Hate: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion

The international bestseller about the power of hate: a radical reimagining of a revolutionary emotion

Hatred is typically characterized as ugly, destructive and, above all, the political tool and dominant emotion of intransigent right-wingers. But is something important lost in this simplistic depiction? Don’t those engaged in anticolonial, feminist, or class struggles—the very people who, in mainstream narratives, are usually portrayed as victims and objects of hate—have just reasons for feeling hatred?

Seyda Kurt, who approaches the topic from both personal and historical angles, challenges the consensual liberal perspective, reframing the exploited and oppressed as vehicles as well as targets of hatred. She weaves together the stories of Jewish avengers resisting German fascism, the Haitian revolutionaries, contemporary abolitionists, and many others, ultimately arriving at the revolution in Syrian Kurdistan and the question of a just peace.

Kurt argues that the pursuit of justice is sometimes spurred by destructive impulses and hostility. What happens then to the tenderness we share as human beings? When we allow ourselves to hate, what becomes of the kindness we would bestow upon a world we are striving to protect?

In this visionary and lyrical work, Seyda Kurt examines strategic hatred as a powerful force driving resistance, abolition, and even, paradoxically perhaps, radical care.