My brother from another mother, @ne_oublie5150, reminded me of how different Portuguese and American cultures use the verb “to hate”. This about his reply to my good morning post, today, in which I returned to the subject of hope versus hate.
I briefly replied to him, but it brought back memories of my life in Portugal, regarding how we comprehend and feel hate itself. Curiously, the same applies to the verb “to love”.
The cultural difference between the Portuguese and Americans are many, but I assimilated this particular one when learning English as a foreign language. Being able to speak English reasonably well from tender age, just by watching English language shows and movies, which are always subtitled in Portugal, my parents decided to enroll me in an English School when I was very young, so I practically learned Portuguese and English at the same time, academically speaking.
Not a word of Portuguese was spoken in those classes, it was a fully immersive language school, so my understanding of how English speaking people use and define “hate” and “love” were quickly reinforced, as I had noticed it quite obviously watching movies and TV series. It became second nature to me, as everything else related to the English language, and I still dream in both languages, though these days dreams in Portuguese are rare.
Patrick (@ne_oublie5150), mentioned his care when using “to hate” in a sentence, which goes along the lines of not giving way to such a feeling, as in its appropriate use. The inappropriate use is my point.
When speaking in Portugal, we are extremely reluctant to use “to hate” (and “to love”), not just because we value the exact meaning of those feelings, but because we have lots of words to express their less “valuable” variants.
In America, we “love” Coca-Cola and we “hate” Pepsi, we “hate” dogs and “love” cats, we go about hating and loving everything under the sun, without much thought. And this happens not for the lack of vocabulary, but for cultural reasons. And okay, also because the average vocabulary of an average American is like 200 words, thank you American Education System. But the truth is, culture is responsible for this banalization of hate and love.
The downside to this is how hard it is for people in Portugal to say “I love you”, not that we are cold hearted folk, we’re just very careful about it. We compensate by being extremely affectionate, and using body language to express warmth, rather than words. But when a Portuguese says he loves you in the mother tongue, you better believe he or she loves you a lot more than he or she loves Coke. And it’s serious.
Same goes for hate. Portuguese find it hard to hate small and big things, but when we say we hate someone or something in Portuguese, you bet we really hate it. We don’t “hate” rain, we hate Nazism. Perhaps the best illustration of this cultural difference is the use of those verbs in question form, like “Don’t you just hate snow?”, or “Don’t you love that movie?” Erm… Come to think of it, you don’t really “love” movies, or “hate” snow. But don’t you just love to say it?
This is not going away. It is what it is. If you think I am bashing American culture for this one aspect of it, you’re wrong. But it deserves some thought, when it comes to hate itself, and how we perceive it in America. It’s a trivial thing, almost like an afterthought, permeating society at all levels. How easy Americans find to hate. And I am not talking about linguistics now. I am talking about feelings. Words may deceive you, and it’s easy and cheap to say “I love you”.
It’s also too easy and cheap to say “I hate you”, of course, but while most people seem to know the difference between loving a cat or loving a person, many see no difference in hating Pepsi or hating someone. Very recently, a lot of dumb people hated Bud Light so much they shot palettes of it with AR-15s, which they also do when they hate people. They shoot them with AR-15s too. Hate comes easy, and dies hard.
My reluctance in using the verb “to hate”, in English, started when I came to live in America. I stopped saying I hate things, left and right. At first I didn’t realize why, but then it hit me. Unlike in Portugal, hate in America is a very big problem. It’s like a disease without a name. It’s like an unfamiliar scent you can’t identify but smell everywhere. It’s all around us.
I first felt it as happening towards immigrants, then towards people who are not white, then towards people who are different, and finally, to tip the scale, hate towards Jews.
I know all kinds of hate towards people are wrong, but for some reason, hate towards Jews is the one that really bothers me. Maybe because I was so affected by the Shoa, as a child. Maybe because it reminds me of Nazism.
In any case, I stopped using “to hate” all together, when referring to ordinary things I just dislike, or talking about people I can’t stomach, or ideas I despise. I reserve hate for things I really do hate, like racism, fascism, and antisemitism. Those I really do hate. But I can’t bring myself to hate people. Maybe because I would happily destroy a vicious idea that I truly despise, but I find no joy in the destruction of human beings, no matter what they believe in.

Which brings me to hope over hate, again.
I do hate the fanaticism of those who today represent the most significant threat to the world as we know it. The Islamic Jihadists. But I don’t hate them. I despise them. Hate is a blinding feeling. When applied to ideas it forces you to be ruthless in the pursuit of their undoing. But you don’t want to feel that way about people.
If you do, you will lose your humanity, and you rarely come back from that. Mainly because you will no longer be able to tell the difference between right and wrong, Justice and revenge. And because if you commit excesses against an ideology, you can correct them, but if you lose your mind against people, and end up causing their death, you can’t bring them back. And no matter how sorry you are after, you will pay a terrible price for it.
So please try not to hate. Even if you just love to hate pineapple in pizza. Try not to. Sooner than you think, easier than you expect, it won’t be the pineapple in the pizza you’re hating, but the person who likes it. Don’t be a hater.
Also, try to love people, not pizza. Pretty soon you will find out that you can live without pizza, but some people you really need in your life.
It’s 5:55 am in Jerusalem.
Good night, and good luck.
