This essay interprets the concept of hate attracting hate as a method. This doctrine suggests that negativity breeds negativity. While it may be true that hate does often attract hate, we must remain tolerant enough to understand that this will not always be the case. Only the bigoted will assume that only one path is right, irrelevant of outside influence and candour. While questions may lead to more questions, only an answer can stop a question. So, does hate attract hate?
To analyse hate as a method means to examine it at all stages and with all purposes in mind. Also, the distinction must be made between the attraction and the path – do we wish to be surrounded by hate, or does a feeling of hate lead to more feelings of hate? Both concepts are analysed further throughout. Also, what is the medium being used? If a person once feels hate, are they predisposed to feeling it more frequently? Is hate contagious? As a means, are people more susceptible to feeling hatred, due to the advanced nature of their being? What is the method that dictates hate as a dogma and a feeling?
As people, do we experience hate because we are capable of feeling and expressing emotions, such as hatred? It is, however, futile to examine hatred on its own. Does love attract love, for example? Or in other words, does positivity breed positivity and negativity lead to negativity? What is the difference between leading to and attraction? Things can lead to other things just by existing, but attraction operates through desire and want. When something leads to another, it is an accident or a premeditated instant; attraction is immediate want and choice. Even by examining my own life, with only myself as evidence, I can say with conviction that positivity and negativity (or love and hate) intermingle, though I will say that they can influence themselves in the emotions of the individual. They are not finite emotions; they do not dictate continuance but they do predispose us to it.
If a person is inclined to being negative, they will find themselves feeling more hate than a positive being. They may attract others who also feel hate. Negative people may like surrounding themselves with like people because they would not want to be confronted by a positive nature, and therefore a positive version of what they could be but are not. It may be like looking in a mirror that makes you feel ugly beyond measure. Feeling ugly might push a person to hate. They hate what they cannot be. In that sense, hate is a practice that we attract if we allow ourselves to feel it. To step outside of this application, people must try to exchange hate for love, and negativity for positivity.
While this sounds easy, many people fail in this respect. It takes more effort than might be imagined to forgo the habit of hate to cultivate love. When anything becomes habit, it becomes difficult to efface a change of mind and heart. This method of hate becoming hate is based on an oversimplification of habit. As a people we become accustomed to negativity ourselves and being surrounded by negativity in others. We resist questioning it, and without questioning it we can never change it. We are doomed to feel hate because we are too lazy to change. This method of hate can be broken, with little effort but much resolve. Once a person decides to change, hate cannot stop them and it will reduce. Motive is after all the most effective medium for overcoming hate. People decide, whether consciously or unconsciously, if they want to feel hate or not and if they want to attract hate or not. It only takes a moment, but hate is one of those emotions that may be predetermined or absolved.
If we think of hate as a posteriori, where one thing leads to another, specifically in the case of hate leading to hate – where you have to have experienced hate to feel it and know it – we must still suppose that there was once a moment in time with no hate, which would be a priori. Logic seems to dictate that hate was introduced when things were able to feel. So once people evolved into thinking, feeling things, they had the capacity to hate. Without this evolution, hate could not exist. Thus, the world has evolved from an instance without hate to one with hate and yet more instances of hate must continue to follow, now that hate exists. As people we like to surround ourselves with like beings, so, in that sense hate does attract hate and only a conscious decision can change that. Although it begins on a tangent, hate will often continue to exist once it has begun. It could be also said to exist in sequence, but such a sequence may be broken here and there – if you learn one thing from life let it be that human nature is prone to exceptions.