On the Pleasure of Hating

This little book of essays punctured my reluctance to tackle anything written more than a hundred years ago. What a foolish prejudice!

From the essay "Indian Jugglers": "No man is truly great, who is great only in his lifetime." Which brought to mind modern celebrity and the petty inflations of the media, with whom Hazlitt was familar in his own time, dissecting the great and ungreat personages, and the qualities that made them so, and not.

From "On the Spirit of Monarchy": "The right and the wrong are of little consequence, compared to the in and the out," discussing in this acerbic essay courts and kings; relevant to contemporary life, if not the enduring state of social affairs in whatever age.

"Reason and Imagination," a biting show more commentary on detached reasoning versus "natural feeling," with Hazlitt citing examples that bring to mind "enhanced interrogation"/torture, about which he writes (while discussing slavery): "Practices, the mention of which make the flesh creep, and that affront the light of day, ought to be put down the instant they are known, without inquiry and without repeal."

And the remarkable title essay, "On the Pleasure of Hating," which is so consistent and high-flying throughout that every phrase could be quoted and ruminated upon for its insight and application. show less

The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands; it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and a narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others.

An alluring title, to be sure, but as with many of his contemporary essayists, Hazlitt rambles more often than he explains or enlightens. In each essay (The Fight, The Indian Jugglers, On the Spirit of Monarchy, What is The People, On Reason and Imagination, On the Pleasure of Hating - only two of which could be considered rewarding), there is perhaps a page of distilled show more Idea, a kernel such as the above which grew into an unnavigable thicket of prose once pen was laid to paper.

It is of a fashion to bemoan the spiteful and belligerent times we live in, and in this spirit I offer the following morsel:

Does the love of virtue denote any wish to discover or amend our own faults? No, but it atones for an obstinate adherence to our own vices by the most virulent intolerance to human frailties.

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Nell’introduzione c’è scritto che Hazlitt è considerato “il saggista meno noioso del mondo”… immagino allora quanto deve essere soporifero il più noioso!
Non è che sia proprio tutto brutto questo libro, ogni tanto c’era qualche brano molto bello, ma il succo degli articoli mi è parso alquanto inconsistente, per non parlare poi della ripetitività: per spiegare un concetto, millemila esempi tutti uguali!
Anche quando poi non erano noiosi né ripetitivi, non sempre i contenuti erano accettabili: spesso Hazlitt risultava assurdo ed eccessivo.
Insomma, mi ha annoiato e deluso.

http://www.naufragio.it/iltempodileggere/6357

Sorry, it must be me: I know that Hazlitt is a brilliant wit, part of the great tradition of British literature and an all round demi-God but he did nothing for me. This may be a book of only 118 pages, but it took longer than the entire works of Shakespeare, followed by the King James Bible and War and Peace, to read and was only vaguely more entertaining than the complete works of Barbara Cartland.

Sorry, not for me.

William Hazlitt--a kindred soul. Maybe I can meet him in the afterlife.
On the pleasure of hating:
The Fight: p.1-- Do English People ever eat vegetables? I wonder how long they take in the ladies' room? A loathsome subject, so I don't enjoy the story.
On the Spirit of Monarchy: p.47-- Making fun of royalty. "... whatever suffers oppression, They think deserves it.They are ever ready to side with the strong, to insult and trample on the weak." All power is but an unabated nuisance, a barbarous assumption, an aggravated Injustice, that is not directed to the common good: all Grandeur that has not something corresponding to it in personal Merit and heroic acts, is a deliberate burlesque, and an insult on common sense and human nature."
On show more Reason and Imagination: p. 84--"a spectacle of deliberate cruelty, that shocks everyone that sees and hears of it, is not to be justified by any calculations of cold-blooded self-interest-- is not to be permitted in any case... necessity has been therefore justly called "The tyrant's plea." (Slaughterhouse footage--veganism) There are two classes whom I have found given to this kind of reasoning, against the use of our senses and feelings and what concerns human nature, viz. knaves and fools. The last do it because they think their own shallow Dogma settle all questions best without any farther appeal and the first do it because they know that the refinements of the head are more easily got rid of than the suggestions of the heart and that a strong sense of Injustice, excited by a particular case in all its aggravations, tells more against them than all the distinctions of the jurist.... Thou Hast no speculation in those eyes that thou Dost glare with: thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold.
On the Pleasure of Hating: p.104--how long did the Pope, the Bourbons and the Inquisition keep the people of England in breath and Supply them with nicknames to vent their spleen upon? (Trumpudo) .... The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats Into the Heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to Virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and the narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others..... The only way to be reconciled to Old Friends is to part with them for good: at a distance we may chance to be thrown back(in a waking dream)upon old times and old feelings: or at any rate, we should not think of renewing our intimacy, till we have fairly spit our spite, or said, thought, and felt all the ill we can of each other.(Mary Munro)... I care little what anyone says of me, particularly behind my back, and in the way of critical and analytical discussion - it is looks of dislike and Scorn, that I answered with the worst Venom of my pen. the expression of the face wounds me more than the expression of the tongue.(the Vietnamese women on the next street who follow me to see if my doggies go potty in their yards, despite the fact that I hold up my poo-poo bag for them to see. The next time I'm going to give them a piece of my mind, in Spanish--so there!)... I have seen all that had been done by the mighty yearnings of the spirit and intellect of men, of whom the world was not worthy, and that promised a proud opening to truth and good through the Vista of future years, undone by one man, with just glimmering of understanding enough to feel that he was a king, but not to comprehend how he could be king of a free people! (Obama>Trumpudo)... It has become an understood thing that no one can live by his talents or knowledge who is not ready to prostitute those talents and that knowledge to betray his species, and prey upon his fellow - man. show less

So many of his sentences I want to quote and wish I had the succinct tongue and insight of this man.

fantastic and ageless