By MamaLiberty
Do you like anchovies? How about girdles, tight neckties, a leak in your shoe? Personally, I hate them, and quite a few other things.
Or is “hate” too harsh a word? Maybe so. What does the word “hate” mean to you?
Hate means different things to individuals, but there is a widespread campaign to impose ever changing and increasingly destructive political correctness on everyone, both with and without the force of law.
So, it seems important to start with definitions. Not everyone will agree with these, of course, but it is a place to start. From an online dictionary.
verb (used with object), hated, hating.
1. to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy; to hate bigotry.
2. to be unwilling; dislike: I hate to do it.
Hate is an intense emotional response, usually to things people fear. People who hate usually fear they will be harmed or lose control of themselves or others. Hate, and the accompanying anger, even potential for violence, is a normal and necessary human response to threats of harm or loss of control. What has been confused is rational discrimination between the actual threats and a hateful response that is not a genuine threat. And, even further off track, those who demand that nobody should ever be able to hurt their feelings… a subject for another time.
verb (used without object), discriminated, discriminating.
1. to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality: The new law discriminates against foreigners. He discriminates in favor of his relatives.
2. to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately: to discriminate between things.
Discrimination does not automatically involve any kind of “hate.’ There is no solid correlation. And, as we all should know, correlation does not prove causation.
Discrimination is an essential part of our lives, actually necessary to each choice and decision we make. Since the choices are quite often nearly infinite, there has to be a way of judging one from another. Past experience is usually the first consideration, along with what we read, hear and observe regarding the experience and opinions of others.
Do you absolutely and instantly trust each and every person you meet for the first time? Do you automatically trust everything offered as being safe to eat or drink? Do you enter strange places or dark alleys with no thought to whom you might meet there? Why would you think that was wise, if you do?
Discrimination, using past experience and reasonable distrust is a vital survival tactic and always has been. And that includes discrimination and initial distrust of people as well as anything else. Trust, comfortable relationships and tolerance are developed over time, not a given in every situation. A rational fear of the unknown is normal, and a necessary part of staying alive.
It would seem important for every person who seeks individual liberty to examine their definitions of hate and discrimination. It’s hard to have a conversation if terms being used have no mutually understood definitions.
The Price of Liberty 
Actually, in the modern context, “hate speech” or simply “hate” is just disagreeing with a liberal’s point of view. Amazing how we let them get away with that. I may disagree with the concept of gay marriage, or illegal immigration, and may speak out against these issues at every opportunity. But I don’t hate gays or illegal immigrants, and resent being called a “hater” just because I oppose their point of view.
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Yes indeed. The “politically correct” thing attempts to negate the authority each individual has to associate, or not associate with anyone else, for any or no reason. People have been conditioned to believe that this discrimination is somehow wrong, and that rejection of anyone else is aggression in some way. Yet they don’t see that their rejection of free association is exactly the same thing they accuse other of doing. What they really want is for everyone to feel obligated to accept and even support them, even going so far as to attempt using the force of government to compel this acceptance. I suspect that none of them have truly considered how hypocritical their position is… how in the world do you FORCE people to love and accept you? Can’t be done.
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LOVE the “to hate bigotry” example. Perfect illustration of the trap I think you’re talking about.
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As Hayek noted in his “Road to Serfdom”:
“The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they… have always held… The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most effective way to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning.
Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed….
If one has not one’s self experienced this process, it is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this change of the meaning of words, the confusion it causes, and the barriers to any rational discussion which it creates… And the confusion becomes worse because this change of meaning of words describing political ideals is not a single event but a continuous process, a technique employed consciously or unconsciously to direct the people. Gradually, as this process continues, the whole language becomes despoiled, and words become empty shells deprived of any definite meaning, as capable of denoting one thing as its opposite and used solely for the emotional associations which still adhere to them.”
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Amen to that, Paul.
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Wonderful words and plenty of food for thought. Problem: everyone will define these words to THEIR own end and needs. So sad.
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As with so many other words, the important thing is to understand what others mean as much as possible, even if there is no agreement. Without that, no dialog or cooperation is can take place.
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