"One who hates is a man holding a magnifying-glass, and when he hates someone, he knows precisely that person's surface, from the soles of his feet all the way up to each hair on the hated head"
About this Quote
Hate, Broch suggests, is a perversely attentive form of intimacy. The magnifying-glass is a brilliant instrument here: it promises clarity while guaranteeing distortion. It lets you see more, but only of what’s closest to the lens. Hatred becomes a kind of obsessive close-reading of another person, a fixation on the granular and the visible, the little tics and faults you can inventory like evidence. And yet Broch’s punchline is that what hate “knows” is only surface - from soles to hair, a full-body scan that never reaches inward.
That’s the subtext: hatred flatters itself as insight. It feels forensic, even righteous, because it can name details. But those details are a substitute for understanding, not proof of it. The hater’s knowledge is anatomical, not human; it reduces a person to a map of irritations. Broch’s anatomy-from-feet-to-hair also carries a social sting: hate is democratic in its scrutiny, leveling the other into an object, a specimen you can dominate by describing.
In Broch’s world - shaped by the moral and political breakdowns of early 20th-century Europe - this isn’t just private psychology. It’s a warning about how modern publics learn to despise: by zooming in on caricature-ready surfaces (a gesture, an accent, a body) until the inner life disappears. The line exposes hate as a technique of attention that masquerades as truth while quietly evacuating empathy.
That’s the subtext: hatred flatters itself as insight. It feels forensic, even righteous, because it can name details. But those details are a substitute for understanding, not proof of it. The hater’s knowledge is anatomical, not human; it reduces a person to a map of irritations. Broch’s anatomy-from-feet-to-hair also carries a social sting: hate is democratic in its scrutiny, leveling the other into an object, a specimen you can dominate by describing.
In Broch’s world - shaped by the moral and political breakdowns of early 20th-century Europe - this isn’t just private psychology. It’s a warning about how modern publics learn to despise: by zooming in on caricature-ready surfaces (a gesture, an accent, a body) until the inner life disappears. The line exposes hate as a technique of attention that masquerades as truth while quietly evacuating empathy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Anger |
|---|
More Quotes by Hermann
Add to List
