You have heard it said, “Hate has no home here.” But I say to you, make a home for hate your heart. Hate heartily that which is hateful, including, yes, hate itself of any human being.
This is, I admit, merely a prescriptivist’s kvetch, since at some point somebody certainly did sneak a definition into the word “hate” that appears to mean “hostility and aversion based on category of human, such as skin color or sexuality.” But this new definition must not be permitted to elbow out its very useful precursor, that is, simply, “intense or passionate dislike.” Hate, defined as such, is, like trust and guilt, a very good thing—a virtue, even—when its is justly pointed. (I don’t need to point out the same about love, although the inverse is worth saying: Love is a very bad thing when it is unjustly pointed.) And there are plenty of things good and right to hate: ecocide, betrayal, unjustified violence, selfishness, and so on.