The Mechanisms of Hatred

In George Orwell's timeless cautionary tale, "1984," the citizens of a future totalitarian state are forced to engage in a ritual known as the "Two Minutes Hate." They assemble in an auditorium to watch a large TV screen as Emmanuel Goldstein, an alleged traitor to the Party, criticizes its principles. Just moments into the event, the initially calm crowd transforms into a raging mob, shouting insults and throwing anything they can get their hands on at Goldstein’s flickering image. Even Winston Smith, the alienated protagonist, cannot avoid joining the madness. Orwell captures this frenzy: "A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic." [source: Orwell]

While Orwell's portrayal is fictional, the overwhelming and destructive nature of the emotion it depicts is all too real. The term "hate," which originates from the Old English word "hete," refers to a deep and intense hostility toward something or someone, typically arising from feelings of fear, anger, or a sense of injustice [source: Merriam-Webster]. Hate encompasses a broad spectrum of feelings, from a child’s aversion to broccoli or homework, to the extreme hatred that drives a leader to attempt the annihilation of a particular group based on religion or ethnicity. Although it often overlaps with emotions like fear and anger, hatred remains distinct in its intensity and focus.

This article focuses on the more extreme form of hatred – the kind described by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle as "misos" in the 4th century B.C. Aristotle defined hate as a deep disdain for someone, rooted in a negative view of their character, to the point where the person feeling it seeks to cause harm. Aristotle also noted that hatred could be directed not only toward an individual but also toward a group of people perceived as sharing the same undesirable traits [source: Konstan].

Hatred can be explored from a variety of perspectives, including historical, sociological, and psychological. But to begin, let’s first examine how hatred originates in the brain and where this ability to hate comes from.

Your Brain on Hate

If you’re a fan of heavy metal, you may be familiar with the Iron Maiden song "There’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate." Interestingly, those lyrics carry some truth, at least when viewed through a neurological lens.

In 2008, researchers from University College London conducted a study involving 17 participants who had expressed intense hatred toward another person, often an ex-partner or colleague. When the participants' brains were scanned using an MRI while they viewed images of the people they hated, they showed activity in the putamen and insular cortex—two brain regions that also activate when a person looks at a picture of someone they love [source: Zeki, Robson].

The involvement of the putamen in both emotions is quite telling, as this brain region also primes the body for action. Researchers suggest that this area activates to prepare for defensive actions to protect a loved one or to brace for hostile acts from someone who is hated [source: Zeki, Robson].

However, the researchers observed a significant distinction between the two emotions. When a person looks at someone they love, areas of the frontal cortex linked to judgment and critical thinking tend to show less activity than usual. In contrast, when subjects viewed someone they despised, much of the frontal cortex remained engaged. Furthermore, the study revealed that the more intensely a person expressed hatred on a questionnaire, the more active their frontal cortex became when they saw the person they hated. The conclusion: hatred is not just an instinctive emotional response but also involves thinking and reflection [source: Zeki, Robson].

Hatred engages both the more primitive areas of the brain and the regions that evolved later in human development. This suggests that our capacity for strong aversion toward others may stretch back as far as 150,000 years, when modern humans first emerged [source: AMNH.org]. The origins of hate, however, remain unclear. There is some evidence suggesting that our ability to hate may have been an evolutionary adaptation, helping early humans justify taking resources like food from rival groups [source: Fishbein].

Even after humans transitioned to agricultural societies and formed civilizations, this deep-seated urge to hate persisted. We will explore the history of hatred on the following page.

The History of Hate

Hatred has been present for centuries, as evidenced by its mention in ancient texts. It appears in the Book of Genesis and Indian Vedic scriptures [source: Tuske]. The ancient Greeks also pondered its significance. Diogenes Laertius, a philosopher from the 4th century B.C., described hate as "a growing or lasting desire or craving that it should go ill with somebody," listing it among the irrational desires that troubled humanity [source: Diogenes].

The ancients often acted on their hatred. In the second century B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal vowed eternal enmity against the Romans, who had taken valuable territories from Carthage [source: Lendering]. He followed through by invading Italy. However, the Romans responded even more furiously, and in 146 B.C., they set out to completely destroy Carthage, burning the city and leaving its inhabitants to perish in the flames as they cried for help [source: BBC].

Most of the world’s religious texts condemned hatred, including the Buddhist Dhammapada from the 5th century B.C., the Christian New Testament, and the Islamic Koran, which cautioned believers not to "let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably" [sources: Medieval Sourcebook]. The Turks, however, displayed their hatred when they sacked Constantinople, the Byzantine Christian capital, in 1453. The Venetian physician Nicolo Barbaro, who witnessed the event, wrote that "anyone [the Turks] found, they put to the scimitar, women and men, old and young, of any condition" [source: Barbaro].

In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, it was so common to harbor hatred that a legal term, inimicitia, meaning "unfriendship" in Latin, was coined for it [source: Gibson]. In Italy, such deep-seated hatred led to the practice of the vendetta, where a person’s family and descendants were bound to seek revenge, no matter how long it took [source: Dean].

Although attempts were made to abolish the vendetta, it persisted and eventually took root in America. In the late 1800s, a dispute in West Virginia over an alleged stolen pig escalated into a bloody feud between the Hatfield and McCoy families, resulting in the deaths of nearly a half-dozen individuals [source: Lugar].

However, modern societies have become far more efficient – and deadly – at inciting hatred, a subject we will delve into further on the following page.

Modern-day Hatred

While humans are naturally wired to experience hate, convincing an entire group of people to hate another requires persuading them that a particular person or group is evil or a threat.

Sociologist Martin Oppenheimer from Rutgers University, who fled Nazi persecution with his family in the 1930s, contends that hate is cultivated within a group by pinpointing and exploiting their frustrations, insecurities, and fears of losing out on what they want or need. The key is making people believe that their problems are caused by others who pose a threat to their possessions or safety. Moreover, he argues that organized hatred provides a sense of purpose for those who feel marginalized. "These are the movements of growing numbers of the insecure, who seek islands of safety in a rapidly changing and increasingly insecure world," he writes [source: Oppenheimer].

With the advent of modern technology, the ability to spread hatred has grown significantly. Communication tools now allow harmful rhetoric and images to reach vast audiences with ease. A study from Stanford University in 2010, led by researchers Elissa Lee and Laura Leets, highlighted that subtle storytelling with hidden hate messages is far more effective in influencing impressionable teenagers than direct calls for hate, particularly when they were exposed to hate group websites [source: Lee and Leets].

Back in 1915, D.W. Griffith used the emerging medium of film to create "Birth of a Nation," a controversial movie that depicted African-Americans as inferior and dangerous, while glorifying the Ku Klux Klan for defending the rights of white people. The film was so powerful in fueling racial hatred that even Griffith was reportedly stunned by the impact of his creation [source: Armstrong].

During the 1930s, the Nazi regime in Germany didn't hesitate to use media for spreading hate. One notorious film, "Jud Suss," commissioned by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, portrayed Jews as corrupt and deceptive. It became mandatory viewing for SS officers. The Nazis also leveraged radio broadcasts and mass-produced books like "The Jewish Problem" to rally public opinion in favor of the persecution and murder of millions of Jews across Europe [source: Calvin.edu].

Since then, various groups worldwide have used modern media to incite hatred. In the 1990s, Bosnian Serb TV programs such as "Genocide" spread accusations of Serb mistreatment by Bosnian Muslims to stoke hatred and justify ethnic cleansing. In the late 1980s, Al Qaeda exploited the Internet’s global reach by launching online platforms, forums, and videos to stir up hatred toward the United States and Israel [source: Moss]. Over time, extremist groups have increasingly turned to social media and online games to spread their messages and recruit new followers [source: Reuters].

In the United States and around the world, Neo-Nazi and white-supremacist groups have adopted pop culture, especially music, as a vehicle to promote hatred. These groups have created their own record labels and organized large outdoor festivals akin to Woodstock, where bands perform songs with violent and hateful lyrics like, "I won't calm down until I taste the smell of their blood" [source: ADL.org].

That closing statement may sound quite alarming, but is hatred truly immoral? Could it be a form of mental illness, or are there circumstances where hatred might not only be a natural response but actually a beneficial one? We'll delve into that on the following page.

Is hate wrong?

People consumed by hate sometimes engage in actions that are hard to fathom, such as vandalizing graves or stalking and even killing others. But could their extreme hatred be a symptom of a deeper mental illness?

In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out a massacre at their high school in Columbine, Colorado, killing 12 students and a teacher while injuring 24 others. They left behind hateful online rants justifying their actions [source: Chua-Eoan]. Soon after, it was revealed that Harris had been treated for depression, and some speculated that his despair made him more vulnerable to harboring hatred [source: Associated Press]. More infamous hate figures, such as Hitler and Osama bin Laden, have been posthumously diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and other mental health conditions by experts [sources: Coolidge, Diamond].

Given the examples provided, it's easy to assume that individuals who harbor hatred toward others are suffering from a mental disorder. However, this doesn’t account for the many ordinary Germans and Bosnian Serbs who transformed from friendly neighbors to willing executioners of their own people. As a result, some mental health experts argue that if hatred is indeed a mental illness, it resembles herpes more than an uncommon cancer.

Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalytic pioneer of the early 20th century, saw hatred as a typical, though unpleasant, result of an individual's struggle to uphold their ego in the face of society's demands [source: Abel]. Others believe that even well-adjusted, socially well-equipped individuals can be driven to hate if they endure enough trauma. A study in 2000, for example, found that adults from war-ravaged Kosovo who faced the most severe psychological stress and suffering were also the ones who expressed the most intense hatred toward the Serbian troops who had persecuted them [source: Healy].

On the other hand, some argue that hatred, like a loaded gun, isn’t inherently bad. It’s simply an emotion that can be wielded for both good and evil purposes. Psychiatrist and writer Kurt R. Eissler, for instance, supported the concept of 'noble hatred,' where deep aversion is used productively, such as in the overthrow of a tyrannical dictator. He wrote, 'The activation of compassion would only diminish the impetus of his attack against superior power.' Eissler believed that, for a revolutionary fighting injustice, hatred isn’t only natural but can also be an empowering force for positive change [source: Bartlett].