Are you capable of hate?

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Question that has been bothering me. This actually turned out long - but if the idea interests you, read on.
I know AS people are different emotionally - I tend to be a little on the robotic side of the spectrum. It occurred to me that I may very well be incapable of the sort of casual hatred I see readily available to others. Maybe incapable of hate altogether.
Example/backstory - For the Aussies here, if you watch any television news at all, no doubt you've seen the endless coverage of the problem with asylum seekers and detention centre detainees in Australia at the moment. I have been having an endless argument with a relative, who seems willing to condemn the issue and the people concerned in it based on what she sees on TV. Call me cynical, but firstly I'm under no illusion as to the bias of the media. They televise what they want us to see, and never capture every facet of any situation. Media news is in no possible way objective. My relative, however, is being influenced into the point of view these media reports are pushing. She'll say things like "we should send all these people back to whatever country they came from, they're not welcome here with real Australians." By "real Australian" she means white immigrants whose ancestors arrived, ironically enough on boats, before 1800 - like herself. Generally fascinated by the motivations and attitudes behind people's beliefs, I surmised she thought herself "better" than these more recent immigrants because she was born in this country. I don't really understand patriotism, because I don't generally understand the "us and them" mentality, or the invisible boundaries people place around things. I also commonly fail to understand inherent arrogance. I also got the impression that she hated the refugees, and wanted them out of her country. I simply can't understand. The subject of asylum is an incredibly complicated one, and I'm aware of the many variables that must exist surrounding the situation and the individuals in it. How could one possibly pass a judgement on someone else in a situation they know nothing about? How can they compensate for a lack of knowledge about the history, influneces, attitudes, motivations, choices, feelings, circumstances, desires and information available to make this kind of judgement with such an apparently strong emotional conviction that allows them to condemn other people so completely? Where does that hatred come from, and how are people capable of justifying it to themselves as valid, let alone feeling it in the first place?
This isn't meant to be a political question, that was just an example of the apparent ease of hatred others are capable of - I encounter the same apparent inability to hate in personal circumstances, too - It's often said I'm strange because I honestly bear no hatred for people who have been cruel to me, whether that be emotionally, physically, sexually, or any other way. Often, others have hated people who have wronged me much more than I have on my behalf. I seem to simply discount it as not relevant, where I see other people affected by the same antagonist being twisted by hatred for them. It was made very difficult for me at my last job when I bore no hatred or feelings of superiority over the people I controlled, that seemed to fuel the actions of my colleagues.
I'm not saying this makes me a good/better person because it doesn't (and don't even get me started on the "good" and "bad" argument) - simply different. It frustrates my aforementioned relative no end because in a conversation with me, she will always be getting a proverbial Devil's Advocate point of view. I cannot simply jump in and hate these people based on a media report, a second-hand recounting or even my own experience. I'm always with one eye on the complexities involved, and how impossible passing a judgement is (at least to me) when you cannot possibly understand. You have not walked a mile in that person's shoes, or lived their lives. I just don't seem to understand hate, one of the man human things I don't get.
Anyone else have thoughts on the concept? I assume this is another thing that makes me a "robot" to NTs.

I find it difficult to sustain hatred on any level. It take too much energy.

I also loathe the inconsistency that you describe in the immigration issues down under. I see the same thing here in the U.S. The hypocrisy is amazing. Europeans came and by force took over this continent, but now expect to have the integrity of the borders respected. Plus, huge swaths of the American demographic have immigrants in their lineage. I think the whole debate is a poorly rationalized cover for an attitude based in "keep your f*****g hands off my stuff" with "stuff" defined in the way most beneficial to the one making up the definition.

I am fully capable of personal hate and have come to meet individuals over time that I ended up detesting and would rather they didn't exist.
But the thing you're on about about negative bias towards immigrants I don't do and I don't get or like patriotism at all. It makes me cringe when restaurants or supermarkets boast about their produce being only British because apparently that makes them better because it's from Britain, I don't care what country my tomatoes were grown in as long as they look and taste like tomatoes. Also recently in popular media patriotism and over the top pride over one's country has been a more recurrent theme, I think it had something to do with the fact that the culture is now very mixed because there are people from all over. Some of the older people get worried and want to preserve the old fashioned English traditions as much as they can, so now it's all England this Britain that. Some don't want to accept that cultures change and people migrate from one place to another.
I couldn't care less if someone from another part of the world wants to come live in my country, I say go ahead! As long as there's room and they have a visa and go through all that legal palava. If a country gets too crowded and the new house building encroaches on the countryside or natural scenery then start being more strict, then the issue is the size of the land not the people that come over.
I admit I do take the piss out of Americans a lot but I'm not patriotic or biased towards my own country AT ALL.

I also agree with the biased views others have on immigration. I'm in the U.S. (Southern California) and I see both sides of the argument. Native Americans are the only TRUE Americans, everyone else (including us white folks) came and pillaged THEIR lands. Now.... no one living in America nowadays are directly responsible for the actions done by our ancestors so our responsibility lies in sticking to the laws and regulations of the country we live in. I have a lot of respect for many illegals I have met as they apply themselves with a dedication most legal Americans can't even fathom, but I firmly believe they should go through the proper channels to work and live here LEGALLY. It is a national crime to enter any other country without proper documentation, therefore they should expect to hold the same standards for coming here. I have personally worked alongside illegals for the same gross wage they received but as they had no social security number, they were not taxed. They received $10 an hour, I received $10 an hour minus social security, state taxes, federal taxes, medicad... after all that my net wages were just over $7.00 an hour. Defianately NOT fair....

It takes a certain set of circumstances for me to be capable of hate, but once I hate someone, I hold a grudge for life. The people I hate are my neighbors on the corner, a man who lives a couple of blocks away, Michael Vick, and Ingrid Newkirk. The reasons why I hate these people all involve animals.

A couple years ago, two of our four cats went missing (my two favorites, too). A couple months later, we finally found out that without telling anyone, my neighbors decided they had had enough of the "forty or fifty stray cats going through their yard every day" (which was complete BS, our house got the highest traffic because we had food on our porch, and it was never more than a couple). So they baited traps with wet food (any cat with a goddamn nose is going to go for that) and hauled every cat they caught off to animal control. We're not the only family who had cats put down because of them; there are two other families that we told who had a cat go missing. I will now hate them for the rest of my life, and I memorized their appearance so there was no chance I would ever accidentally be courteous to them without realizing who they were.

The man down the street was completely insignificant to me until one day when I went on a walk with my mom (this was during high school). We saw the old cat (seriously at least 20 years old, my mom remembers that cat from when she first moved to the neighborhood) in his yard, and I went over to pet it. It had ants crawling all over it and flies buzzing around it, and if it hadn't been looking straight at me and blinking I would have assumed it had died. We immediately got all the ants off it, took it home, gave it food and water and a bath, and then went back to talk to the guy. I didn't go in (because I knew all I would be doing was giving him a death glare), but my mom did, and when she came back out she said the guy knew the cat was in that condition, and that he had two healthy, fat, pampered cats inside. We took the cat to be euthanized, even with the food and water it was clear that it would die within a few days. A couple years later, I drove by his house and noticed a wheelchair ramp. I asked my mom about it, and it turns out the guy has a degenerative muscle disease. That news gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction, and I don't feel guilty whatsoever about that. Just poetic justice that he would learn how it feels to be to weak to move on your own.

Michael Vick really needs no explanation, that s**thead would kill dogs in the most inhumane ways.

Ingrid Newkirk is the founder of PETA, completely psychotic, and a hypocrite of the worst kind. PETA has protested animal shelters like the one I volunteered at last summer (which are run on a small budget and through the dedication of volunteers), but 97% of animals that are brought in to their headquarters are euthanized. I don't have the numbers from the shelter I volunteered at, but it is nowhere near that number even on the very worst week.

Yes I can hate.

I don't know. Can get really mad at people. Never want any being to suffer, though. Want all the happiness in the world for everyone. Used to be I was not cynical at all. Not true now, now I'm often in a nasty mood due to being an isolated wretch.

I anger easily and hold a grudge for years. I try to shake it off but there is something in me that holds on to things no matter how much I try to let things go. I tend to over think things.

I completely relate with the OP. I don't think I'm capable of hatred. Perhaps, under the right circumstances I could but it's not happened to me yet and I've been screwed over to the point where I think a lot of people would hate the other persons involved, but still nothing resembling hatred inside me.

Any conflict with another is now very different for me, since I found out about my AS.

I have in the past always tended toward understanding their perspective, being in their shoes, and try to own any shortcomings that are authentic to me.

I try to remember that most others are dumbed down by a system that makes them difficult to deal with, its not authentic to most people, but a cultural norm to be an as*hole, and/or victims of poor parenting.

A few people who have either stolen from me, consistently lied to me, or actively tried to harm me, I probably hate them, but its more an extreme wariness.

I think I hate some people, who have harmed me, but I could never blindly hate an entire group of people for no reason at all, even if I were to disagree with them in some way. I think bigotry and blind hatred are among the worst of society's social ills.

If they could come in legally I'm sure they would, since living as an illegal immigrant is so difficult, but the US doesn't allow immigration unless someone falls into a specific group: a close family member is already a citizen or legal immigrant, a company has hired the person because they have very specialized knowledge or skills, or the person is eligible for political asylum (and even then many political asylum claims are denied).

I'm usually a lover, but I can hate if I'm pushed the wrong way enough times. I get over it, than I start loving again.

I find it difficult to maintain hatred, but I can feel it.
When I was 11, I hated someone who mistreated me enough to try and kill them. Now, I can't even bring myself to be angry at them, and any dislike I feel is because they annoy me now, rather than because of what they used to do.


However, when I am momentarily hateful or angry, it's with all the intensity that would normally be packed into a grudge of years and years, and I'm perfectly willing to take revenge to correct the balance without any hatred or anger.

I'm unsure how different I am from the average NT in this.

I think I have felt hatred, or something very close to it at least, but it's never lasted. (Does anybody have a definition of "hatred"?) It's only been in response to feeling/being hurt or by an individual person--or being threatened with harm by an individual person. The older I get though, the more often I just wonder what's behind threats or hurtful actions....and once I start thinking about what's inside of people (metaphorically--I mean like experiences and feelings and perspective etc.) I find it impossible to hate them. I might never like someone, might be resentful/angry with somebody, but I can't actually hate someone for any serious length of time.

I've never been able to hate an entire group of people--it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Hate is probably the easiest emotion to feel. It's such an intrinsic part of humanity that you'd be considered weird if you didn't hate someone or something.

I, myself, have a lot of anger and hatred toward certain people or things. I try not to act on it, except whenever I'm writing an anger-induced rant to one of my confidants.

I am capable of feeling hate when I have just been very hurt by someone but usually I don't hold on to it.