Love and Hate

I found this when culling some old notes:

From the Toronto Star, 5th April 2014:

“Intriguingly, this pattern [of brain activity when subjects felt hate] touched on brain regions “almost identical to the one activated by passionate, romantic love.” (1)

This finding confirms an insight long known to poets: that love and hate are close cousins. Both are an obsession with the well-being of another person. The lover wants the best, the hater wants the worst, for the object of their obsession. What’s intriguing is that the researchers found this discovery intriguing. For a literary scholar the discovery isn’t much of a surprise. We see here another example of C P Snow’s Two Cultures.

(1) Jennifer Young quoting Semir Zeki, British neuro-scientist at University College, London.