Only Love

 

There is a popular, sentimental meme floating about on the Internet—maybe from the 1960s hippie movement—that only love conquers hate. This may be seem trite and simplistic but it is profoundly true.

 

The problem with this meme is that I am a cosmic pessimist to a degree--that I am something of a marginal Zoroastrian in their core belief that good versus evil is an eternal battle, with neither side winning everywhere, forever, at some point. I am a Christian, but I do not think like most Christians that good conquers evil forever at the end of the world, but that establishing God’s kingdom on earth means instead that the children of light may extend and establish the kingdom of God for thousands of years on some planets or on some galaxies.

 

These metaphysical speculations cannot be proven or disproven with certainty, but still, only love conquer hate, even if only in your heart or in your family—such victory is not insignificant or meaningless. You matter and your efforts or refusal to fight the good fight does matter.

 

One of my criticisms of the hippies and their Leftist, idealist, pacifist, cultural descendants now in 2023 is that this meme makes them feel good, but they do not really know what is indicated by it, nor what are their actual obligations.

 

Dennis Prager often warns that Leftists say some trope or meme that makes them feel good, or they slap a bumper sticker on their hybrid Prius and feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and they have done nothing to help love conquer hate on earth.

 

These people are emotional but not practical, logical, and hard-headed. Let me define love and hate and then propose how to increase love in the world and reduce hate.

 

First, betterhelp.com, an online website or therapy ad for therapists define the definition of true love as: “A mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect for another person. Love can also be used to apply to non-human animals, to principles, and to religious beliefs.”

 

So, love is a mix of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs (which is where language, logic and the rational side of our minds enter into it). I do not think reasoning is just a logical tool for solving problems, but I also think love is feelings, practices and rational as something of an abstract, favorable posture or rational intuition positive in regard to another person or creature.

 

 

Second, let us define hate: According to Wikipedia today (11/9/2023) hate is: “Hatred or hate is an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things or ideas, usually related to opposition or revulsion toward something.^[1] Hatred is often associated with intense feelings of anger, contempt, and disgust. Hatred is sometimes seen as the opposite of love.”

 

Roughly, hatred are thoughts and feelings of intense, negative orientation towards someone or something: one feels anger, contempt, obsession, bitterness, great psychic pain, and resentment towards the object of all this toxic attention and energy, and the target may have nothing to do with why the hater hates the hated thing or person.

 

These rough and ready definitions of love and hate will serve for this blog entry. To love is to do good, and to act on good thoughts and good feelings is to grow spiritual and moral health in the world. I like the Zoroastrian concept that good thoughts lead to good words and then to good deeds.

 

To hate is to, in thought, word and deed, share negative, destructive, gaslighting thoughts that belittle others and make them feel bad and wretched, and that is unnatural and undeserved suffering, the useful Jordan Peterson definition of evil.

 

My suggestion for helping those well-intentioned but minimally competent hippies and Leftists do some good is to lay out some more and spiritual truths about love and hate so we all can grow love in the world and minimize hate.

 

If Ayn Rand is right (And she mostly is correct.), selfishness (individualism) is good, and selflessness (groupism) is bad. What is good is love, truth and liberty, and what is bad is evil, lies and tyranny.

 

If we help people favor individual identity over group identity, push individual rights over group rights, argue for egoist values over altruist values, and stand for individual-living more than group-living, then we can grow love in the world, and maybe conquer or push back hate, or the rule of the children of darkness.