For something that is an ambiguous concept at the best, Love takes up a lot of our time, a lot of air-time (even if we discount porn) and is the ultimate control mechanism in the modern era (second only to religion of course). The same could be said about hate, but that would only point to a double standard which the delusional are exceptional at promoting.
To make my point, every time Love gets a bad name, it is discounted as being Lust, greed (sure, money is never a motivation for love!), or something along the lines. The same rules are hardly applied to Hate. For instance, Terrorists around the world who purport acts that can make a rational human squirm (though I wish to make it clear, that you do not have to be completely rational to squirm at those actions) are labeled haters, when in reality, hate is just a mislabel by the above set guidelines. Some do it for Lust (I believe the promise of 72 virgins in heaven is sufficient proof), some for greed, perhaps some out of jealousy, but the pure instinct of hate is rarely witnessed.
Perhaps, it is never witnessed because it does not exist in the sense we hope it does. It is rather easy to defeat one emotion, to rationalize it away than to find yourself a half-dozen new ones, each with their own set of underlying conditions. But that is only the negative motive. The positive motive, by the same token, pure Love is rarely witnessed. If we discount the love of a parent for their child as being their evolutionary objective (if you do not agree with that statement and/or do not believe in evolution at all, you are obviously quite lost, and might I suggest getting back to Google and restarting your journey), a particular specimen of “Love” can quite easily be inspected and dissected into sexual desire, the need for companionship, attachment aka conditioning aka a child’s love for its parents and therefore invalidate Love as a singular by the same rules that invalidate Hate.
The argumentative will choose to see my attempt at making Hate seem more glorious than it is, but it is quite certainly an attempt to level the two up, since they are on the same level. They are true opposites and therefore set into battle by the memes of our culture and our kind.
As you might have guessed, this is my long drawn out attempt at a Fuck you to Valentine’s Day.
In parting, I leave you with the mind of Aaron T Beck, psychiatrist, researcher and author who in his scientific capacity calls love a mania.