I Hate, Therefore I Am — How Hatred Has Become the New Social Glue

I first stumbled across this idea in the New York Times — the notion that in today’s culture, hatred is everywhere. It struck me because, not long after, I saw it play out in real life.

It happened at a recent gathering. Fueled by a bit of wine, I found myself saying something mildly positive about Elon Musk. I mentioned Starlink and said, “Well, it’s still an impressive project.”

The reaction? My colleague — a fellow professor — looked at me as if I had just kicked his beloved dog.

Why?
Because in my circle — people who shop at Whole Foods, compost religiously, and respect gender pronouns — we don’t just dislike Musk. We outright despise him.

The Seductive Clarity of Hate

Human beings are messy.
We are full of contradictions — love and loathing, generosity and selfishness, hope and cynicism — all swirling together in a constant internal debate. But hatred has a strange way of erasing that messiness. It wipes the slate clean. Suddenly, everything feels simple. Hatred gives us clarity, a single point of focus, and, perhaps most dangerously, a sense of belonging — even if that belonging is built entirely on what we reject rather than what we embrace.

When you hate something — or someone — you instantly know where you stand. You share a bond with others who feel the same. You have an identity, defined not by what you create, but by what you oppose. That clarity is seductive. It feels like purpose.

The Kindling We Keep Stacking

But hatred is also like piling up dry kindling in your backyard. You tell yourself it’s harmless — “It’s just something I say online,” “It’s just a joke between friends,” “It’s just blowing off steam.” You convince yourself you can control it. Yet history has shown again and again that all it takes is a single spark to ignite a wildfire.

For now, certain “safety nets” — a relatively stable economy, personal comforts like a safe home or a big-screen TV — keep that blaze in check. But what happens if those nets disappear? What happens when financial instability, political chaos, or social collapse removes the dampers that keep our anger at a low simmer?

The honest answer is: we already know. We’ve seen it in history, in countries where frustration turned into movements, and movements into mobs. And the spark that lights the fire is often smaller than anyone expects.

Is Love Really the Answer?

The obvious solution sounds almost cliché: return to love. Love your enemies. Love your neighbor as yourself. Fill the void with compassion instead of contempt.

But let’s be honest — in a culture so saturated with resentment, fear, and tribalism, that’s far easier said than done. Love demands patience, vulnerability, and trust — all of which feel like luxuries in an age of constant outrage.

A Different Approach — Question Identity Itself

Maybe the answer is not simply to replace hate with love, but to loosen our grip on identity altogether. We live in a time when everyone feels pressured to define themselves — to have a brand, a label, a stance on everything. But what if we gave our “self” a break?

Poet John Keats called this negative capability — the ability to live in uncertainty, mystery, and doubt without rushing to nail down conclusions. It means resisting the urge to sort every experience into “for” or “against.” It means allowing yourself to see the world through multiple lenses, like Shakespeare, instead of only one.

Emily Dickinson offered an even sharper critique of our identity obsession. We shout our names into the void, desperate for recognition — but the crowd we seek it from is just as ordinary, just as insecure, and just as lost as we are. Sometimes the wisest move is simply to slip away quietly, to step outside the game entirely.

Philosopher Michel Foucault took it further, reminding us that even the concept of “man” is a temporary cultural construction — like a figure drawn in sand, destined to be washed away by the tide. When that tide comes, it’s not an ending. It’s an opening, a chance to start again without the heavy baggage of old definitions.

Stepping Out of the Cycle

Defining ourselves by what we hate may feel powerful in the moment — it’s fast, it’s easy, it’s intoxicating — but it traps us in a cycle of division. The more we hate, the more our identity depends on keeping that hate alive.

Breaking free means stepping back from the compulsion to constantly craft and advertise an identity. It means exploring other ways to explain who we are — ways that aren’t chained to our resentments.

And maybe, just maybe, if we can let go of the need for that seductive clarity, we’ll find that hatred was never essential to our sense of self in the first place.