To what extent do you relate to the idea that accepting that in at lease some situations you have no viable alternative to harming others is not the same as hating ?
What do you think of the idea that hatred involves wanting to harm someone even if they pose no actual threat to you or to those you care about or are responsible for ?
To what extent do you think hatred is a function of self-aggrandizement ?
What do you think of the idea that love involves striving to (1) distinguish your needs from your wants; and (2) striving to meet your needs with as little harm and as much benefit to others as possible ?
What do you think of the idea that the opposites in life give meaning to what we regard as good, (pain v pleasure, hate v love, and so on) ?
What do you think of the idea that hatred is not something we should passively accept as a part of our own psyches, but that we should instead strive, albeit imperfectly, to base our intentions solely on love ?
What do you think of the idea that in cases of conflict or what appear to be zero-sum scenarios, if we harm our enemies, we do so not because we hate them, but because we love ourselves and love those with whom we have community ? In extreme situations, it’s possible to kill someone we love, acting out of self-defense or defense of another person?
To what extent would you agree with the idea that to fight a cause most effectively, we must hate our enemies, and that if one does not hate one’s enemies, his or her devotion to the cause is questionable?
Sorry to repeat this, but it might be useful to ask again what you think of the following idea, rephrased ? (1) There is an important difference between, on the one hand, harming enemies as a result of our love for ourselves and those with whom we have community; and, on the other hand, (2) harming our enemies out of hatred ? (3) It’s one thing to harm enemies because there seems no viable alternative to individual, community, or societal self-defense. But it’s quite another thing to take delight in inflicting physical and psychological pain and harm on our enemies.
To what extent do you think hatred is self-defeating, at least in the long run?
To what extent do you think hatred can consume us to the point that we care more about annihilating the enemy and causing them to suffer than we care about our own enlightened self-interest ?
In other words, to what extent would you say that, when we hate, our enemies defeat becomes more important than our own victory, and that we thereby risk dragging ourselves down in the process ?
To what extent do you think the case of Adolf Hitler is an example of self-defeating hatred?
To what extent do you distinguish (1) refraining from hating one’s enemies from (2) loving one’s enemies ?
What do you think of the Christian idea of loving one’s enemies and the idea of praying for one’s enemies ?
To what degree do you think that talk about ‘love’ can cloud our thinking, if we don’t approach it with scientific and historiographic skepticism, whereby we form opinions according to the evidence ?
To what extent do you think that ideas of “loving all beings” that are found in New Age philosophies and some religions are erroneous ? In other words, to what extent do you think that ‘love’ is a ‘proximal phenomenon’ ?
Can you love each and every sentient being on Earth that has ever or will ever exist ?
To what extent are empathy, compassion, and love ‘proximal’ ?
To what extent do you think that the raw, intuitive, and emotional material of compassion, empathy, and love can only occur between two sentient beings, (though thru cognition, we can form general principles regarding fairness and justice, which we imperfectly apply to our dealings with other beings in general ?
In other words, do you ‘love your family’ or do you instead love the individuals that comprise your family ? If the latter is the case, the good feelings you have when your family is gathered in one place is not love, but instead, a matter of enjoying the belonging and acceptance that such a gathering of the individuals you love evokes in your psyche ?
But even then, our proximal ties often take precedence, whereby we’re more concerned about the well-being of one person close to us than 10 or a 100 beings we don’t know personally, or more concerned about the welfare of various humans than about the continued existence of entire species. ——–
So, regarding love, what I’m talking about is existential, that is, taking the concern we have for those in our various communities and amplifying it, both emotionally and cognitively so that–for lack of a better way of saying it—-love takes up more room in our psyche, leaving less room for hatred and indifference. Albert Einstein mentioned this in a letter regarding morality, using the phrase “expanding the circle of compassion.”
———-For me, veganism involves that: taking the regard I have for humans and including non-humans. Non-vegan social justice activism and other forms of engagement involve this process of expanding our concern beyond our immediate social circles. Nationalistic propaganda emphasizes pulling together as fellow Americans or fellow Germans or fellow Brits and so on. But various social movements have presented alternative conceptions of solidarity.But they stop short, seeking to solidarity among a multitude within a category, and excluding multitudes of humans and other beings from their circles of ’empathy, compassion and love.’ ——
But to get back to the main topic, it’s impossible for us to love everyone, though it’s self-actualizing and otherwise useful to strive, imperfectly, to base our actions on love, not hatred. The word ‘maximize’ in name of my blog is there to acknowledge both the importance and the limitations of love MaximizeLoveOnEarth.org————
I’m resuming work for the Columbus Free Press and other causes as part of my process of putting love into practice. Of course, love isn’t a matter of warm and fuzzy do-nothing-ness.
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