The assertion that “all hate is self-hate” is a profound idea that challenges traditional views of aggression and conflict. It suggests that hatred is not solely directed outward but is fundamentally a reflexive phenomenon, deeply connected to internal states and systemic operations of the hater. This concept is explored through insights from Jungian psychology, Luhmannian social systems theory, Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form, and Buddhist philosophy, offering a novel framework for understanding hate by shifting focus from externalized phenomena to internal and systemic dynamics.
Here’s an interdisciplinary breakdown of how “hate is self-hate”:
I. The Intrapsychic Mirror: Jungian Psychology and the Shadow of Self-Hatred
In Jungian analytical psychology, the “shadow” refers to an unconscious aspect of the personality that doesn’t align with the ego ideal, comprising repressed traits, both negative (like egotism or carelessness) and positive (like talent or courage). The ego resists these aspects, leading to their repression. Because the shadow is difficult to confront directly, it is often “projected” onto others. This involves unwittingly attributing one’s own unconscious traits and emotions to another individual or group. While projection can serve as a “window onto our unconscious” for self-awareness and even facilitate individuation, unacknowledged projections can lead to intense hatred, dehumanization, and hate crimes, especially when the “collective shadow” is projected onto “the Other.” This reveals a psychological mechanism that is essential for initial self-discovery but becomes destructive when its self-referential nature is repressed.
Projection isn’t limited to negative traits; individuals can project desired shadow material like talent or beauty onto others, leading to adoration. However, this adoration is often an “unstable attachment.”
If the adored person fails to maintain the “shining, perfect vision” projected onto them, the projection “slips.” If the individual cannot integrate these qualities back into themselves, the intense infatuation can dramatically “drop into hatred,” as seen in stalkers, internet trolls, and crazed fans. This transition shows that even seemingly positive projections can contain unacknowledged aggression. The “love” in adoration is implicitly conditional, and its failure exposes a deep-seated self-rejection.
Self-loathing manifests as a “judgmental inner voice” that acts as a perfectionistic critic or abusive bully, inciting self-destructive behavior. This internal dynamic oscillates between “extremes of idealized expectations and punitive backlash.” Jungian psychology directly links self-hatred to externalized animosity, stating, “People who hate themselves hate others.” The “face we turn toward our own unconscious is the face we turn toward the world.” This internalized self-hate can seep in from collective societal ideals (e.g., unrealistic criteria for beauty or wealth) and then project outward, creating a feedback loop of animosity. Addressing hate requires not only individual psychological work but also a critical examination of societal values that foster unrealistic expectations and shame.
“Individuation” is the process of psychological growth towards “wholeness,” involving learning from and integrating all aspects of oneself. The “first stage” of this journey involves experiencing the shadow, becoming aware of traits denied in oneself but seen in others. The goal is to assimilate the shadow into consciousness, achieving a “precarious unity” between ego and shadow by “recollecting or re-owning the projections of psyche onto others and the world.” Successful integration leads to “harmony with things one has denied in themselves” and “peace with who they are.”
This internal acceptance translates externally: “People who accept themselves accept others.” Authenticity, which means being “willing to risk being seen as we truly are, shadow and all,” is the direct antidote to projection and allows one to “see others as they truly are.” Jung’s reinterpretation of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” suggests a reciprocal relationship where one cannot fully know or love oneself without engaging with and loving the “neighbor.” The withdrawal of projections, which reduces hate, is intrinsically linked to this reciprocal love. Hate is seen as a symptom of the inability to be authentic and vulnerable, impeding the necessary self-other feedback loop for wholeness.
II. The Societal Recursion: Luhmann’s Systems Theory and the Autopoietic Production of Otherness
Luhmann’s theory views society as “closed systems of self-referential communication” that are “autopoietic,” meaning they constantly reproduce themselves through their own operations. Communication is their fundamental “building block.” Systems exhibit “operational closure,” basing their operations solely on prior outcomes. This closure allows specialization and complexity reduction. Information is not external but “assigned value by the system” itself, which selectively processes “irritations” from the environment, excluding most as “noise.” This self-imposed cognitive filter creates a system’s own “common sense world” and “blind spots.” Aversion, sociologically, is a systemic outcome where closed systems filter out information that challenges their internal distinctions, particularly concerning “the Other.”
A core axiom is that “no system can exist unless it draws a distinction between itself and its environment.” This “system/environment distinction” establishes identity and operational boundaries. The “environment” is produced from within as a result of the system observing and reducing its surroundings. Therefore, how a system defines its “Other” is a feature of the system itself, not an inherent quality of the “Other.” This distinction-making inherently creates an “other” by exclusion, making it a repository for projected fears and anxieties. At a collective level, this leads to the “demonization of ‘the Other,'” justifying hostility. If hate is aversion towards this “other,” then it is, at a fundamental systemic level, a reaction to a distinction that the hating system itself has produced to define its own existence.
“Accusation in a Mirror” (AiM) describes propagandists imputing their own intentions to enemies, often preceding mass violence.
Luhmann’s “structural coupling” explains how closed systems form “mutually reinforcing relationships” by drawing “irritations” from one another to continue their operations. In conflict, System A projects aggression onto System B (AiM); System B uses this as an “irritation” to justify its own aggression, which “irritates” System A, reinforcing the initial projection. Hate becomes a self-sustaining cycle where each system’s self-preservation is fulfilled by externalizing its own shadow onto the “Other” and reacting to that projection.
Modern society is a “functionally differentiated system” with independent subsystems (e.g., law, politics, economy) operating on their own codes. Conflicts arise “because each system is looking at issues from its own perspective.” A system only “pays attention to what fits within its boundaries or what it can ‘understand.'”
This leads to systemic “aversion” for anything that threatens its internal coherence. Societal conflicts and “hate” between groups are an emergent property of functionally differentiated systems prioritizing their own self-preservation and internal logic over a holistic societal view. This “hate” is not personal but systemic, a consequence of each system’s self-referential commitment to its own code, manifesting as a rejection of “noise” from other systems. It is a form of systemic self-hate, where the system’s inability to integrate external complexity (which it helps to produce) manifests as conflict.
III. The Logical Foundation of Division: Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form and the Act of Distinction
Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form (LoF) asserts that “one cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction,” which “severs a space in two sides,” creating a “marked” and an “unmarked” state. This “capability of differentiating a ‘this’ from ‘everything else but this'” is the “root of cognition.”
This “severance” is an act of division and exclusion, inherently creating an “other” by exclusion. The “marked” side is “of interest,” while the “unmarked” side is “left out.” Hatred, at its fundamental logical level, can be traced to this initial cognitive operation of distinction. The act of “marking” something as “self” or “us” simultaneously “unmarks” everything else as “other” or “them,” carrying the latent potential for aversion.
LoF addresses “self-referential form expressions” where an expression is “re-entered in its own indicational space,” leading to “circular expressions that lead to recursion” and paradoxes (e.g., the “liar paradox”). Spencer-Brown observed that the “solution of paradoxical statement is an oscillation.” This oscillation occurs endlessly between “marked (true) and unmarked (false) state.” Luhmann’s definition of a system as a “self-producing entity” is also considered a “paradoxical, self-referential expression.” When the “other” (the object of hate) is revealed to be a construct of the “self’s” own cognitive operations, the hate becomes directed back at the very system that produced it. Hate is thus the system’s inability to “embrace the paradox” of its own self-referential nature.
The Spencer-Brown form provides a fundamental logical model for how any system establishes its identity by differentiating itself from its environment. The act of “crossing” a boundary is analogous to shifts in cognitive states or awareness. The “states of marked and unmarked have to do with consciousness and unconsciousness.” Spencer-Brown’s work highlights that “all observation has blind spots; the blind spot is often the deployed distinction itself.”
When a system or individual makes a distinction to define itself, the boundary-making process itself becomes invisible, leading to the perception of the “other” as an external entity. This lack of self-awareness regarding the origin of the distinction allows for the projection of negative qualities onto the “other” without recognizing the self’s own role in creating the conceptual separation.
IV. The Path to Liberation: Buddhist Philosophies and the Dissolution of Separation
Buddhist philosophy states that suffering (dukkha) stems from craving, clinging, and ignorance. A fundamental concept is anatta (non-self), challenging the notion of a permanent self. The “three poisons”—greed (lobha), hatred/aversion (dosa), and delusion (moha)—cause unwholesome actions and perpetuating suffering. Hatred, linked to aversion and ill-will, perpetuates one’s own suffering. The Buddha taught that “Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate,” and “the first person hurt” by anger is “always the one who is angry.” Hatred is a self-inflicted wound, a direct consequence of clinging to a false sense of self and resisting reality’s impermanent nature.
Buddhism emphasizes the “interconnectedness of all beings” and that the “individual does not exist in isolation,” asserting the “idea of ‘individual self’ is an illusion.” The Cartesian notion of a self existing “separately from the object-as-‘others'” is challenged, with “others are also experienced as part of ‘I.'” The sense of belonging to a “small circle” and “distance, aversion, towards the others” causes “miseries and suffering.” This “sharp separation” is described as an illusion, leading to “prioritiz[ing] our own pleasure over the suffering of others” and “conjuring up hatred for the things that we dislike and the people we see as blocking our desires.” Hatred is a direct consequence of this cognitive error, where the “other” is perceived as distinct and threatening, rather than an integral part of an interdependent reality.
The Buddhist path to cessation of suffering involves “rooting out the hatred and greed” by “taking away the clinging desire.” Mindfulness is crucial for observing the mind and preventing anger’s escalation. Mettā (loving-kindness or good will) meditation is the direct “antidote to ill will, hatred, and enmity.” It involves extending wishes for safety, happiness, and peace, starting with oneself, then friends, neutral beings, and progressively to those one dislikes and considers enemies, and finally to all living beings. This practice “purifies us of hatred and ill will” and “removes fear and negative reactivity from your mind,” fostering “loving kindness and compassion that brings true happiness to ourselves and others.” By actively cultivating loving-kindness towards oneself and others, one directly dismantles the internal conditions (clinging, aversion, illusion of separation) that give rise to hate, transforming self-hate into self-acceptance, which then naturally extends to others.
In conclusion, the assertion that “hate is self-hate” is not a metaphor but a profound truth deeply rooted in human psychology, social systems, logical cognition, and spiritual existence. Externalized hatred is inextricably linked to internal processes of disavowal, self-definition, and the construction of reality. Addressing hatred requires a multi-faceted approach that goes beyond symptomatic responses to engage with deeper psychological integration, systemic self-awareness, logical re-evaluation of distinctions, and spiritual cultivation of interconnectedness. This holistic understanding provides a robust framework for fostering individual and collective transformation towards greater peace and wholeness.