The fine line between HATE and DISLIKE

People around my age usually think that the words hate and dislike are synonymous in nature (as is their Indonesian equivalents of tidak suka and benci).

Yes, they may be distinctly related, but the fact remains that they’re not even closely colligated. Everybody knows that the word hate is more intense than the latter, but in my opinion, it’s a hell lot more than what you think.

I’ll tell you why.

(To be noted here, this blog post is largely philosophical than linguistic. Thus, I’m not gonna discuss the words from their etymologies as I usually do.)

When you dislike somebody, it means that you don’t like that person. The person that you dislike may be your spouse, parent, relative, friend, colleague, or even a stranger.

Now that’s obvious.

When you hate somebody, it means that you don’t love that person and don’t care whatsoever shit that happens to him/her.

See the difference? No?

Well, the difference between don’t like and don’t love can be explained simpler this way:

If you see that person, let’s say your ex-wife who had once cheated on you, lying down on the street due to a car accident, what would you do?

Would you call an ambulance straightaway? If you did, that means that you DISLIKE your ex-wife, yet you don’t hate her.

Would you pretend to see nothing? If you did, that would mean that you HATE your ex-wife.

As you see, when I say you don’t hate your ex-wife, it doesn’t mean that you’d still be in love with her. No, of course you don’t love her romantically.

Remember when Jesus in the Gospel said that we must love other human beings? Love one another as is the way you love yourself. And that would mean anyone that you meet, doesn’t matter who he/she is.

Disliking a person is not a sin. Hating a person is.

You may dislike your children, but you still love them anyway, right?

According to the parable I’ve given above, let’s just see it that way:

If the person whom you DISLIKE is found dying because of a car crash or food-poisoning, would you give him/her a first-aid and call the ambulance?

If no, that means the feeling you have toward him/her is pure HATRED.

If yes, that means the feeling you have toward him/her is a mere DISLIKE, not HATRED. And that would also mean that you still care for him/her.