The Role of Propaganda in Instigating Hate
Robert J. Sternberg, Karin Sternberg · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2008
Hate is not inherent in human relationships. Humans do not hate from earliest childhood. When young children grow up, they do not necessarily come to hate playmates that take away their toys or parents that punish them for certain actions. Neither do they necessarily dislike children that look different from themselves and who sometimes behave strangely according to customs they do not know. Children do not hate the people of other countries they visit on their vacations. Sometimes, however, people do develop feelings of hate. They might feel hatred toward their ex-spouse when a close relationship fails. They might feel as if the other person wronged them, did not care enough about them, or made unreasonable requests that they could not or did not want to fulfill. Take, for example, the husband whose wife has left him for another man: He is now permitted to see his two young children only twice a month for a restricted amount of time, and his sizable monthly alimony payments have put an end to his formerly comfortable lifestyle. Such a man might, even understandably, develop some feelings of hatred toward the woman who did this to him. Then there is the woman who was raped, severely wounded, and left to die alone in a dark alley. She can no longer cope with the demands of her life: She has continual nightmares that prevent her from sleeping enough; she's exhausted and cannot concentrate at work, so her employer lets her go.