Abstract: Hatred is an ambivalent phenomenon. It comes in many faces. Hatred is at its best when it masquerades as love and compassion. As Max Scheler suggested, on the level of human interaction, love and hatred relate human beings to one another (see Scheler, 1973; Donskis, 2003). Slightly modifying St. Augustine's definition of evil as insufficient good, we could metaphorically describe hatred as love gone astray. It might be suggested that love and hatred, both profoundly problematic from the point of view of tolerance, are interchangeable. For hatred is a kind of love, which, having lost its object and direction, finds itself unable to leave the world in peace. Instead, it starts searching for what is supposed to be a threat to an object of love and devotion, still unable to identify that object.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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