Melissa Prunty Kemp

30 Day Poetry Challenge: National Poetry Writing Month

DAY 12

 

 

Language/Hate*

 

Hate is the human capacity for acquiring complex systems and distinctions. Any hate can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, grafiti, twerking, or rap music. "Hate" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, e.g. Stop and Frisk. All hatreds rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs with particular meanings, i.e., “hoodie” is worn by “hoodlum,” also known as “hood.” Human hatred has the properties of productivity—it can create new ways to express itself such as the replacement of “nigger” with “thug”, recursivity—infinitely repeating its image, and displacement—communicating things now here or not here now, i.e., the justification “he’s got a gun” after shooting one unarmed. Hate relies entirely on social convention and learning, micro-aggressions for instance. Hate is thought, acquiring the ability to form a theory of “other”. Hate is sometimes thought to coincide with an increase in brain volume. Humans acquire hate through social interaction. Hate also has many social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as social grooming. Hatreds evolve and diversify over time. Hate in this sense is a system of signs for encoding and decoding information. When speaking of hate as a general concept, definitions can be used which stress different aspects of the phenomenon. One definition sees hate primarily as the mental faculty that allows humans to undertake hate behaviour: to learn hate and to produce and understand hateful utterances. This definition stresses the universality of hate to all humans. It emphasizes the biological basis for the human capacity for hate as a unique development of the human brain.

 

 

© 4/12/14 by Melissa Prunty Kemp

 

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**The above is a replacement poem, replacing the word “language” with “hate” into various definitions of “language” as found in published reference sources.