david on hate

david graeber on hate.. via nika dubrovsky here:

In the text about hatred and love, David writes that we must take sides in conflict, hate those with whom we disagree. 
But this also means continuing the conversation. 
Hate, like love, is communication. https://t.co/53xDhsv0es

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nikadubrovsky/status/1478688763572363266

I want to share with you a new David’s text that I found not long ago. I plan to publish it as part of collection of texts from one of my favorite projects of the past year: the Fight Club, that I was lucky to work with Steve Keen and Michael Hudson and more people joined us later on. I wish I would have read it while David was alive. The text is about “hatred,” but really it is about love. Everything in this text down to the last line is a detailed and accurate description of how David lived his life, how he related to his friends, his colleagues, and to me. David was never afraid to take side in a conflict. He would never say, “it’s their business,” “I’ll stand aside,” “don’t get involved,” or “let them sort it out.” And he always had plenty of time to sort things out with me. Some day I will write about this more. The text is a good one, but it is not a good one. It has “hatred” in his title, but really it is about love. 

notes/quotes from her post of his words .. – Hatred has become a political taboo. – on patreon:

many were entirely justified. Indeed, hatred for a cruel and unjust ruler could even be considered a civic virtue

In fact, if you really think about it, the universal taboo over any expression of hatred in political life actually has the effect of validating this sort of manipulation. As I mentioned, politicians nowadays (unlike those in the past) are expected to pretend that they feel no personal hatred for anyone. But what sort of person can exist within a world of constant rivalry, scheming, and betrayal, and not hate anyone? There are only two real possibilities: one would either have to be a saint, or an utter cynic. No one really imagines politicians are saints. Rather, by maintaining the superficial pretense of sainthood, they simply prove the depths of their cynicism.

thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman

It’s significant that this logic only applies on the political level. After all, the very idea of a “crime of passion” largely exists to justify male violence against women in domestic situations. Any realistic analysis of the way that power works in our society would have to begin by acknowledging that such passions, and the fear and terror they create in their victims, are the very foundation of those larger systems of structural violence which uphold inequalities of all kinds (including those ostensibly covered by “hate crimes.”) Yet, domestic violence is never, itself, considered a “hate crime.” Passions only make crimes worse when they take place in an explicitly political context. At home, they are an exonerating circumstance.

It would seem there are only two universally recognized exceptions to the taboo on hatred. These are telling in themselves.

1\ “consumer hatred.” It is acceptable to express hatred, even passionate hatred, for things that others consider desirable, but you do not: for Boy Bands, UGG shoes, the films of Coen brothers, for mushrooms or anchovies on pizza. This of course is entirely in keeping with the general principle that passions are to be confined to domestic affairs and not to politics.

2\ hatred of criminals. It is permissible to hate those who cause pain and suffering by violations of the law. But even here, perhaps because we are in an ambiguous zone moving from the personal to public sphere, it is rarely explicitly framed as “hatred”. . until, that is, one realizes that we are dealing with a kind of pornography of hatred, where the moral virtue of empathizing with one who has suffered provides an alibi for the vicarious experience of feelings one would otherwise have to treat as profoundly reprehensible.

We would do well, I think, to learn a little from the ancient world. Hatred of injustice can be a form of virtue.

We need to acknowledge that many forms of hatred can be a positive social force: hatred for work, hatred for wealth, hatred for bureaucracy, hatred for militarism, nationalism, cynicism, and the arrogance of power.

but that sucks our energy.. like creative refusal ness

And that in many circumstances, this will also mean hatred for individual bosses, tycoons, bureaucrats, generals, and politicians, and a rich feeling of accomplishment when one knows one has earned their hatred. *To absolutely exclude hatred from politics, is to rip the fiber out, to deny the main motor of social transformation, ultimately, to reduce it to a flat plane of hopeless cynicism.

what we need to let go of is the whole realm of politics.. us & them ness et al

It is also to exclude any real possibility for a politics of redemption.

we just need a nother way to live.. all these sound counter.. energy sucking

Without the existence of hatred, love is meaningless.. Real love, the only kind genuinely worthy of the name, is a kind of dialectical overcoming. It only becomes possible at the point where one comes to understand the full reality of one’s beloved, which necessarily, means encountering even those qualities one finds infuriating, loathsome, or detestable. For surely, if you know enough about anyone, you will find something in them that you hate. But it’s only when one encounters that, and decides nonetheless to love them anyway, that we can talk of love as an active, redemptive, and powerful force. And some element of hatred, however small, must always remain there for this to continue to be true. Real love can only be love if it conquerors hatred, but not by annihilating but by containing and transcending it, and not just once, but forever.

hmm.. i don’t know.. i think that’s whalespeak.. i think we have no idea what legit free/natural people are like

There are profound lessons here, I think, for the practice of solidarity, mutual aid, and direct democracy. Traditional communities, we are often told, can come to collective decisions by consensus, or engage in forms of mutual support and cooperation, because they are relatively small, intimate groups with common sensibilities; this would not be possible, supposedly, for larger, impersonal bodies assembled in contemporary metropolises. But anyone who has spent any time in such a small, intimate community knows that they are also riven with deep and abiding hatred. If you think about it, how could it be otherwise? Coming to a public meeting in a village means trying to come to a common decision in a group which contains everyone who has ever insulted one’s mother, seduced one’s spouse or lover, stolen one’s cattle, or made one look ridiculous in front of one’s friends. Yet they are, generally speaking, able to do it anyway. This overcoming of communal hatred is the concrete manifestation of collective love. It is far, far more difficult to achieve than an impersonal decision amongst those who know little about each other, beyond the fact that they are united in opposition to something else. A true geography of revolutionary groups, then, would begin, not imagining groups based on some *perfect, idealized solidarity (and then bewailing the fact that they don’t really exist), but rather, by mapping out the lines within which such webs of hatred have been, and continues to be, actively overcome, through practices of solidarity, and across which (justifiable) hatreds cannot be overcome without transforming their fundamental institutional basis—whether those be the organization of workplace, government bureaus, or patriarchal families. Once we stop seeing hatred as something to be ashamed of, it will simply become obvious that even the deepest, most personal, hatreds can be overcome within relations of solidarity—in fact, are overcome, on a daily basis, in any social group that isn’t entire dysfunctional—which, in turn, will make it obvious that once those institutional structures are destroyed, no human being will remain beyond redemption.

yeah.. i think those are all whalespeak as well.. distracting us from org-ing around legit needs et al.. any form of democratic admin

*but they do.. we just haven’t let go enough (haven’t had the means for large amts of whales to detox et al) to see..

what we need is a means to undo our hierarchical listening so that we can org around legit needs (aka: deep solidarity)

ie: imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch in 8b souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data to connect/coord us..

there is a nother way..

sans the need for hate to help us love

rhythm of love.. sparks love-hate law.. the power of love.. et al

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