As far as “rational” in some situations in may not be worth spending the effort to determine if this person is one of those extremely rare “good X’s”.
Granted—but it’s not necessary to determine that. It’s only necessary to recognize that there are “good Xs” and direct your hate to what you hate about the “bad Xs”. If some but not all Blues are thieves and you hate theft, it’s only necessary to recognize that and say “I hate thieves” instead of “I hate Blues” in order to make your real meaning and position clear.
I was going to start by questioning the utility of hating abstract concepts, then I realized part of the problem is that we may be conflating several things under the word “hate”.
I think you’re right. Maybe “abhor” is more useful in this context?
If some but not all Blues are thieves and you hate theft, it’s only necessary to recognize that and say “I hate thieves” instead of “I hate Blues” in order to make your real meaning and position clear.
By this reasoning, one should say “I hate people who want to kill the Jews”, but not say “I hate Nazis”, on the grounds that there may be an extremely rare good Nazi who is only a Nazi because he was raised in a town where Nazis happen to be so common that he was a Nazi for cultural reasons or something like that.
Well, Science having pointed out above that membership in a political party is a choice made by an adult, rather than a group people are born into like nationalities or—I’d argue—many religions, I conceded the point you’re making. It was in among a bunch of other stuff so here’s the quote:
With big demographic groups, your hate cannot be directed at a specific action that they all, by definition, must have taken—except, as you pointed out, in the case of freely-chosen political party membership, but then only in the case that you consider membership of that party in and of itself, regardless of other actions or beliefs, such an awful thing as to deserve hatred.
Granted—but it’s not necessary to determine that. It’s only necessary to recognize that there are “good Xs” and direct your hate to what you hate about the “bad Xs”. If some but not all Blues are thieves and you hate theft, it’s only necessary to recognize that and say “I hate thieves” instead of “I hate Blues” in order to make your real meaning and position clear.
I think you’re right. Maybe “abhor” is more useful in this context?
By this reasoning, one should say “I hate people who want to kill the Jews”, but not say “I hate Nazis”, on the grounds that there may be an extremely rare good Nazi who is only a Nazi because he was raised in a town where Nazis happen to be so common that he was a Nazi for cultural reasons or something like that.
I’d guess that in late 1930s Germany such Nazis weren’t extremely rare.
Well, Science having pointed out above that membership in a political party is a choice made by an adult, rather than a group people are born into like nationalities or—I’d argue—many religions, I conceded the point you’re making. It was in among a bunch of other stuff so here’s the quote: