Does Hate Make Life Worth Living?

Lately this thought has been more and more frequent in my mind. As I continue with my schooling I find myself at odds with certain moments in man's narration. There are many times in world history when bad things, what some may even call evil, occur without any resistance. Edmund Burke is attributed, but did not likely say or write, (see http://tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html for a complete breakdown of why,) "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," or something to that effect. My problem is that I don't think the world would be better off without "evil." I think that this "evil," a blanket term which could be used to describe anything unpleasant towards ones perspective, is all that keeps us going.

It may seem off topic from the title, but it is really only a short digression for the purpose of clarification. When we think of evil, do we ask ourselves, "What good will come of this?" No, because evil is by our definition, not good -- the opposite of good, in fact. And yet, when it is all said and done, we cherish the bad occurrences. The maxim, "Out of every cloud a silver lining," can always be applied. In summary, we loathe evil, yet do not hesitate to praise the good it brings.

At first glance this appears to be a contradiction. In reality they are sewn so tightly together that without one, we would cease to have the motivation to exist. What is darkness but the absence of light? Death is the absence of life. "Cold" is created when an environment is made void of the moving particles which generate heat. That is why we measure cold in negative degrees -- counting backwards from the hottest temperature. Furthermore, pleasure could not exist without a concept of pain. If pleasure or pain existed independently, we would never be able to decipher which one we were feeling. If I was always happy, I could never be sad or even know what it is; happiness loses its meaning if we can not know any other emotion.

So psychologically, happiness must be the absence of sadness, or vice versa. Answering this question brings us closer to concluding if life is always worth living. I have heard that life is always better than death, that the natural human tendency is to live (hence when a baby is born it instinctively tries to breathe), and that if given the choice between life and death, people consistently choose life. Why? I'm not saying that living is bad, but why do we continue to choose it over death?

The example I would like to use concerns American prisoners of war in the Korean conflict. Many documented accounts of torture can be verified by this travesty in history. In one story, the American P.O.W. has every bone in his body broken, becomes sick with various diseases, is starved of human interaction, food, water, and hope of escaping. Yet, this man does not cave -- he refuses to give the Koreans vital war time information which he possessed. More amazing is that he never succumbed to the promise of ending it all. Why?

This man was a Judeo-Christian. He believes in a paradise called heaven which can only be reached when he dies. So, considering he had no surviving family, no romantic interest, and watched his fellow soldiers be executed, what did he have to lose by letting his captors kill him? It would seem as though he may actually have the promise of gaining something -- namely the promise of peace, rest, and "heaven." What kept this man going, was hatred. He was consumed with a vengeance that would not be satisfied until he ripped the beating hearts out each of his torturers. It was hate, not love or hope or promises of every kind of happiness imaginable, that kept this soldier alive.

One more digression: The tale of a man, and the death of his parents. This man had a very caring mother who adored him; and a father who held his son in extremely low regards. He loved his mother beyond compare -- but loathed his father with a great hate. One day news passes that his mother has a died (natural causes I'm sure). When he attends the funeral he is surprised that he is unable to weep, in spite of his great loss. Time passes and the man is made aware of his father's death. He reluctantly attends the funeral. During the service though, he finds that he can not stop from bawling. He is completely overcome with tears.

The lesson is about the power of love versus hate. When his mother died it was a travesty, no doubt. But his love for her is not what kept him motivated. I theorize that this is because "love" from our parents is implied to be a given, an automatic -- something the mother didn't even have a choice in. She had a son, and was now obliged to give him affection. However, the father did not feel so bound, and as a consequence fostered hate and resentment between himself and his seed. The son cries at his father's funeral because he has lost his hate. As humans we constantly are searching for something to hate -- someone to blame. If we lost our hate, we would be forced to analyze things in their actuality, not just the way we choose to filter them. When the father dies, the son can clearly see the wasted time and "bad blood" which has consumed his emotions in regards to his father.

Such is the human struggle as well -- the answer to is life always worth living? We can not conclusively say that one is better than the other, unless we have experience in both fields. Otherwise it no more than a mere guessing game. But we can note without hesitation, that equal and opposite forces are constantly at odds in nature. Naturally occurring disease destroys forests, heat from the sun dries up rivers, lions eat flamingos, and flamingos eat shrimp. While the sun can destroy, no life can exist without it. This balance is true with all things.

Like light and dark; hot and cold; pleasure and pain; love can not exist without hate. Separating the Yin from the Yang is not only impossible, but foolish to attempt. Without hate, we cease to have reason to be alive. Without reason, we lose motivation. Without motivation, we would all become the pointless blobs depicted in some many futuristic doomsday fantasies. But thanks to hate, that will never happen.