The Prioress in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales had a brooch alluding to Virgil's phrase, 'love conquers all'. In her case, her love for her two lapdogs beat her affection for mere people.
But in public life one wonders about the truth of the epigram. Indeed a good case could be made that hatred conquers all, and that it is stronger than love.
The advent of Donald Trump with his individual style has occasioned lament that the public world is now dominated by hatred and contempt. But there is nothing new in it. The genesis of today's rule of hatred has long been visible in social media and in the rhetoric of shock jocks.
The response to the politics of hatred has often been to deplore and to dismiss it as primitive and ineffectual. Particularly in comparison with love. Well, primitive it may be, but in my experience it is often more energising and effective than love.
A grumpy and uncommunicative priest I once knew had been a spiritual counsellor in a large and authoritarian seminary. In his role he provided an ear for the frustrations and petty injustices experienced in such institutions. Meeting him as a somewhat embittered old man I was surprised how highly esteemed he was by his alumni.
I came to realise that he was less motivated by sympathy for the students than by hatred of the local authorities. When presented with some injustice he would contact higher authorities and dump on the local ones. Hatred stirred him into life and gave a vitality and focus that were often very effective.
The power of hatred can also be seen in the petty enthusiasms and distastes of daily life. Many people take more delight in the defeats of football teams they hate than in the victories of those they support. Cyclists can develop a hatred for cars that breeds schadenfreude as they pass line upon line of motorists in heavy traffic. Iago in his envy-driven hatred, of course, walked all over Othello the lover.
We should hesitate to dismiss the effectiveness or the endurance in public life of people who are great haters. We have only to think of Ian Paisley to be reminded of how focused over a life time of politics a person driven by hatred can be, and how it can coexist with other commitments and relationships. Hatred can be like a battery that stores energy as well as like a bomb that