In the world of TV criticism, we have this concept of “hate watching”. I heard one of the talking heads in a YouTube use that just now, and I was reminded of an old train of thought that rattles through my head from time to time, to wit that not paying for what you’re viewing is not always this unprincipled thing one does on the sly, while maybe feeling guilty if caught doing it.
No, sometimes a censor watches videos by an adversary, looking for a good excuse to take it down. We’re free to make up a model here: let’s have the censor really hate that X is going out to viewers, such that the last thing the censor wants to do is support X financially.
When you consider programming destructive and want to counter it, you do not, in the same moment, fish for your Visa card. You want to monitor, maybe frustrate, not support.
Without meaning to become a Bible thumper, I will point to the famous dictum of Jesus that one should “love not the world” (John 3:16). You’re free to “hate watch” all the ignorance and cruelty in a way that focuses your mind and gives you more powers as a monitor and supervisor.
Out of “hate watching” comes distance, disavowal, non-complicity, one might say innocence, but not apathetic aloofness. To “hate X” is to have some stake in X and its outcome. The divided mind is a divided will. Rather than be of two minds about something, be clear what your ethical duty is: to disrupt, obstruct and derail.
Returning to the theme of jihad, said world you disown may include your own sorry psyche, meaning you’re actively inferring your new psyche into existence. Self hate in this sense is more like preparing to jettison a booster, or to break free of an eggshell. You hate being stuck in a form you’re clearly growing beyond. There’s not much victimhood nor even fear, only fury. The Biblically minded speak of righteous wrath, but there’s no need to be loud about it.
