Righteous Hatred
Almost every social media platform and every diversity, inclusion and equity corporate training has a policy against ‘hate speech’. Hate speech is often vaguely defined, arbitrarily enforced and despite whatever the formal definition is, defaults to nothing more than any speech, opinion or thought contrary to liberal orthodoxy. And this gets to the crux of the issue: hate speech as with hatred in general, is hatred of something or someone. In order to understand the modern meaning of ‘hate speech’ one must understand the ethics of liberalism. The pillars of this morality are diversity, inclusion, equity, autonomy and free choice as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. In practice, this morality is often the inversion of the True, Good and Beautiful and ‘hate speech’ simply becomes the defense of the True and the Good.
In order to understand what righteous hatred is, we must understand what love is. Love is a passion or desire directed upon the right Object or Person:
There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it; this movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil; this movement ends in sadness at some present evil, or in the anger that resists it.
"To love is to will the good of another."All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved. Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good."
Futhermore, we have been told “You who love the Lord, hate evil, he protects the souls of the faithful, rescues them from the hand of the wicked” 1, thus for every act of love there is a concomitant act of righteous hate. Any disordered passion or desire is false love since “only the good can be loved”. This false love leads to hatred, aversion and fear of any impending good. The wicked “…call evil good, and good evil…change darkness to light, and light into darkness…change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter!”2
Hatred in of and itself is not the absence of love, but when properly understood is necessary for true love. When passion and desire is misguided and directed upon idols, the pursuit of wealth, hedonistic pleasure or anything other than the True, Good and Beautiful, the passions become an antilove. However, it is important that this righteous hatred is directed at sin and not persons. As St. Augustine said “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum”3, which is commonly understood as “love the sinner but hate the sin”. Since love is “to will the good of another” and it is always good in every circumstance to avoid sin and to know God, our love should guide others away from sin and towards God. In this sense, the love of persons is unconditional.
Psalms 97:10 NABRE
Isaiah 5:20 NABRE
letter 211 in J.-P. Migne (ed.) Patrologiae Latinae (1845) vol. 33