are you a soft or a hard person? (inspired by bertha's thread)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

i am a hard person..i think hatred/anger are good and necessary things...i think some wars are justified and needed...some people deserve a good ass kicking...


what about you?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. eeek

i am the only hard liberal...yikes

[Darranar]

2. Proud bleeding heart liberal...

I despise hatred and am enraged by anger.

[johnnie]

3. I am a softy

Sometimes I play it out like I am a hard ass, but mainly it is for a laugh. I don't know if I actually "hate" anything. I dislike a lot of things, but not hate them.
I get queasy when I see too much violence and whenever I see one person harming another.

[StopTheMorans]

4. depends on my mood

:evilgrin:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. i guess i should have prefaced this with

DO NOT TURN INTO SEX THREAD :P

[StopTheMorans]

8. what are you talking about? i just meant that, in some moods

i feel that war and violence are justified and therefore necessary (and in other moods, I feel that the inverse is true). :silly:

[sans qualia]

5. I'm full of hate, but I hate hate too

so I guess I'm a softie.

[frictionlessO]

7. devout soft pacifist, but with many hard friends...

Though these days it gets tougher and tougher to be soft...

[SarahB]

9. soft, but very strong

I tend to think of "hard" as bitter, though you may not have necessarily meant it as such. I have had to undergo various challenges and endurances in life where I have needed amazing strength either physically or emotionally, but my inherent nature is very soft, sensitive, and tender (with an ooccasional wall of sarcasm at times for a certain amount of self preservation). :)

[mr_hat]

10. Soft, but perceived as prickly.

[sniffa]

11. hard

but... i'm a big oLd softy at heart, so i break easiLy. :(

[TXlib]

12. Hard. No Viagra needed here.

[TXlib]

13. Seriously, by your definition...

I am in between.

Anger is necessary; it goads us into action, and makes us act in the face of injustice.

Hatred, on the other hand, never serves a good purpose. One doesn't even need to hate the enemy in war. One simply needs to act out of necessity.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. i think hatred is just a form of anger.,...or anger is an expression

of hatred.

[TXlib]

19. I respectfully disagree.

I consider hatred and anger as seperate entities. They may often come together, or anger may eventually progress to hatred, which is why they are sometimes confused.

You can certainly have anger without hatred.

Perhaps you can also have hatred without anger, although that might be a pathological type, like hatred borne of ignorance and bigotry.

But I think you may be thinking of the kind of hatred that comes of continued, unresolved anger. I tend to agree with the likes of Ghandi and MLK that the best social change occurs when you don't act out of hatred.

[Boswells_Johnson]

24. I've always considered "anger" to be a reactionary emotion

or a response to a situation, but "hatred" to be a conscious attitude towards something.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

35. thats what i think...hatred is more motivating that mere anger to me

[Boswells_Johnson]

15. I'm a softy.

I think that hate/love & good/evil are all choices.

[ZenLefty]

16. Can I be a 'hard' person and not have hate or anger?

I don't think anger and hate are good and necessary, though I do believe they are human qualities. It is perfectly natural to have an angry reaction from time to time. And there are many different kinds of hate. There are people who hate broccoli. Some people hate the Detroit redwings. Others hate dark skinned people. None of these are the same kind of hate.

But you can be a hard person and still disdain hatred and anger. I believe there are times where strong and forceful action is appropriate. I don't get easily offended, and I don't have much appreciation for people who do. I eat meat. I don't like U2. I've been known to threaten people with bodily harm. So yeah, I'm probably what one would consider a hard person, but I still refrain from anger.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. yes you can be...sounds like you are.....

[ZenLefty]

21. O, good. I'd cry if I couldn't be.

:P

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. cry baby

:P :P

[Solly Mack]

18. I don't think hate and anger are interchangeable words

I think far too many confuse anger with hate.

That said...hate is often a very damaging emotion.The object of your hate seldom knows you hate them and the other half don't care that you do hate them.

This is not to say I haven't felt hate. I have felt hate. Deeply. Intensely. Does it ever fester? No. Do I ever act upon those feelings? No. Would I ever act upon those feelings? No.

I am also capable of feeling great and terrible anger without hating those I am angry with....my words may be harsh from my anger but that doesn't make them hate.

I agree that anger is a good thing. I am not bothered by feelings of hatred in victims, directed at those who perpetuate and instigate hate against others. Why wouldn't a person be angry with those who would see them dead? Why wouldn't I be angry with anyone who would dehumanize me as a person? Those that would dehumanize me, would kill me.

I can't turn the other cheek if I'm strung up dead on a fence post in Wyoming.

It's completely normal for people to feel hate from time to time. Especially with those who have been oppressed and treated unjustly. It's how they direct that hate...venting on a message board among "friends" isn't the same as feeding the beast from the bully pulpit. No one on DU is going to go out and physically attack homophobes and other assorted idiots based on any words written here...however, those who give speeches in public forums attacking gays and lesbians can't say the same.

Am I hard? Oh, I can be...very much so.

[Karenina]

29. Thank you for that, Solly.

:loveya: :toast: :loveya:

[Solly Mack]

34. it was from my anger-filled heart :)

:loveya:2

[Wat_Tyler]

20. I'm tough as nails.

I despise the 'bleeding-heart Liberal' tag. I'm a cold callous bitch full of compassion for the downtrodden masses, I'm a bad-ass punk for the poor and needy.

[arwalden]

23. Pacifists Wonder Why Everyone Takes Advantage Of Them.

And still, out of some irrational fear that someone might see them as being rude or uppity... some would even send thank-you-cards to their oppressors to show appreciation of the oppression.

Well, obviously, they're not really thankful... they just want to set a "good example" of what tolerance looks like, so they tolerate the oppression.

There's a REASON why mean people get their way. And there's a reason why nice people lose.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. i think we are in the midst of a real civil war

and only the liberals/democrats are unaware

[jonnyblitz]

26. hard where I need to be, soft with friends. n/t

[JohnKleeb]

27. Eh it depends

I have qualities of both in me.

[Left Is Write]

28. I'm a little of both.

I'm by and large a softie, but I do believe in the kind of anger that galvanizes a person. Justified anger is a good thing. Hatred is destructive.

[tjdee]

30. Soft, but once I hit my boiling point watch out.

I don't hate anyone, because that gives them power over my emotions (hello people, don't you watch Oprah ;).

I am a mellow person with most people, but in the wise words of the rhyming sage Adam Levine,

I have a tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle.

Ah yes. Quoting pop music should show you how hardcore I am!

[jellybelly]

31. hmmm....

girls can't be hard or soft...or can they?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. girls can be everything

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

32. I am NOT going there....

Oh. Now I read your message.

I'm a softy.

:hug: