It’s immediate and it may even feel like you’re doing something important. I imagine it wears out people quickly, though. Worse, all the time you spend hating someone you aren’t paying attention or devoting energy to your own life.

    I have felt hatred before, but I don’t bond through it.

  9. do you think people bonded by hate are as strongly bonded as people bonded by love?

    ….I can’t wrap my brain around it. Gonna follow this thread and see what the collective feeds in

  10. I see the hatred of the “other” as being the love of the “we” as well. Even down to something as mundane as sports teams. As in, We love the Steelers, therefore we hate the Packers. In some people the objects/people that are loved or hated just don’t make any sense, but I think the feelings are the same. I agree that there’s little bonding to be done over indifference.

  11. My husband weighs in, slightly. He thinks love and hate are polar opposites and indifference is neutral. He thinks hate is a very strong force.

  12. I think “we love ice cream / Justin bieber / the color blue” is a great way to bond with someone, but the “we hate peanut butter / that woman over there / republicans” adds a level of um, togetherness, aligned together against something, like a tribe would stand against outsiders.

  13. I agree with your husband. When I was young and romantically rejected I’d convince myself to start hating the guy to get over it. I have evolved from that but the memory of trying to manipulate my emotions like that is useful.
    Like all polar opposites they create echo and I think this is where the express ‘a thin line between love and hate’ comes in.

    On another note, days like today and thinking about stuff like this, I’m happy to be well past my Saturn Return. I love getting older.

  14. I think hate and love are equally strong, although opposing, forces. Both can bond you, especially to the person you are directing the hate/love to! So, do you think they think of that?? You hate someone so much, you are actuially bonding… to them??!!
    So,is the love bond stronger than the hate bond? you ask, Elsa. I think the love bond just ‘feels’ better! 🙂

  15. I was thinking about hate….I know what is dislike or try to avoid someone’s company. But hate is a very strong emotion what I never really felt. I can not imagine a bond based on that. And for me people with hatred is not normal so the bond also.

  16. The only time I’ve felt bonded to someone via a mutual dislike, we were already bonded through friendship that had slowly built up. It’s a relief to have someone to talk to in that way, when you don’t want to go around bad-mouthing anyone, but need to get something off your chest. I’m tired and not explaining myself as well as I’d like.

    Bonding through hatred alone, first made me think of high school, and the kids who would turn on the lesser-favoured, to ‘get in good’ with the popular kids. I don’t know.. I prefer finding common ground through better things.

  17. I get really nervous when I’m around people who are bonded by hate because there’s a sense that they will always need an enemy in order to keep their bond. I think it happens in part because we are afraid to deal with and embrace and own and voice the difficult feeling that we have in relation to each other. That is the tension that always exists in these relations , from countries to individuals.

  18. Hmm… interesting points of view. I think when you bond with someone over hate, they are validating a dark part of you – something that can consume you and weakens you over time. When you bond with someone over love, they are fortifying the good part of you, and it makes you stronger and you grow as a result.

  19. Seems the internetz is a vehicle or catalyst for this kind of thing. Memes and tropes and such. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. These things are dishonest and not logical, but definitely favor the projector.

    I do think bonding through hate is a way to defend against and avoid the tension and distress we feel in relationships (as Tom said from individual to international). So much easier to generalize.

    I think I was party to this just today, when (for a change) I felt part of the collective in rising up and expressing disgust at the super bowl halftime show. You thought it sucked, too? Wow so did I. That is some lame excuse for a feeling of belonging, but I’ll take it. Made me feel good actually. Validation. (I did really think it sucked, and thought about launching a Cee-Lo Green for Half-Time Act campaign.

  20. Gang culture and group bullying are symptoms of this kind of hatred. They are very strong – to the point often of being lethal – and they act as a bonding mechanism which excludes the ‘other’.

    When you see this writ large, it ends in something like the Yougolaviian fragmentation and genocide, or the genocide in Rwanda. and of course the Nazi holocaust of the Jewish people, which bonded the ‘Christian’ Germans.

    The fact is, we were a tribal people for millenia: tribes exist to exclude and if possible oppress the ‘other’ tribe. That is very deep-seated and now manifests in all kinds of perverse ways, like sports team fanaticism, FB campaigns, racism, and gang warfare.

    Sadly I do think it’s as strong as love. Aggressive and militaristic regimes tend to unite their people. Why do you think the kind of community we have here at EE is so rare on the internet?

  21. Fear, I think that is the common denominator in this type of relationship. People fear that which they do not understand. I have always felt there are two emotional reactions to every thing. This is love or fear. Hate is fear based. By surrounding yourself with people who share the hate (fear) then you feel justified in numbers and perhaps stronger?

    Maybe you feel nervous because you are picking up on their own fear.

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