Defending Hate · 5:39pm May 27th, 2018
Did you know that hate is not the opposite of love? It's true. They're not a binary, but on the spectrum of passions. The opposite of both is actually indifference. It's one thing to love or hate something. But if you genuinely don't give a damn, that's a pretty terrible thing. That's cold. That's real "hatred" in the sense that most mean. "I will not be ignored" is a cry for investment, for emotion. "Yes, you will be" is the most hurtful response. As I understand it, that's the existential horror of the story "Background Pony." Apparently people like that story.
Hate can actually be useful. Good, even. One of The better demonstrations actually comes from a comedy. In an episode of Get Smart ("All in the mind", 1966) Max is being given coaching in howmto deal with a psychologist by a Control psychologist and this exchange happens.
Maxwell Smart: Are you a psychologist, Dr. Stueben?
Stueben: I'm the president of the psychologist society for mental health and adjustment through fulfillment.
Maxwell Smart: What kind of an organization is that?
Stueben: We're a hate group.
Maxwell Smart: A hate group?
Stueben: Oh, in the sense that we cure hate and fear. We hate hate. Hate it.
Hate hate. This is also akin to something Karl Popper said, that at some point it becomes necessary to be intolerant of intolerance.
Hate has amazing powers. It's a passion, like love. In a sense it's pure, nothing more than raw force. A fire can burn down your house or make a nice fireplace cozy. Know who hated stuff? The 43 Group, and the citizens who came out to Cable Street. They all hated Oswald Mosley. But wait... isn't hate bad, according to one-dimensional thinkers who believe hate and love are on some kind of oppositional axis? Hating something or someone is terrible, right? I'll bet Audie Murphy really hated Nazis, so he must be bad too, right? You can see that there's some merit to hate. Hate that is molded is something else altogether. Usually it's called zeal. Again, it's raw force. A tool. Fire isn't evil because of arsonists, blades aren't evil because of Jack the Ripper and hatred or zeal aren't bad because we seem to ignore when people do great things through hating hate.
But that's the thing. Control. Sometimes it seems folks think of it like... having a tiger on a leash. At some point the tiger is going to take charge and there's little to be done about it. But the hate is in your head. It's in your body. It's a part of you. You are the master of what you do with things that are your production. It's true some things can rush out of control. You can't think your way out of everything. But there are methods to at least gain some control. At the very least, as it is your mind, to paraphrase the old line, you're not trapped in there with your hate, your hate is trapped in there with you. It isn't alien to you. It's yours. Yours to mold and sculpt. Yours to become a source of power.
I kind of want to go back to my fall stories. Why? Because I hate the new crop of racist idiocy that the zebradom stories are making. I hate that some damn fool wants to redo the Fall, but make it better. Let's redo the sacking of Constantinople, or Rome, but do it better this time. Make it flashier, have sharper weapons and cooler blood spatter. Folks like (REDACTED) still exist and still have a cult that pays for their porn. There were still stories to tell. As I say and maintain, "A sh
y sex universe makes an amazing war universe." When every mook is, by the actual description of the universe itself, a rapist and possibly a child toucher (open question because even most of the doctrinaire goose stepping cheerleaders won't let their fap fuel make them look TOO bad, unless they already make foal fiddling the hill they die on) they they're the most disposable enemies that audiences feel good about being wiped out since they invented robot Nazis.
I want to encourage everyone who still has zeal on the topic to splash some water on their faces, take a breathing moment, look in on the new inanity of racism and sexism, and let that move you. Be zealous. Channel it into your typing, make words flow like a tidal wave. Create new work in huge stacks, stack words like cord wood.
Don't be indifferent to this idiocy. Do something. Hate hate.
Hate it.
'Necessary to be intolerant of intolerance'.
Thank you. That's a response I've been needing for a long time now... strange how such a simple thing can elude you.
Always interesting when you post something. Thx for the blog!
Funny you should mention indifference.
As dusty as it is around this account, I've been writing something in the same vein as my Fall story, just in a setting of my own that actually makes sense. Figuring I'd get questions about Though Hell Should Bar the Way, I mocked up an FAQ and had this to say about my reasons for not continuing it:
Whatever this zebra dom thing is is even worse, it has entirely failed to catch my attention except as something to skip over.
I guess I just feel like if they don't care, I don't need to.
On the larger subject of hate and intolerance, my problem with it is that hate does require passion, but it also requires a lack of empathy. Very little in the world is black and white, and I've made it a hobby to understand how a rational person wanting to do good could reach any conclusion I encounter-- and I've never once failed. This is not to say I agree with them, but the first step towards convincing someone is to understand the differences in perspective and priorities that led them here and argue from those. Intolerance never changed anyone's mind, at best it drives them out of sight and builds up pressure... unless you're literally ready to get a gun and solve that problem for good.
You're such a hateful person.
4871021
Thank you. Your explanation of passion and investment in relation to hatred makes a lot more sense, than any exasperation I was trying to get out about how Gabriel is the only one I'm following still talking about this at all, and I wouldn't have even known about any of this "Zebra dom" stuff if it weren't for this post.
I haven't read any of Gabriels fics here in over a year, because they're based around his specific interpretation of one setting I'm not following, and not shocked enough to feel palpable anger or fear over. I won't say they're bad at all, but it feels like a huge effort to get invested in them. Like waiting 14 episodes for a series to bring it's characters together and make feel coherent; or being told I have to read a book from an extended universe to understand a movie. Except instead of requiring an amount of knowledge, it's emotional connection I have to have baked into me. O, I know you won't be returning to it, but I still admire THSBtW because of it's own merits as a story, and doesn't feel like it's a complete reaction to something. I would say the same for a lot of Schorl Tourmaline's works.
Gabriel, from the outside (which I will admit is very limited for me), it looks like you're letting this show and fandom be totally colored by this nasty niche. How long has it been since you've made an MLP story that wasn't inspired by this thing you hate? A year? It's been half a year since you put a new story on here at all, though I know you've done a lot on Fanfiction.net with Zootopia. But it doesn't seem like you care a whole lot about this show, this site or the people here if showing up takes you dredging up this thing up from the putrid depths. If it weren't for FoE, would you even be posting anything here?
(*EDIT*)
I apologize if this comes off as confrontational or self-gratifyingly dramatic. I just don't understand why someone is trying to rope me into this fight. Maybe if I think this blog post is pointless and just makes things more miserable, I'm just not Gabriel's audience anymore, and I shouldn't be hoping for anything else.
4871226
First, thank you! And I hope that if I ever finish the thing I'm working on now you'll give it a shot.
Second, so as not to hijack Gabriel's thread, I think that speaks to what I was saying about hate lacking empathy. I never hated Fall of Equestria, and part of the reason for that is that I understood it. I understood both where it came from in terms of fetish porn and what made the setting unique, while still seeing the damage it was ignoring. Several of the creative minds behind it came to me and commented on that at the time, and one of them I became close friends with. She's come to feel strongly against the setting, and she's commented to me that Though Hell Should Bar the Way is the story she wished she had written. She's similarly fond of Schorl's rebellion against the Fall canon.
That's what you can achieve with empathy that you can't get out of hate. Hate will let you lash out, and it will let other people who hate cheer you on, and it can get the thing you hate downvoted to oblivion. But empathy is what lets you connect with the people responsible and have actual conversations that help to change things.
4871226
It's funny you put it that way. Some of my classic stories in this fandom are actually inspired by things I hate. Half of Bad Apple's canon and more than a few parts of his universe are directly made to be counter to Objectivist ideals. The long string of Connie and Blueblood stories came out of my intense disgust with several Blueblood stories. Most of my Diamond Dog works were about how I disliked their usual treatment. Some throwaway characters are inspired by folks I think are pretty bad. As I said, hate is passion, and passion is pure. It's fuel that drives the creativity forward. If I felt nothing I wouldn't even bother writing. Zeal matters.
I have been affected by Fall, and that's another reason I write. Writing is actually a powerful way to purge existential or externally imposed angst. Watching the episodes became a chore because of the taint of this thing some people thought was a good idea. I'd be watching along and suddenly have a thought "Some idiot basement gremlin with a hard on and an account on /r/incels is going to may some merc with a pencil to draw them being whipped by either a racist depiction of a zebra or a Viking Nazi caribou." It's not always fun being creative. There's some truth to that old "artists are crazy" line. I know how my head is cracked, by and large. I almost have a handle on how to make it work. But there are always side-effects.
4871372
I have a lot of questions, but that always seemed inappropriate. No one online ever liked questions and seldom felt like giving answers. So I'll ask the most basic ones and see what happens.
What is it you understood about
The Miachael Bay remake of the sacking of Constantinoplea dumpster fire outside an MRA conventionthis whole Fall thing? We had this period in our own world. It wasn't masturbation fodder. It was a national tragedy. We fought a war over it. The fascist part wasn't masturbation material either. We fought a war over that too. If I felt like it I could go and play BJ Blascowitz tearing through their social equivalents, and feel it was a stronger story because at least stolen Da'at Yichud technology makes sense as a force multiplier. Just what do you see in slavery?Also... is empathy with people always the ideal? Okay, yes, if ideal is defined as the height of perfection. Is it always realistic or even desirable? Depends what your endgame is. Some ideals aren't so ideal for everyone. Slavery is great if you're a Caribou but not so hot if you're anyone else. The Commanders of Gilead probably like the system, but they're just antlerless Caribou with a different god. What benefit is there to hanging out with folks who think that's all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows? I'll admit there might be something there. I just haven't the least idea what it might be.
Also, see my other response. Hate can make some good things because hate is a tool, and a fuel. I think you missed that part of the journal. It's not a thing that makes, it's merely the impetus. I created a lot of things from hate, things I think you may have liked. Hate has merit. Hate can work.
4871026
Well thank you. That was the point. See other responses to help you realize I always have been. I just never attacked your personal hobbyhorse before. I hope you enjoy your racist fascist porn.
4872255
Question 1)
I've answered this question before, and if you have more questions on this I refer you back to your first blog post on Fall of Equestria, where you and Jake the Army Guy and I discussed it. But in short:
What do I like about slavery[1]? Humiliation, taunting, being in someone's control (keep in mind a number of people working on this MRA dumpster fire were, like me, women.) Same things I liked about your fic where the Power Ponies were being raped, or the (female penned) book that's my namesake, The Story of O. Historical context isn't really a thing when it comes to fetishes, or even emotions in general. Many women know that the events of Austen novels come about because women were second-class citizens who can't inherit land, yet Regency romances are popular in part because that creates emotional stakes in the romance outside of the norm.
[1] I mean, in theory. I'm a mother, I don't have time for games like that.
And at it's best, Fall had some fabulously creative fetish ideas and different takes on it for different characters. For someone who likes that, there was an appeal.
Fall also brushed over a lot, ignoring thing intrinsic to the setting of Equestria and the characters, and totally avoiding the actual emotional stakes because they would have been less sexy. That's what I set out to address, while understanding why people read it.
Question 2)
Whether empathy is worth pursuing comes down to one thing: are you ready to start shooting people?
There are only two ways to change someone's mind: reason with them or start up the violence, so you can brainwash them or kill them.
And sometimes, it is time to start shooting people! When people are enslaved, or being slaughered, those seem like fine times to start shooting people.
But otherwise, if you think a behavior is wrong and needs to stop, you need empathy to reason with people.
Hate and intolerance can absolutely produce great art! They can fuel art that is beautiful and meaningful! They will galvanize people who agree with you, and if you have enough of those people it can push the thing you hate right out of the market place, or even get it banned!
...it will still be out there. Because none of the people you hate saw the art you made, or if they did all they came away with is "he hates my art, he hates people with my fetishes, he hates me." And that does not make them more likely to rethink how they go about things. Quite the opposite.
Empathy doesn't mean agreeing, or even live and let live, it means being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to see what they see and know what they know. When you do that:
You can see the needs their conclusion fills, and offer them a better one.
You can point out how their conclusion damages things that are important to them.
In some cases (perhaps not full on nazis, but MRAs at least) you can see how something you thought was good is damaging them, and try to find a compromise or different path.
And, most importantly, you open the door for them to empathize with you, because you're offering them a scenario where neither of you are the "good guys" or "bad guys."
When people are dying or enslaved, I totally agree you don't have that luxury. Crank up the propaganda and pass the amunition. And when people aren't dying... hate feels good. It's fun to be the good guy battling hoards of nazis!
But when you hate things that people are thinking, empathy is the only way inside, where the problem is.
It's a problem the left in general has in the world today. They refuse to offer their enemies respect and empathy because they think their ideas will just die out. That's not how ideas work, and it's starting to bite them in the ass. Empathy now or guns later, those are your options in the end.
4872256
Ok, you see, I was kinda joking. But now you just go off and assume that I like the shit that you're bitching about, just because I'm not joining your circle jerk like the two other people here? tbh, I haven't even seen any of this zebra racism, let alone read it. At least, not anything that wasn't satirical. I'm sure it exists, and yes it's a problem, but I personally don't see it being prevalent enough to be cause for concern. See, there's a 10% of everything, in all things in life and people. You will never get rid of that 10%. And if there's 10% racist fanfiction, well, that's life. It sucks and then you die. Guess what? People are racist. The problem starts if/when there's more than 10% of something like that. Then sure, it's time to do something. Me personally? I don't see it. So yes, I'm being indifferent.
4872347
I suppose I'll never understand point one. And I'm surprisingly okay with that. I know people, personally, very close to me, who like outre things like (fictional) scat and cub art. I know I'm never going to see it their way, and that's okay with both of us. Well, one of the cub people is... He's odd even in that pool. Not that he's anything but charming, it's just a tough thing to reconcile since he's a very odd duck. I chalk up point one to what makes me a writer of any ability. I've not only been trained, the ol' cracked pate keeps the neurons hopping longer than it ought, leaving me incapable of ignoring all the consequences of that sexytime. Ever wonder why I focus so much on sensory details when discussing a Caribou controlled area? Aside from the value of demonstrating their callousness, I want to make sure all the logical conclusions are reached and noted. You have fascists with a superiority complex based on ethnic identity claiming lebenstraum. They have a vast population they can't reasonably feed, shelter or extract useful work out of if they do nothing but have sex. What else can they do but let famine and pestilence run rampant over them? Equestria and all conquered territories are under the thrall of all four horsemen of the apocalypse, by necessity. The refugees housed in rebel strongholds? Not sexy, but logical. The need to press quick attacks on the Caribou? Ditto.
As for two... You actually, most probably accidentally, created a false dichotomy. There's empathy, there's direct violence... and then there are firebrands. I appreciate the activism of Noah Lugeons and his compatriots Heath Enwright and Eli Bosnick, because they serve a useful purpose. As he says, himself, often and openly. "I'm an asshole." He admits it. He recognizes the atheist movement needs nice, friendly people with big smiles like Tom and Cecil, Marsh of the Merseyside Skeptics or P. Andrew Torres or to a lesser degree Seth Andrews and Tracy Harris but it is no less necessary to have people that aren't going to hold hands, or pull punches, or make tutting noises and say its okay. There are empathetic people, but there are also people who are afire with words. Noah, Heath, Eli, Aron Ra, Matt Dillahunty, Jeff Dee. Its okay to be that way. I like what a YouTuber named Martymer said regarding his feud with a woo-woo spiritualist. Paraphrased, he actually hoped that the guy would think "That SOB, I'll show him!" And in the process of trying, perhaps see the flaws in his position when he can't do or prove what he thinks he can. Many have also said the firebrand confrontational actions are for the audience, not always the interlocutor. They might think about it differently. While it's true, I DO believe it's possible to reason someone out of a position they never reasoned themselves into, I'm not necessarily the one to do it. Reason helped me out of many positions, from religion to fetish content. And maybe it might have gone faster with help (or maybe not; I'm not quite the Cheshire Cat but I'm not all stripes present either and holding hands is a tough sell) but it's at least feasable to run the gauntlet and come out the other side. That you are empathetic fills me with joy, and makes me think you could be a hand-holder. Life needs people like you, lots and lots of them. But, too, I think it needs people like me. I'm like a brillo pad sometimes. It's not pleasant, but I have an abrasive purpose. And I can't be too bad. Some people seem to like me. And I'll take that.
4872692
Actually, that's a very excellent point. Very well stated.
4872759
No, I get the firebrands. They are entertainment for people who agree with them (at best) and they provoke the people to violence (at worst.) They don't actually accomplish anything, but they're the most fun, both for people on their side to cheer for and for people on the other side to hate. (Remember, hate is fun for everyone! They have as much fun hating you as you have hating them! Whee!)
However, they actively harm social discourse, making it harder for people to get through with empathy, and are the people who march us to the ramparts and hand us the ammo. It's just a matter of which side shoots first, but that isn't something that's going to matter much to the people who catch the bullets.
I'm sorry, but I'm done with pretending firebrands are helping their cause. They are the people who got the world into the mess we're in, and when there's blood it will be on their hands, no matter which side they're on.
Edit: And trust me, my political affiliation has more assholes than any group I can think of (actually, except maybe atheists.) If the assholes ever helped anything, we wouldn't be a fringe party.
4872768
Mmm.
I'm still glad I know you. And I still love your empathy.