Born to Love, Taught to Hate

By Parambrahma Tripathy

Hatred is not a seed planted by nature. It is not born with the body or breathed in with the first air. It is taught—sometimes deliberately, sometimes silently—through systems, stories, fears, and repetitions. A child does not flinch from difference until someone tells them it’s dangerous. Skin color, faith, caste, language—these are not reasons for fear unless we are trained to believe so. And if hate is taught, then so is its undoing. The human heart, if left unchained, tends more naturally toward affection than animosity. This is not just a hopeful claim—it is grounded in how we evolved, how we suffer, and how we heal.

Evolution did not favor cruelty; it favored care

Long before cities and borders, humans lived in small, vulnerable bands. They faced predators, hunger, storms, and the long, dark unknown. In that harsh uncertainty, survival was not possible without the other. The body alone was weak; it was the group that endured. Early human life thrived on cooperation. Trust became currency. Empathy—however primitive—was a necessity. Those who sensed the needs of others, who shared food or stood guard while others slept, increased the chances of group survival. Evolution did not favor cruelty; it favored care. The most successful communities were not those who isolated, but those who bonded, collaborated, and recognized mutual need. Hatred was not useful in the everyday rhythm of survival. It might have flared during competition between tribes, but even then, it was strategic, not instinctive. Our core neurological wiring still reflects this. Mirror neurons, which allow us to experience the emotions of others, were not designed for war—they were designed for connection.

Yet the same brain that can feel with another can also be taught to fear. And fear is fertile ground for hatred. It is here that history enters—complex, violent, cunning. As societies grew in size and power, they needed more than bonds; they needed control. Empires do not expand on friendship. They expand by turning people into categories—believers and non-believers, civilized and savage, pure and impure. Difference becomes a threat. Hatred becomes policy.

The colonial machine was a master of this. Entire populations were dehumanized to make exploitation seem moral. Africans were reduced to property. Indigenous people were painted as godless or primitive. None of these were accidental perceptions—they were deliberate constructs, repeated until they felt like truth. The same technique echoed across continents: divide, then rule. If people see each other as enemies, they won’t unite against the real oppressor. The machinery of hate is always built by those who benefit from it.

When empathy dries up, people stop seeing people

In Nazi Germany, neighbors turned on neighbors not because they spontaneously decided to hate Jews, but because propaganda told them to. Posters, schoolbooks, speeches, films—it was a full-spectrum assault on the human mind. Jewish people were no longer individuals; they became a symbol of all that was wrong. The same happened in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Myanmar. A group is marked, vilified, and flattened into one monstrous image. Once that image takes root, empathy dries up. People stop seeing people.

And yet, even in those darkest hours, the human capacity for love survived. In Nazi-occupied Europe, ordinary citizens risked death to hide Jewish families. In Rwanda, some protected their Tutsi neighbors. In civil war zones, strangers shared food across barricades. These are not exceptions—they are reminders. They show what the heart knows before the mind is trained to forget. That the other is never truly other. That kindness can erupt even in spaces designed to crush it.

Hatred persists not because it is powerful, but because it is useful to the powerful. It simplifies a complex world. It tells people: your suffering is not random; it has a face, a name, a religion. You are poor because of them. You are insecure because of them. And in a world full of loneliness and grievance, such clarity is seductive. Leaders use it. Media amplifies it. The market profits from it. Outrage keeps us engaged. Anger sells.

Born to Love, Taught to Hate

But the teaching of love, though slower, is more enduring. It works not through shouting, but through presence. Through listening. Through stories. Consider the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It did not erase the pain of apartheid, but it allowed victims and perpetrators to speak—and to listen. What emerged was not peace in a textbook sense, but something deeper: the rediscovery of a shared, wounded humanity. Or take the Seeds of Peace program, where Israeli and Palestinian teenagers meet not as headlines, but as humans. Many leave forever changed. Not because politics disappear, but because faces replace slogans.

But love does not go viral

Love in this sense is not naïve. It is not about liking everyone or avoiding conflict. It is about refusing to dehumanize. It is about seeing complexity where hate demands simplicity. Martin Luther King Jr. called this “agape”—a love rooted in justice, not sentiment. When he preached love, he was not asking people to hug their oppressors. He was calling for a strength greater than vengeance—a love that insists on dignity for all, even when denied for some.

The modern world often forgets this. We move fast. We swipe past stories. We scroll through pain. The algorithm rewards anger. But love does not go viral. It grows slowly, in silence. In the conversation between two people who disagree, but stay. In the act of choosing not to generalize. In the courage to say: I was wrong. I didn’t know. I’m learning.

Education, then, becomes crucial. Not just schooling, but the deeper education of empathy. A child raised with books that reflect many lives, with friends from many homes, learns early that the world is not one color, one faith, one truth. Such a child is harder to fool. Exposure creates immunity to bigotry. Art, cinema, literature—they do what politics often can’t: they make us feel with others, not just think about them.

We often ask whether people can change. But maybe the better question is—can we remember? Can we return to what we knew before fear took over? Can we allow ourselves to feel what was once natural?

If hatred is architecture, then love is archaeology. It is the slow work of uncovering what was buried. Beneath the anger, the slogans, the inherited wounds—there is something older. The need to belong. To be seen. To be safe. That need in you is not different from the need in the one you are told to hate.

No one is born hating. It is taught. Structured. Rehearsed. But if we are capable of that much effort for something so unnatural, imagine what we can build with what comes easily. Not love as a soft escape, but love as resistance. Love as a political and moral reckoning. Love as the stubborn refusal to give up on the human heart.

[Parambrahma Tripathy is an author and Communication for Development professional with over 18 years of experience. He has worked with organizations like BBC Media Action, Landesa, The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, IPE Global, and Coceptual Media. He has been recognized with several awards, including the prestigious Laadli Media and Gender Sensitivity Award in 2022 and 2023, Best Lyricist of the Year in 2022, Dr. Radhanath Rath Fellowship for Journalism, Kalinga Literary Youth Award, Timepass Bestseller Award, Srujan India Youth Award, Utkal Sahitya Samaj Felicitation and Odia Yuva Stambha Samman(2023)]

(DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are the author’s own and have nothing to do with OTV’s charter or views. OTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)