Love and Hate.: Philosophy Forums

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Love and Hate.
Is it possible to have one without the other?

Love and Hate.

Lanced
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Posted 11/05/09 - 11:55 AM: Subject: Love and Hate.	#1
Is it possible to love something, or someone, yet to not hate anything else? Does one give the other meaning? Or can one simply pick and choose which emotions to accent or to let free?

xzJoel
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Posted 11/05/09 - 12:18 PM:	#2
Lanced wrote: Is it possible to love something, or someone, yet to not hate anything else? Does one give the other meaning? Or can one simply pick and choose which emotions to accent or to let free? Is this a serious question or a theoretical one? Do you love anyone deeply? Do you hate anyone deeply? I am indifferent to nearly everything and yet there are some things that I love. There is no thing that I hate.
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

SittinWSocratesTiff
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Posted 11/05/09 - 01:02 PM:	#3
Your question of "Does one give the other meaning?" is the right question to ask yourself. You will find the answer is more obvious than you first thought. In order to understand day you must experience night, dark to light, love to hate ect. I believe that one can pick and choose what emotions to accent or to let free. I question whether or not it can be done "simply".

Desidude666
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Posted 11/05/09 - 11:41 PM:	#4
Lanced wrote: Is it possible to love something, or someone, yet to not hate anything else? Yes. Lanced wrote: Does one give the other meaning? Or can one simply pick and choose which emotions to accent or to let free? No. They aren't worth anything.
What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

wuliheron
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Posted 11/06/09 - 03:03 PM:	#5
Lanced wrote: Is it possible to love something, or someone, yet to not hate anything else? Does one give the other meaning? Or can one simply pick and choose which emotions to accent or to let free? People around the globe have frequently reported over the eons that it is quite possible to experience at least brief instants of pure love and joy. I've experienced this myself. It is like an endless, uninhibited, upward spiral that builds upon itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_(emotion) Instead of emotions being merely divided into two catagories we can also view them as forming a continuum, that is, something that cannot meaningfully be divided into parts. Up and down, for example, form a continuum because one without the other is an oxymoron. Such continuums are also relative, what one person calls up someone on the other side of the planet calls down. Thus positive emotions are those that people say they want, while negative ones are those that people say they do not want, and two people might have different opinions about what is a positive or negative emotion.

Laic
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:45 PM:	#6
That's exactly how I feel about Kant but he says it can't go two ways. Everything operates on a spectrum and is consistent to change. While you may deeply love someone your active feelings of liking or disliking may change from situation to circumstance. Hate is not the opposite of love, it is another form of it. Fear is the opposite of love. For when we fear something we hide from it. When we either love or hate something it never leaves us alone, or we never leave it to rest. There is a polar to every emotion, not as to say an opposite. Whether the emotion is felt to be productive or counterproductive to the individual parents personal perception. Love and Hate are the same emotion and can be experienced throughout their spectrum. Fear and Courage are likewise. They counterbalance Love and Hate. While one may hate something, dealing (using it in the positive or productive)with it and getting it over with gives a joyous feeling. Neglecting something Loved (using the negative or non-productive) will allow it to stagnate and bring sorrow. Love and hate both rule joy and sorrow. "I hate you and I'll enjoy killing you" "I Love you but it hurts that you're so far away" Same emotion, different polarity. Love is in the house of courage. To love without fear is absolute joy. Hate is in the house of fear. To fear without reason is the father of hatred. I'll finish this rant up with a favorite quote: There are basically two movements of consciousness: love and fear. Love is allowing what is, and fear is resisting it. - Nirmala I hope you meet with every one of these feelings, even if for a fleeting moment. If you do, take a moment and laugh, it's worth the pain.
If life is like a box of chocolates than Science and Philosophy are the insert card that let's you know what you're going to get. Read it wisely! ~Me

antonrealm
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Posted 11/08/09 - 12:51 PM:	#7
I completely disagree with the previous comment and think it's over-simplified: not everything operate "as a spectrum" and emotions don't necessarily have opposites. Love has nothing to do with courage, and Hate not directly related to fear, it's just too easy to think that way. My proof if I needed one: there is no known mechanism by which one reflects, or transmutes, into the other. When a lover say "I hate you" to the other one, we know it's not real hate, and when someones really hate another one, there's no way it can transform into love, and the actions taken by a lover or hater mirror the ones of the opposite only superficially. I read something about it in http://ihavegoodideas.blogspot.com/ , I suggest you check it out.

Ionakani
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Posted 11/09/09 - 12:38 PM:	#8
Antonrealm does have some points; Hate and love do not contradict each other. In fact they can co-exist... I hate the fact that my friends do certain self-destructive activities while still loving my friends. I think the opposite of hate and love for both is apathy. Because love and hate are both passionate feelings. It doesn’t matter if you obsessively love someone or obsessively hate them... you're still thinking about them all the time.

psychotick
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Posted 11/11/09 - 01:35 AM:	#9
Hi, I disagree that love and hate are opposite ends of the same spectrum, or fear and courage for that matter. And I do believe its possible to love without knowing hatred or fear. What I do agree with is that often one emotion in relation to some aspect of our lives will illuminate another. With love it may be understood more clearly through fear and hate. By this I mean that say you love someone. Fear of losing that someone may bring the love you feel for that person sharply into focus. Also hatred of anyone or anything that may take that loved one away from you may do the same. Its really the old saw, you never knew how much you care until they were gone. Cheers.

mark73
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Posted 11/11/09 - 08:56 AM:	#10
Lanced wrote: Is it possible to love something, or someone, yet to not hate anything else? Does one give the other meaning? Or can one simply pick and choose which emotions to accent or to let free? Logically speaking there is no reason not to believe that love can exist without hate since their is no contradiction. Imagine visiting a planet where all the people loved but no hate existed. Now love as a concept exists because it is used to make a distinction with hate and vise versa. Therefore love can exist without hate but the concept of love can not exist without the concept of hate. We know these beings love without hate but they would not use these concepts. Now with respect to human beings its probably true that all humans (with obvious exceptions such as infants) have loved and hated during their lives. To not do so is probably, givin our biology not possible. As for whehter we can choose our emotions I would say it depends on the circumstances. To some extent we can. If I am feeling down I know a walk helps me feel better. But for the most I believe most of us have little control over our emotions icluding how we feel about someone. However I don't think this has to be the case.

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