Acceptable Hatred?

People are like snowflakes.

Snowflakes on their own are harmless enough, but when snowflakes all arrive at one time to induce "snow," it can either be really beautiful, or really dangerous. Similarly, when people get together to form "society," it can go one way or another.
On one side, we can be a creative, wonderful bunch of entities who bring into existence democracy, theology, philosophy, the arts, and the sciences- all with the ultimate intention of improving people's lives. But the darker side of society is something very dark indeed. We can be a greedy carnivorous beast, relentlessly searching for things to consume, and (more relevantly ATM) things to hate.
But humans seem to have this odd idea that "it's okay to hate something if everyone else is hatin' on it too." I would question the judgement of Everyone Else. Everyone Else might seem to have it sorted, but really, he's kinda messed up.
This is what Acceptable Hatred is, where we channel our negative feelings onto things that everyone else seems to hate, even if we have no rational basis to have any negative sentiment for said things. Today I want to look at the way AH is affecting life today.

The most common, and probably least consequential, form of modern AH is when people declare hatred for pop stars/actors of a certain brand. Classic example are Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Zac Efron, the cast of Glee, etc. People have a similar thing for Twilight, despite it not being a person.
They don't hate these people, of course. At the very most, they hate their work, but I doubt listening to "Baby" by our friend JB could really fill a rational person with a strong enough negative emotion that could be called hatred. And the subjects of this so-called "hatred" know full well that they aren't really hated, so it's not actually much of a problem. It's just annoying. Especially when someone's instant reaction to anyone innocently stating that they enjoy the work of x artist is "OMGOSH!!! YR SO STOOPID! (x artist) ARE SO CRAP! I HATE THEM!"
What's worse it that purveyors of this particular form of AH are everywhere. You can't escape them. Some of you are ever reading this blog- yes, you know who you are. *considerable glaring*

Still, it's better than most forms of AH. I'd rather someone said "I hate Zefron" than "I hate Germans". Or "I hate Christians."
Ooh, that's my next rant subtly linked to! How convenient.

Seriously, Christianophobia (yes, that's a word, and yes, I'm using it in a fairly liberal context here) is presently one of the most common and most ridiculous forms of AH. No-one who says "I hate Christians" has given much thought to the situation.
Generally, this premise is supported by the claim that all Christians enjoy suppressing populations and enforcing Christian beliefs on non-Christians. This in turn is supported by pointing at certain Christian individuals and saying "look, they do bad stuff!!" occasionally accompanying their point with a heavily de-contextualised, often re-worded bible verse, and saying "therefore all Christians are evil!" Wait, what? I think I missed a number of significant logical steps. Oh wait, you're hatin'. Logic doesn't come into it. My bad.
I really shouldn't have to say this (and for the majority of people reading, I don't think I do), but it's virtually impossible to generalise about what Christians believe. Everyone has their own take on the bible, everyone who decides to follow Jesus has a different interpretation on what he wants them to do with their lives, and you'll be surprised to know that the majority of Christians don't reach the conclusion that they're supposed to oppress all gays, women, blacks and Muslims before breakfast. The ones that do just shout the loudest. Or maybe their voices are just magnified more by the American news channels? I don't know, one or t'other.
Also, it annoys me when certain people define any Christian or other religious believer stating what they believe as "rubbing it in my face" or "infringing on my freedom," but when people like Dawkins publish a 400-page book explaining in detail why everyone should believe the same thing as they do, it's absolutely fine.
(Incidentally, I don't personally have a problem with Richard Dawkins publishing a 400-page book explaining in detail why everyone should believe the same thing as he does- I just don't like double standards.)

So, that's that. Justin Bieber is just a human teenager who has made it in the pop world and is very grateful for it, Christians for the most part do not eat babies or try to burn secularists at the stake, and Richard Dawkins is annoying but has valid points of view. What lovely conclusions for us all.

 Hope you be lovin' 'stead of hatin', wherever you may be. See you tomorrow!

(Video that explains the "I hate religious people" dilemma with more eloquence from 2:15 onwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kB-5Srv05M)