What To Do When Someone Hates You Without Knowing You?

We deplore racism and all other forms of arbitrary hatred. Yet it is interesting to note that it is, in fact, more reassuring to be hated for what one is not than for what one truly is.

You are not only your skin color, your sex, or your sexual orientation.

When someone is homophobic, they are actually hating a superficial part of a person. Certainly, this element can represent an important dimension of that person’s identity, but it cannot, by itself, sum up someone’s essence. We are not just a body of flesh or ideas inscribed in a cerebral cortex: we are above all a soul. Someone who hates you for your appearance may not deserve your attention. You can let them express their hatred: it has no value.

What is bothersome is that such hatred is unpleasant — and sometimes dangerous — but, as the saying goes, it is the serpent who suffers the most from its own venom. It is like a customer review based only on the packaging of a product without ever testing it: such an opinion hardly counts. Giving it credit is absurd.

On the other hand, it is quite different when someone hates you because they have known you closely. This is partly why breakups are so painful: people reject us after having observed and known us in our most genuine truth. This judgment, born of intimate knowledge, truly hurts. No defense can really protect us from it. Only time and distance can heal this wound.

Your Sex, Race, Or Sexual Orientation Can Be A Protection

Since these aspects of who you are do not define you completely, you can in fact use them as masks or protective shields. Your apparent identity protects you, because those who want to harm you attack something superficial. All these surface elements are like the walls or moats of a fortress: they belong to you, they protect you, but attacking them alone is not enough to destroy you.

Cultivating Identities To Strengthen Your Walls

Cultivating a façade can be an effective strategy to build a shell. The problem is that many end up confusing the shell with who they really are.

People Hate Us Out Of Ignorance Of Themselves

Ultimately, it is because people have a poor understanding of themselves that they end up hating others. This is particularly true for those who identify too much with their physical body or other superficial aspects of their person.

Racial identity is strong in some societies. The belief in a supposed superiority of one’s ethnic origin is a simple example of hatred that can be perpetuated among people. The belief in one’s superiority makes the idea of equality with others deemed inferior unbearable, because it is perceived as a loss of status. This loss of status is accompanied by resentment, which generally takes the form of hatred directed against the group allegedly benefiting unjustly from such equality.

Since society is structured through the lens of status, behaviors tend to optimize each individual’s rank. Racism, homophobia, machismo, etc., are part of this effort to preserve a status advantage that certain “communities” are seen as challenging. However, after a while, the hatred and discrimination directed against minorities become counterproductive in the pursuit of status optimization.

Indeed, the obviousness of legal and social equality renders such behaviors anachronistic, and often illegal. Status rules are constantly evolving. One must therefore learn to renew oneself to always be capable of gaining status in a changing world. Of course, these rules are not universal and may vary significantly from one society to another.

In short, we all aim to optimize our status. The problem is that some people resort to methods that could be called archaic, simply because they have not succeeded in developing newer ones.

Symbolic Capital As A Last Resort

Our strategy for acquiring status is often linked to a particular group, commonly called a tribe. Tribalism is accompanied by rites of passage that perpetuate certain outdated behaviors.

Individuals deprived of most forms of status (financial, social, cultural capital) then cling to their last lifeline: symbolic capital. This may take the form of historical prestige associated with a family name, a skin color, cultural belonging, a gender, or even a sexual orientation.

Those who cling to these identities do so because they know that, by referring to historically dominant or oppressive groups (nobles versus commoners, colonizers versus colonized, etc.), they draw upon a powerful collective imagination. But this imagination is also a source of tension and rejection.

If they had other resources, I believe they would avoid evoking these painful collective memories. The problem is that the mere recourse to these references reveals their powerlessness — in a way that is both obvious and pathetic. That is why, even if these attempts at status appropriation sometimes succeed, they must be seen as those football teams that win only by cheating or corrupting the referee: their victory is false, it deserves to be denounced, and above all, it exposes the misery of those who engage in it.

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