Hatred is the opposite of Love. Fear or Apathy is not the opposite, here's why...

Love is defined as:

strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties - Webster's Dictionary

The opposite of "Love" would therefore be the opposite of feeling a personal connection with strong affection. The opposite of "strong affection" would be hatred.


"Fear" is basically feeling threatened by something, not wanting to embrace something but to run away from it.

The opposite of "Fear" would be excitement, wanting to embrace something and wanting to run towards it - like you just can't wait to do it.


Hatred - Love

Fear - Excitement

Emotion - Stoicism

Care - Apathy


EDIT: I guess I can see how love is associated with care. Love - affection - leads to caring about what you have affection for.

Love leads to acceptance. If you embrace and have affection - you will accept it.

Hate leads to resistance. If you don't embrace and dislike something - you will resist it.

however, total acceptance of everything leads to being a slave of your surroundings.

The words are arbitary, and describe arbitary constructs. Any relationship of opposites is entirely dependent on how they are defined.

To state a hard relationship between them, to take the place of another proposed relationship (such as "fear or apathy is opposite of love", suggests the words have a one-to-one correlation with objective substances, which is a platonic sort of idea (not wrong, but not an idea I subsribe to). The implication of being able to assign them hard values at opposite ends of the scale suggests the scale is measuring something quantifiable.

The real opposite of love is psudo love. Fake love is the opposite of love.

reply to post by antar


And what is fake love? If it is not authentic, that means that the personal connection is not really there, the affection is not really there. So it still leads back to its original opposite.

reply to post by joeraynor


Exactly, emotions are complex, there is no opposite emotion. These are mere words that explain transient feelings that aren't stable and are adaptable.

For example, a person might love the taste of apples but a learned response from a negative experience might also induce a reaction of hatred towards that taste.

There are people I love.

There are also people I find ok on the surface, but their true personality, which can take time to reveal itself, so uninteresting and lacking depth, and whose actions are predictably self centred, competitive and hiding an ulterior motive, that sometimes the feeling of apathy towards them has morphed into hatred for their personality type and egotism.

Neither of these emotions I would consider opposites. All of these emotions evolved and are the result of reactions from their words, decisions and actions.

The opposite to any feelings is no feelings
Indifference is the opposite to both love and hate.
Any feelings constitute a relationship, lack thereof constitutes no relationship.
Not suppressed emotions but no emotions at all, towards the object

As I see it.

reply to post by arpgme


You forgot to say IMO.

reply to post by arpgme

"Fear" is basically feeling threatened by something, not wanting to embrace something but to run away from it.

The opposite of "Fear" would be excitement, wanting to embrace something and wanting to run towards it - like you just can't wait to do it.

On fear

Why does one skydive? Why does one ski? Why does one mountain climb? Why does one surf? People embracing fear. People running towards it. Fear is exciting for those with a lust for life. Instead, most run away from those sorts of things, most don't embrace them, nor do they embrace their own fear.

Hmm, I kinda disagree. Mainly on the point that is possible to hate someone you love and love someone you hate. Likewise, love can often turn into hate. If you replace the word 'affection' for the word 'emotion' the description could be attributed to both love and hate - therefore how can they be opposites. However, it could be argued that as these are polarities of the same strand then they are still effectively opposites.

The love-fear conection is still opposites, just in another sense. Fear is the emotion triggered in response to a threat of survival, in this case love could be seen as an acceptance of this thus elimating the fear of death.

I get your thinking, but I also think it gets much more complex than that. Perhaps once you delve into defining the different types of love it becomes much easier to classify opposites. Affectionate love could then be the opposite of hate. One love / Unity could then be the opposite of fear. Erotic love could be the opposite of repulsion and so on.

The opposite of "Fear" would be excitement, wanting to embrace something and wanting to run towards it - like you just can't wait to do it.

however, total acceptance of everything leads to being a slave of your surroundings.

- with regards to this, if you were a slave to your surroundings then how can you be accepting everything? Do you mean immediate surroundings? Or galactic surroundings? Multiversal surroundings? How far do these surroundings go you would be slave to, and what about the internal opposite of surroundings, whatever that would be called

Except that hatred is a symptom, and a reaction mainly. It doesnt really exist IMO. But fear is real, it holds one back. When overcoming fear, one steps into Love. In a sense hatred comes out of Fear. And very low self esteem. Fear is only real in lower frequency, Love is the most real of everything in existence.

reply to post by arpgme


For me, there are basically attraction reactions, and repulsion reactions.
Many people refer to the attraction ones as "positive", the repulsion as "negative"
(which makes sense, as it is an automated system for aiding us in survival)

Both fear and hatred are the same thing to me- a very strong repulsion reaction,
which one can choose to channel into a fight or flight expression (making it anger or fear)

Both love and hatred are reactions which have attached feelings, or sentiments, created by the mind.
The repulsion/attraction reactions are what I call "emotions" (a physiological process in response to an exterior stimuli)
"sentiments' or "feelings" are all the other complicated thoughts and designations we spin concerning that emotion (why, how, for what reason or goal...).

Fakeness is perfectly natural where all actors on a stage of life

reply to post by arpgme



The opposite of "Love" would therefore be the opposite of feeling a personal connection with strong affection. The opposite of "strong affection" would be hatred.


1 can understand your perspective shared arpgme.
When considering the definition of affection in association with LOVE 1 can see how the can "parallel" hatred with lack of strong affection... There may however exist aspects of hatred which require strong affections in order for the hatred to thrive.

Affection or fondness is a "disposition or rare state of mind or body"[1] that is often associated with a feeling or type of love. It has given rise to a number of branches of philosophy and psychology concerning emotion, disease, influence, and state of being.[2] "Affection" is popularly used to denote a feeling or type of love, amounting to more than goodwill or friendship. Writers on ethics generally use the word to refer to distinct states of feeling, both lasting and spasmodic. Some contrast it with passion as being free from the distinctively sensual element.

-

Affectionate behavior

Further information: Public display of affection

Numerous behaviors are used by people to express affection. Some theories[3] suggest that affectionate behavior evolved from parental nurturing behavior due to its associations with hormonal rewards such as the release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone from positive social interactions.[4] Research also verifies that expressions of affection, although commonly evaluated positively, can be considered negative if they pose implied threats to one's well being. Furthermore, affectionate behavior in positively valenced relationships may be associated with numerous health benefits. Other, more loving type gestures of affectionate behavior include obvious signs of liking a person. Affection can also shape infants' brains.[5]

George Homans (1950) proposed that positive sentiment increases the propensity of people to interact and that familiarity gained through affection increases positive sentiment among them.[6]

en.wikipedia.org...

When considering the bolded @ times it must be acknowledged that strong affections can also lead to negative emotions/situations if say a fondness develops into a form of envy or a uncontrolled love switches frequency into a deep attachment to or a control/desire for something.

So it has to be reminded that these positive strong affections if not properly conducted and balanced in Spirit/Soul/Internal Energy
may lead to or evolve into some of the most hateful activities/agenda/behaviors (energies)...

To 1 subjectively the opposite of strong affections would be total lack of interest of basically anything conscious-emotional-flesh Spirit/Soul/Internal Energy-related , therefore forbidding any of the conscious driven and @ times agenda based activities & emotions associated w/strong affections such as LOVE or HATE or any emotion for its basically no interest in caring for any agenda or anything that would generate any form of emotion or care @ all for ones self or any other, like neutral stance somewhat on all perspectives for there is total lack of care of anything possible not native to the mind state of the energy that would be hypothesized to possess such lack of care...
In essence since both Love & Hate are emotional based its hard to opposite them they do parallel @ times
since as its said here on EA*RTH
"there is a thin line between love and hate"
but they both require some form of strong affection to be driven.


reply to post by arpgme


"Fear" is basically feeling threatened by something, not wanting to embrace something but to run away from it.

The opposite of "Fear" would be excitement, wanting to embrace something and wanting to run towards it - like you just can't wait to do it.


Fear is to 1 associated with a more advanced form of emotion or instinct arpgme, for it allows a CREATOR Creation(s) the opportunity to analyze potentially dangerous situations that may be life or even Spirit/Soul/Internal Energy threatening which can assist in preservation-survival of said CREATOR Creation(s)
This is why 1 subjectively gives fear a more instinct or automatic higher emotional state which assist in the areas of survival govern ship.
Fear can also cause mistakes if not controlled after instinct analysis of the potential danger/threat is made and a mind state remains residual in that emotional state and cant compute further to make proper decisions in associations to dangers/threats. Peace?

The opposite of FEAR to 1 arpgme would be total lack of interest of basically anything conscious-emotional-flesh Spirit/Soul/Internal Energy-related because in this mind state what is to fear if you don't care about self or others? Nothing matters accept possible interest native to the mind state of the energy that would be hypothesized to poses such lack or care...


With this in conscious mind 1 feels it depends on the perspective of the observer evaluating these many emotions in relation to Love-Hate and how they are subjectively interpreted, as shared some of these strong affections/emotions can start out in positive action but if not properly managed consciously from within
which takes the conscious perspective @ times to SEE the ALL* "we" make up or the WHOLE*
these positives activities can turn negative @ times without the projectors even noticing it (energy wise)

NAMASTE*******

reply to post by arpgme


why does there need to be an opposite? Is that important for some reason?

You stated the definition of love, but left out the definition of hate.

to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward

, also from Websters. How are you seeing this as opposite? Extreme is but another word for strong. I will conceed that aversion is the opposite of attraction, but remember, that is only part of the definition. Since this is focused at something, it requires a personal tie. Apathy is the opposite of all portions of the defintion, not just of it. Hate is just as strong of an emotion response as love, just at a different end of a scale. Apathy is zero response with zero personal tie. As such, I believe your personal defintions are skewed.