I Want to Know What I Hate and Why

I hate institutionalized schooling. I hate the profession of teaching. Those thoughts and feelings are there in me for a reason, so I’ve been figuring out why, and I’ve had plenty of opportunity to do so, what with almost daily interactions touching them off.

Knowing what I hate and why is better than pretending that I don’t hate or, worse, transferring my hate from the real offender to someone or something innocent. Most people I know do one of those two things, afraid to admit the truth to themselves, because . . . why, exactly? Oh, I know, because hating makes you a terrible person, right? Says who? Do you truly believe that or does the voice inside you—that one that convinced you that answers are to be gotten outside yourself—try to convince you of that, too?

Oh, and right there, we have the crux of why I hate schools and the teaching profession. Okay, before I go further, I’ll add the requisite disclaimer about it not being individual teachers, per se (but in many cases, it absolutely is—okay, in the majority of cases it is). Oh, and it’s not limited to people who label themselves “teachers” and get paid for being that.

In the last year, I have been involved in many online courses of study, along with various groups, and interestingly, the ones that you’d think would be most school-like, with all its badness, have turned out to be the best, because they are the least school-like. And the ones that should be the best have been the worst, notably a book discussion group I was involved in, on and off, for a year, until I finally developed enough respect for myself to quit. In fact, my daughter had participated in the group for a little while, and she said to me, at least once, “Mom, it’s like the abusive boyfriend you just won’t leave. Why do you keep participating in that weekly humiliation ritual?”

I survived most of my life by powering through and doing the work, as most of us do. If we never step back to notice how what we’re doing makes us feel, though, how are we going to become aware enough to change what may be hurting us? Until I know why I’m feeling hatred, anger, annoyance, frustration, or disappointment, I don’t understand. That’s the part that gets lost in all the nice, “you need to forgive”-type schools of thought. They focus almost exclusively on the ascendent journey, pretending that the descent is immaterial, but nothing could be further from the truth. Dante could not reach Paradise without plumbing the depths of hell and neither can you. Even Louise Hay, whose work I respect and incorporate, found out the hard way that affirmations are only part of the story, and like forgiveness, they come last, after the hard work. She couldn’t affirm her way out of vaginal cancer. She needed to finally feel the resentment poisoning her body—resentment of the stepfather who sexually abused her throughout her childhood—and then release it to save herself. And she did save herself.

Instead of feeling our hate, most of us transfer it. In the past, people did this in a ritual. For instance, in the Jewish tradition, two goats that looked almost identical were chosen at Yom Kippur. One was designated for the Lord. Over the other, the high priest confessed the sins of the nation, and then the goat was taken to the hills outside of Jerusalem and forced over a cliff. Now we either unconsciously place our hate on someone we know (and far too often, claim to love), and then proceed to hurt them in one way or another. We probably also unconsciously participate in scapegoating rituals to get some further relief from the trapped energy generated by the hate we refuse to admit we feel. These days, the most recognized scapegoat is Trump, but all fraternity hazing rituals, most Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings, and the group bullying of any schoolchild are unrecognized scapegoating rituals. Centuries ago, it was witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition. No matter who or what, we develop intense animosity towards these scapegoats because they scratch at something deep within ourselves.

Alice Miller was brave enough to speak the truth, and though she died in 2010, people still get riled by her and her work, because she, too, scratches. In Free from Lies, she wrote:

We tend to associate the word ‘hatred’ with the notion of a dangerous curse we need to free ourselves of as quickly as we can. An opinion also frequently voiced is that hatred poisons our very being and makes it all but impossible to heal the injuries stemming from our childhood. I too believe that hatred can poison the organism, but only as long as it is unconscious and directed vicariously at substitute figures or scapegoats. When that happens, hatred cannot be resolved. Suppose, for example, that I hate a specific ethnic group but have never allowed myself to realize how my parents treated me when I was a child, how they left me crying for hours in my cot when I was a baby, how they never gave me so much as a loving glance. If that is the case, then I will suffer from a latent form of hatred that can pursue me throughout my whole life and cause all kinds of physical symptoms. But if I know what my parents did to me in their ignorance and have a conscious awareness of my indignation at their behavior, then I have no need to redirect my hatred at other persons. In the course of time, my hatred for my parents may weaken, or it may resolve itself temporarily, only to flare up again as a result of events in the present or new memories. But I know what this hatred is all about. Thanks to the feelings I have actively experienced, I now know myself well enough, and I have no compulsion to kill or hurt anyone because of my feelings of hatred.

Oh, and let’s clear up another huge misunderstanding. Hate is not the opposite of love; fear is, and just like with hate, if we don’t recognize our fear (or shame, as the three like to stick together) and do something about it, we will use up the energy we could have spent on loving someone (including ourselves) to keep our fear, hate, and/or shame hidden from ourselves and everyone else.

All that, of course, must lead you to wonder what it is in myself that gets triggered by schools, teachers, and other authority figures. Well, we’d need to start with my parents and others adults, specifically uncles and aunts; then add in the teachers, professors, bosses, priests, peers, and other petty tyrants who, in one way or another, convinced me that I should trust them rather than myself. And I have started with them, letting myself discover the damage and working at mending it. I already know that as the healing progresses, the hate lessens. I also know that rushing through any of it is the worst thing I can do. Therefore, I just keep doing this work, and it is the most important I’ve ever done, because it affects every relationship in my life.