heidi | The pointlessness of hate

I don't get it. I don't get why people spend any energy on actively hating other people. Doesn't it give you a headache? Doesn't it feel unproductive? Yes, I know the silliness of the list line, given that it's not especially productive to, say, write fanfic, in comparison to, say, curing cancer, but at least it's not a time- and mood-suck on top of being a less productive activity than others.

Have any of the people posting on the OH I JUST HATE... threads today seen a newspaper this week? Did you look at the photos of what happened in Iraq, where four men were in a car that was raked with gunfire and set ablaze, where their bodies were mutilated and strung up on a bridge, and where teenagers and grown men alike posted in front of the bodies and cheered and clapped and were so jubilaint in their hate.

Now, there is a pretty huge difference between killing people who you believe to be spies, or occupiers or instruments of Satan and posting anonymously on the internet, proclaiming your hatred of someone else, for whatever reason. And I'm not going to be a Pollyanna here and say that I absolutely love (and <3, for those of you who really hate the <3 combo)) everyone within the HP fandom, everyone on the internet, everyone in the world. I don't. And when my sites or my friends have been attacked (and I don't mean with mean words, I mean by password theft, fraudulent reports to ISPs and out and out hacking) I have certainly gone in blazing, but I don't understand the whole concept of having such a burning, perpetual hatred for someone who hasn't done anything that's as bad as that.

Seriously, are there people in this world who are so consumed with bile about the <3? Or about anything else that isn't a direct threat to your health/safety/welfare? Hate rape. Hate hunger. Hate people who are gung ho about the concept of separate but equal. And then do something about it.

I mean, I hate George W. Bush's advisors (I only pity Dubya hinself, because I think he's too darned stupid to realise that he's been lied to, misled and manipulated) and I think that they, and the President who employs them, should be tossed out of office in November, if not sooner. So I'm doing something about it; I'm supporting the Kerry campaign.

But seriously, why hate ordinary people, or even (IYHO) extraordinary people? How are they a threat to your health/safety/welfare? Why do you waste your time on (major exageration of the concept here) metaphorically gunning them down, stringing up their charred bodies, and laughing and cheering in front of their corpses?

What on earth do you get out of it?