The Joy of Hate

The hot book of 1972 was Alex Comfort’s “The Joy of Sex.” In 2025, “The Joy of Hate” might top the charts.

In the words of James Baldwin, I’m horrified at America’s “moral apathy,” the degree to which unthinkably vile behaviors are now normalized. Baldwin, of course, was speaking from the perspective of a black man, witness to near genocidal hatred on the part of white America, but his sentiments remain apt today as forced deportations, gender hysteria, and the militarization of ordinary life are executed through hateful cruelty.

The Joy of Hate might be the subhead in the story of America. From Native Americans, to blacks, Irish, Japanese, Chinese, gays and illegal immigrants, targeting specific groups of people to hate is a national pastime, but it’s been a long time since it’s been the official, articulated policy of the United States government. But here we are; videos of masked ICE agents beating suspected illegals on mopeds are watched by millions on TikTok. The public display of hate has become a national spectacle worthy of Caligula, Ancient Rome’s famously twisted Emperor.

Hate is, arguably, among our strongest emotions. It’s no coincidence that it’s mirror opposite is love, the other powerhouse in our emotional arsenal. Like love, hate energizes, focusing the mind and hitting the body with a fix of adrenaline. Repeated frequently, people become hate junkies, seeking objects of hatred that stimulate a rush of excitement. Some like to share their excitement; public lynchings were a popular civic event and Adolph Hitler described Americans as “the world’s foremost rope and lamppost artists.” When the love of hate becomes entirely internalized, hate hermits emerge, psychotic loners who, like school shooters, find relief through violence.

At some point in human evolution, hate had value. I’d like to believe it was while hominids roamed the savannah, but history says otherwise. The world continues to be vexed by savagery, as if humanity must continuously fight for survival. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years of fighting for survival has turned humanity into the world’s apex predator. We want to dominate nature and the living system of earth’s plants and animals, even to conquer death, but in the process, we prey on each other. The joy of hatred, it seems, is too powerful to relinquish. It even feels right to hate the haters.

Our other powerhouse emotion is fear, and it is from fear that hatred emerges. Fear may be the most primitive emotion of all, the impulse that keeps us on our toes, the fear of not surviving. Deeper than instinct, fear is biologically hard-wired into our limbic system; it’s an automatic survival reflex as unthinking as pulling a finger from a hot stove. And that’s the nature of hate: hot.

Hot, of course, is also associated with love, and particularly sex. “The Joy of Sex” was a hot best-seller in its day, but times have changed. Fewer people read for pleasure today than in the past, or so says The New York Times.” Books are so passe. Today’s currency of communication is not word-based, but image based. We have entered a post literate age of image/emotion, a regression to symbolic culture akin to those that produced cave paintings, voodoo dolls, curses, fetish objects, Devil worship, and belief in the supernatural. Fasten your seatbelts. Benighted darkness is just ahead. Next stop: The Twilight Zone.