Can't sleep, so I apparently felt the need to write an essay on hate.

[butterfly]

Went back to check out fanfic_hate. The Buffy thread? Oh, wow, priceless. I don't agree with everything on there, but some of those comments are so true. I could never say any of them, because 'polite' was bred much more deeply in me than 'nice', and I don't think it's nice or polite to tell people that they suck as writers. Even if it's true.

Of course, the amusing thing is that even some of the writers that I agree are overrated are ones that I enjoy. They're the... Smallville's of fanfic. I watch SV for the pretty and shiny, not for brilliant dialogue or in-depth looks at ethical issues. I don't only read the wonderful and thoughtful stories.

These are stories that I would describe using the same sentence that I described Troy with -- It's not incredibly good, but it's wonderful fun (which it is, btw -- adore that movie).

Honestly, I'd like to repeat what I said earlier on this subject -- it can be good for people to have a place to vent their anger and frustration. The problem only occurs if people wallow in those feelings instead of moving on (which would be the reason that I left Television Without Pity -- ha, more like Whining Without Thought, most of the time).

Hurt feelings happen, though. Which sucks. I honestly don't know how I'd feel to see my name up on one of those threads. Probably, it would hurt. Feelings are feelings.

But that goes both ways. Just as writers are free to write whatever they wish in their stories, readers have the right to say whatever they like about those stories. They can say that they hate it, that the characterization sucks, and that is completely and totally true from their perspective.

Hate's one of the strong emotions. Hate's a motivator, powered by anger. Love would seem to be the logical opposing motivator, but it works in a completely different fashion, as it's powered by more passive sources, empathy.

Love's great and grand, but I've been thinking about hate recently. One of the biggest causes of hate is frustration (like the way I can sometimes hate the 'guests' that I serve at work). This is part of what seems to motivate the anons at fanfic_hate -- "why," they ask, "why do all these stories that I don't enjoy get pushed at me?" Everyone wants a hand-tailored fandom experience (I know that I do), so it's annoying when fandom doesn't match up with your wishes. This is true in fandom wars (from "Why is Ray Vecchio gone? I love him!" to "Why do the writers ignore Xander? I love him!") as well.

Jealousy is posited often, but I honestly think that jealousy motivates much less often than people think. This may, however, be because I myself am rarely motivated by jealousy (Do I feel it? Hell, yes. Does it get me to do anything or hate anyone? That would be the no.), and we often create generalized philosophies out of things that really only apply to us or to people raised in a similar situation (which would be where I firmly place Freud, who probably did have parental issues, but who had no right to act as if they applied to the rest of existence, also, I'd have loved to see him explain Electra and Opedius in the context of a gay child relating to their parents).

Because honestly? When I'm jealous of someone, I admire them. I realize that there are things about them that I want, and this causes me to get all green-eyed jealous (personal wank of the difference between envy and jealousy -- envious, you see something and want something like it; jealous, you see something and want just exactly that one thing and no other similar thing would do -- that's how I tend to use the words. To use a personal example, I am envious of my brother's new job, but not jealous. This is because while his job is his dream job, it would bore me to tears within a day. I just wish that I knew my own dream job and had it.). There's desire involved, which is completely different motivator (Hate's like south, Desire is north, Love is east, and Fear is west), though I believe more akin to hate than love is. I would place desire and hate as opposites, and fear and love on a different axis (one of my personal beliefs is that you can either work from fear or from love, that they are the two opposing actions in any given situation -- desire and hate provide the emotional information to base decisions off of).

Hate is the emotion of disliking something to the point of wanting it to disappear, whereas desire is the emotion of liking to the point of wanting more, now.

I called love 'passive' earlier, but that's not quite the right word. The reason that love doesn't work as the opposite of hate (for me, of course) is because hate is so clearly defined, whereas love can take so many forms. Fear, too, takes many forms. Love and fear are more versatile than either desire or hate. Fear can be a good thing, whereas I only advocate voicing hatred to get it out of the system (and if you're curious, I do actually talk like this in real life -- there are just more 'um's and 'like's, and I sometime speak so quickly that I stumble over words and pronunciations).

Acting on fear can occasionally be a good thing (ie staying the fuck away from a fire because it scares you), while acting on hate only breeds more hate. Acting on love is also a much safer bet than acting on desire. Hate and desire are there to provide motivation, and when used properly, can be very informative indeed. The trouble comes when action is taken based only on hate/desire feedback. That's where you get fanaticism of any stripe.

Huh. Did that end anywhere near my starting point?

In other news, there's a spider in my bathroom. Brown. Short legs. Haven't a clue what kind it is. Also, I've decided that I will update my website today. I have several things that need to be uploaded.

Though, first, I should probably beta a story that's been in my inbox since the weekend.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

That's v interesting. I agree with you on the take re jealousy vs envy -- that ties in with something I read long ago but can't quite remember now. But it was something like, envy is about something someone else has which you don't -- and jealousy, on the other hand, is about something you have and want to keep for yourself. So envy is like, "I want that thing I don't possess," but jealousy is "I want to keep this thing I do possess." If that makes sense.

The thing that squicks me out about fanfic_hate (besides the bad, bad spelling) is how fast it moves from "I hate the BabyVerse" (frex) to "I hate anything by writer X" to "I HATE writer X." And the "I HATE writer X" gets repeated often enough it makes me cringe. I mean, on a certain level it's just convenient to refer to authors as if they were their work -- "Do you like Tolstoy?" means do you like the books he wrote, not did you like the person. But by the same token it flips me a little bit when people invert it and make the person into the work, if that makes sense (probably not -- I've been up too long) and a fanfic they really hate gets turned into "GOD I hate this person."

Dumb thing to get squicked about, I know, but there it is. Plus, I haven't seen terribly much constructive writing criticism there -- it seems to be people mostly complaining about themes/situations they don't enjoy, and especially going after "famous" fanfic writers, which makes me think it goes back to envy actually (there! see how I made a nice little loop? Must go to bed. Much too tired).

Anyhow, I really liked what you had to say about hate, love, desire, &c.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

So envy is like, "I want that thing I don't possess," but jealousy is "I want to keep this thing I do possess." If that makes sense.

Complete sense. And, of course, jealousy is something that claims to be of love but is really of fear, whereas envy falls along the axis of desire/hatred.

The thing that squicks me out about fanfic_hate (besides the bad, bad spelling) is how fast it moves from "I hate the BabyVerse" (frex) to "I hate anything by writer X" to "I HATE writer X." And the "I HATE writer X" gets repeated often enough it makes me cringe.

That's the danger of these things. It's far, far to easy to slip from the specific to the general and from the object to the creator. The difference between disliking what Marti Noxon brought to Buffy and hating her for doing it.

I mean, there are authors that I just... can't read. I mean, they either suck or just hit all my off-buttons. But I can still like them. There isn't anything wrong with them as people.

Plus, I haven't seen terribly much constructive writing criticism there -- it seems to be people mostly complaining about themes/situations they don't enjoy, and especially going after "famous" fanfic writers, which makes me think it goes back to envy actually.

But they never promise to offer concrit. It's a community for readers, not for writers. I would love to see a community for writers, one that offered detailed concrit. But that would involved tearing stories apart, and fandom is... can often give the impression of being fragile. People don't want to hurt feelings. That's why most people are posting anon, after all. They don't want to burn bridges. Hell, I'm not posting there at all, for the same reasons.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Interesting thoughts.

For me, hate is largely a reactive emotion rooted in frustration. Frustrated aspiration. Frustrated desire. Frustrated ambition.

In the end, it's ultimately empty - because hate really only motivates us to destroy. And then you're left with a "and then what?" While it doesn't necessarily directly cause more hate, it creates more conditions of frustration from which more hate is likely to arise.

So mostly, I agree with you on that, except I felt like adding more words.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm always happy with more words.

But yes, hate is inherently destructive, because, well, it's about about seeing the flaws until they magnify to become all (of course, in many ways, desire is also destructive, in the sense of lifting up that pedestal until the fall would be fatal).

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

It could be a definition thing, but I view desire a bit more simplistically - I want that. It doesn't necessarily play out destructively, so we have to start looking into the "why desired" and "how manifested". Once you get to hate, it's pretty much all about destroying.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

But hate isn't always acted on either. It probably is a definition thing -- I think of both hate and desire as consuming -- they're both fire, but of different types.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yeah - this probably is definitions.

See, I have major slothful tendencies, so desire never has the same pull for me as other people. And the things I really do desire, enough that I go exert effort for, I want to last. Non-renewable means doing more work, and I try to avoid that.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I also have slothful tendencies, they just tend to skew the other way -- I can hate something, but I'll be far too lazy to so anything about it, whereas desire tends to get results.

[jic]

redredshoes, So envy is like, "I want that thing I don't possess," but jealousy is "I want to keep this thing I do possess." is the definition I use - and I frequently post it whenever I go off about how I will never again tolerate a jealous boyfriend. It's just so cool to see someone else use that definition, too!

butterfly, I think I need you to draw me a map. I like the concept of emotional axes, but I'm just not ready to decipher a verbal description today.

I think those people don't mind hurting feelings. If they really didn't want to hurt feelings, they wouldn't post hurtful statements. The deal is, people don't want to be blamed for hurting feelings. They don't want to be judged, even though they are judging someone else, and they believe anonymity will shield them from that judgment.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

It's kinda like this:

love
(y
-
a
desire -- (x-axis) -- hate
i
s)
fear

And we're all "y=" something. Each equation is unique to the individual that follows it, and they evolve over time.