That which arouses hatred, in my little world, breaks down into three categories: things that offend on principle; things that cause inconvenience; things that violate my sense of self. Moreover, in my little world, things rank in that order, from least to greatest, in meriting response. To be more clear, the things that offend me on principle deserve a measured and principled response. Those things that have violated my sense of self... well, if I feel like causing them physical harm, at least I'm too lazy to have done so, so I still get to call myself a "nice girl".
Religion becomes an evil, in my little world, when it makes people throw this little heirarchy out of order. When people start feeling things that offend on principle as personal violations, they start doing the violating. Then, they get all confused and hurt when everyone doesn't think they're all cool for deeply hating on principle. This offends me on principle.
Another thing that offends me on principle and thus I hated happened on a highway in Costa Rica, close to the Pacific Coast. I saw a great big billboard that read "Sex with children under eighteen? We will pursue you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law." Not a translation; it was the only sign I saw in English that didn't need a grammar check. I hated that it had to be in English.
Shame overwhelms me when I think that there are Americans who believe themselves so powerful that they indulge their perversions in developing countries. When a child molester goes overseas to sate his vile hunger, he declares that not only is he more powerful than the child, he is more powerful than the adults in that nation who are there to protect that child. And it all offends me on principle.
My response, therefore, should be principled. I have to do what I can to protect those children, but I also have to fight equally hard to protect the rights of that vile molester. He has the right to an attorney, and to measured punishment rather than death or disfigurement. And he has the right to try to reform himself, to repent. When I reason it out, with principles, I realize that it would actually hurt him more to have to reform. He would have to say, meaningfully, I am no more powerful, no better, than anyone in this whole world. I must seek relationships that give respect and space to both partners. That is my place in the world. That might just kill him.
Things that cause me personal inconvenience make me say "Oh I hate when that happens." I do. I hate it. These are the things one does better push aside and forget. When I'm cut off by the guy who doesn't use his turn signal, I have to look at this thing from his point of view. He didn't turn signal, which is a mistake, and he should be corrected for it, but it doesn't merit my passion. That I must save for relationships. And when you violate my sense of self, you have created a relationship that will never die.
Hence I say with deep conviction that I hate several of my ex-boyfriends with a deep and abiding hate that I will carry with me into Hell as I might carry a worn and cherished teddy bear to my crib. Oh, how boring, another angry chick who hates a guy just because he didn't want to commit. No, no. Not just another angry chick. I hate a series of men who had a very real sickness in common, one that doesn't let them see a woman as anything but a pet, an accessory, or as one so eloquently put it, offsite memory.
They were each of them very surprised when I ended those relationships. Violation of a woman's person was so deeply ingrained in their psyches that they couldn't imagine a woman hating it. One couldn't imagine that I'd hate having my arm twisted behind my back whenever I said "no" to anything. Another couldn't get his head around a woman's hating story after story about how awful most women are, and her lack of delight to redeem the whole race for him. Still another didn't calculate the effect the sum of daily castigations would have on the emotional accounting. But I added all this up, and when I ended things, I ended them badly, encorporating betrayal, lies and humiliation into each one.
Not consciously, no. I didn't know why I cheated. Now I do. It was payback. And they earned it.
Cheating is perfect retribution, for cheating emphatically states that a person is replaceable. The cheated on isn't so important as he once thought. When you cheat you shake the very foundations of his world that is built upon the premise that he holds dominion out of a divine right. When you cheat, it is a sudden correction to a world where all approach all others in a sense of respect and gratitude, and consequences follow in the wake of respect and gratitude deficits.
And I hate myself for cheating because I had to cheapen myself to do it. Intellectually I know that the molested twelve-year-old Tico feels as I do, and deserves that moment and that correction. That little boy or little girl will want and need that retribution as much as I did. It would be righteous anger appeased. Principle demands more of me, the party not offended.
When people give this righteousness to acts taken against that and those offensive on principle, principle becomes the source of evil. That I cheated was evil, but I did it to those who had personally violated me. It begins and ends in my little world. To bring this energy to those who have done nothing to you, personally, that evil poisons a much bigger place. And innocent people get hurt. And I hate that.