A much easier question than “Can
aggression be based in love?” is “Can aggression be based in hate?” The answer to the latter question is
obvious. Aggression frequently derives
from hate. But aggression can also
derive from love. When we think of a
family situation, certainly aggression can arise from the protective or
provider efforts both readily sourced in love.
Typically when aggression is based in love, the imagination freely
images the desired results. We can
visualize, for example, our family deriving benefits from us being a good
provider. On the other hand, aggression based
in hate typically cloaks the final effects of hate in abstractions. For example, in contributing to feed the
hungry, we can readily imagine a youngster enjoying a meal as a result of our
contribution. In fact, we might dwell on such images. On the other hand, when we bomb a city in war,
we had rather not picture the results of this action in our imagination. We may in this case expand our consciousness
to take in visuals of destroyed buildings, but generally seal it against
visuals of dead or dismembered children. We can
conclude that hatred is best fueled by stereotypes and abstractions, not
reality. Love is best fueled by reality. Love encourages an active imagination and makes
the facts concrete to our minds; hate cloaks the imagination and seeks to cover
facts with abstract veneers of unreality.
Therefore hate can be seen to be sourced in selfishness while love is sourced in selflessness. Selfishness and hate typically seek out and embrace carefully crafted unreality while selflessness and love typically seek
out and embrace reality.
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