ABSTRACT
This commentary is about hate, a primal emotion that often goes together with fear and can be directed both inward and outward. Hate can arise from feelings of deficiency or insufficiency. Being rejected in love can also evoke hateful feelings. Some authors tie hate to the death drive, but Eigen suggests that hate is full of energy, albeit negative energy, whereas the death drive is a collapse or dying out of emotional aliveness, an entropy. We cannot get rid of hate, and learning how to use its energy nondestructively or creatively is an evolutionary challenge. Hate is not always destructive. Sometimes hate can signal legitimate protest, conjure rebellious energy for change and development. Melanie Klein’s account of early hate dramas center on the infant’s dependency, which brings about envy, anger, hate, and guilt. Eigen asks whether Klein’s view reinforces a vision of the self as basically bad and needing atonement. For Winnicott, the function of early aggression is mainly creative.
