Do we prefer to love or hate?

S

Sparrowsabre7

Za Warudo
I was reading the vast outpouring of loathing for the Transformers movies in light of the third’s release and I found myself wondering: Do we, as a species, find more enjoyment in hating something (or at least talking about hating something) than loving something?

You may scoff, but ask someone about a movie they love and they may say “Oh I love that film, it’s so great, I love the way it xyz” but ask someone about something they hate and often they will unleash a veritable smorgasbord of vehement hyperbole in expression of their hatred. Nothing ever could possibly compare in hatedom as this thing which they hate right at this very moment. Of course it should be noted that the single greatest “I hate x” speech of all time has already been written by Harlan Ellison in “I have no mouth and I must scream.”

Being a forum on the internet I thought this would be the ideal place for such discussion =P
 
"Studies such as this one, conducted by the Warsaw University of Technology, found that people are more inclined to comment online if they have negative feelings about something. Contented people will not comment, discontented people will complain. And the negative thread is likely to grow longer and more extreme if the subject: a.) is opinion-based, b.) is emotional content, and/or c.) has a large following or draw. Plus, adding the separation by the computer screen, people feel emboldened to speak freely and sometimes in a more exaggerated fashion."


The reason we complain?
"In the world, sometimes we forget that there is a constant give-and-take between “what you give” in exchange for “what you get.” At a clothing store, you may give money to get something to wear. In the garden, you may give time and care to get food. In a relationship, you may give love and commitment to get a caring partner. If one side of any of these equations fails to provide their part, the whole thing falls apart (or, in one case, someone gets arrested for shoplifting)."

The nice tie in to the transformers and the text above is that i pulled this from mike shinoda's (of linkin park) blog.

Ironic how i read something like this and moments later on the forums this thread appears, as if i was meant to read the blog to give the latter question :p enjoy anyway.
 
Mmm I did. I believe there's an expression saying that a satisfied customer will tell 5 friends, but a dissatisfied customer will tell 15, or something. The numbers are probably not accurate but the gist/ jist is there.

I always try to be a constructive and analytical when I complain about something, though I must confess this is not always the case.

Here is the hate speech if anyone's interested, it's quite a spectacular read. For context it's a computer talking about humanity:

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

Long and short of it: he doesn't like us very much =P
 
On this very forum I've waxed lyrical (or as lyrical as my linguistic skills allow) about many an anime that have moved or entertained me, but I can't deny that tearing something to shreds has its own special appeal. It's cathartic and, most importantly, fun.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
On this very forum I've waxed lyrical (or as lyrical as my linguistic skills allow) about many an anime that have moved or entertained me, but I can't deny that tearing something to shreds has its own special appeal. It's cathartic and, most importantly, fun.
Click to expand...

Iagree there is certainly a cathartic delight in articulating one's frustrations; certainly more constructive than punching a wall too.
 
I think quite a few people actually love to hate (on my phone here so I'll leave it to someone else to post the Erasure song). And by that I mean proper, burning hatred which actually lights a fire in us and makes us actively pursue change of the thing we hate.

Look at the political unrest in Greece for example. That could never be instigated by love. As John Lydon observed "Anger is an energy". Hate is aggressive, but love generally passive. Aggressively passionate love is probably the best counter to hate, but that's not easy to come by. Hate's a lot easier and you can hate alone.
 
Maxon said:
I don't know about the rest of the world, but us Brits are inclined to moan so most of us find it easy to hate.
Click to expand...

I shed a tear the day that "stiff upper lip, backbone and common sense" set sail, never to return to our shores again.
 
Maxon said:
I don't know about the rest of the world, but us Brits are inclined to moan so most of us find it easy to hate.
Click to expand...
I think there's a difference between proper hate and just being a miserable joyless git though (which is the bracket I'd put most Britons in).
 
Mutsumi said:
Humanity itself is more inclined to hatred, sadly.
Click to expand...
philosoraptor-10.png
 
Every time something is discussed in a staff room, there's always something to complain about. Whether it's a celebrity, a group of people or even a fellow workmate, gossip usually turns into voicing discontent. Most of these work mate related complaints are also two-faced observations as well, which makes me taste sourness in my mouth.
I guess that's why my conservations end short on satisfactory, because the only things I really complain about are badly-timed or uncontrollable events.

I doubt it's a British thing, as all humans have issues with someone else. I just hate the nit-picking approach we choose to do it in instead of being direct or just keeping it to yourself. That's probably my naivety or my stupidity wishing for such a simple outcome to arrive, but it's easy to talk about doing it and so rather than actually doing it.

Well, in irony, I guess I am the type that can complain more than promote something. Like I dont want to watch X-Men - 1st Class due to lack of interest in the prologue and the odd things (like Beast's look).
I would like to see what it would be like to live a different lifestyle/country and see if it is similar to ours. But that would be too idealistic to be worth the effort, wouldn't it?
 
ayase said:
Maxon said:
I don't know about the rest of the world, but us Brits are inclined to moan so most of us find it easy to hate.
Click to expand...
I think there's a difference between proper hate and just being a miserable joyless git though (which is the bracket I'd put most Britons in).
Click to expand...
Yes, but hate in the context of this thread is being a snarky asshole. There's a large difference between racial hate and hating a movie about CG robots blowing **** up.
 
I personally prefer to be as positive as possible, often to my own detriment, but if by "we as a species" you mean the general example of "kid with no job sitting around on internet forums" then yeah, I would guess hate.
 
Maxon said:
ayase said:
Maxon said:
I don't know about the rest of the world, but us Brits are inclined to moan so most of us find it easy to hate.
Click to expand...
I think there's a difference between proper hate and just being a miserable joyless git though (which is the bracket I'd put most Britons in).
Click to expand...
Yes, but hate in the context of this thread is being a snarky asshole. There's a large difference between racial hate and hating a movie about CG robots blowing **** up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess "positive vs negative" would've been a better way of phrasing it. I would say the average person almost certainly isn't "hate-filled" in the sense an extreme racist would be, it's more about the tendency to be negative than positive which I was commenting on, it's just that in being negative people often exaggerate their negativity with such hyperbole as to appear as though they hate something.
 
Yo, AUKN.

I saw Glee Live last night and ******* loved it.

I will see Transformers 3 soon and want to gouge my eyes out.

I'm undeniably complex like that. It's easier to pick apart and criticise where things go slightly wrong, too.
 
Back
Top