Love and hate

People often talk about falling in love. People don't decide to love, it's just something that happens to them, beyond their volitional control. Love used to be depicted by a little fat kid with a quiver and a bow, who would shoot people when they weren't looking, as a way of emphasizing that the lover is really a victim, not a willing perpetrator. Hate, on the other hand, is always something that one must choose to do, and therefore take responsibility for it. There is no "falling into hate." Why not? Why can you not meet someone, and as you get to know them better, fall desperately, passionately in hate with them? It makes as much sense. What about hate at first sight? We talk about love at first sight and the connotation is that someone just can't help feeling a certain way about a person when they meet for the first time, that this feeling is instantaneous and largely beyond the control of the person. Hate at first sight, however, is unacceptable. We simply do not allow it to exist. How can you hate someone that you don't even know, based on appearances? So, there is obviously a discrepancy in our world view about how we compare love and hate. How can we resolve the cognitive dissonance?

1. Abandon the idea that love and hate are really opposites on the same dichotomy. This makes rational sense, as we can then discuss love and hate as completely separate and unrelated phenomena. It would also make them independent, so whether you love someone has absolutely no effect on whether you hate the same person.
2. Take responsibility for love. If we choose to continue recognizing love and hate as opposite ends of the same dichotomy, then the same rules should apply to both, and so therefore, we must be held responsible for who we choose to love.
3. Acknowledge the legitimacy of hate. If we choose to recognize love and hate as opposite ends of the same dichotomy, AND retain the notion that you are unable to control the objects of your affection, then the only remaining conclusion is to also accept that we are not responsible for who or what we hate, and that in order to get along with people, we accept hate as part of ourselves and others, and hope to conceal it as best we can.

With respect to option 3, I think it is significant that you can be acquainted with someone for years and years and, so long as they talk only of things that they like or love, you never really know them. However, when, in private moments, someone confides in you their most secret hatred, only then do you really think you know someone. Think of all the people you really know well. You know what they like, but you also know what they hate. Now think of the people you are marginally acquainted with. You probably can list several things that they like, but how much of their dislikes do you know? Most likely, when someone tells you their dislikes, they are accepting you as a friend and hoping that you accept them for who they are and not who they pretend to be in public. Hate is usually kept secret, and so the sharing of secrets is a kind of intimacy, though an intimacy based on hatred alone is poisonous to the soul.