Why hatred can feel easier than compassion for our young men

In a world that often asks men to be strong, silent, and self-sufficient, it’s no surprise that hatred sometimes feels easier to carry than compassion. As counsellors, we see this all the time: clients who’ve been taught to suppress, deny, or even mock their tenderness, replacing it with anger, bravado, or blame.

But what’s beneath that? And why does hatred seem to carry more weight, especially for young men?

The evolutionary trap: Why negativity grabs hold

Our brains are wired with a negativity bias. Evolutionarily speaking, it made more sense to remember the tiger that nearly ate you than the sunrise that made you cry. This survival mechanism means we give more emotional weight to threat, rejection, and fear core experiences often manifest in men as irritation, anger, or withdrawal.

“Bad is stronger than good.”

- Baumeister et al., 2001

For many men, especially those never permitted to feel sadness or vulnerability, hatred or resentment becomes the only acceptable emotional currency. It feels powerful. It feels certain. But it’s often pain in disguise.

Case study: Gareth, Age 24

Gareth came to counselling after being referred by his GP. He described himself as “angry all the time” and admitted he’d recently lost his job after shouting at a colleague. He insisted early on that he didn’t “do therapy” and wasn’t going to “talk about feelings.”

In early sessions, Gareth ranted about “woke culture”, immigrants “getting everything handed to them,” and how “the country had gone to the dogs.” On the surface, his views were harsh and politically charged, but underneath was something else entirely.

Through patient, empathic work, Gareth eventually shared the losses he’d never grieved: a father who drank himself to death, a brother who died by suicide, and the breakdown of his marriage after years of financial strain. Nobody had ever asked him how he was coping. Everyone just assumed he’d get on with it. And so he did by burying his pain in anger.

Week by week, Gareth began to soften. He spoke of how helpless he’d felt as a child, watching his mother hold a family together with nothing. He described how ashamed he felt needing help. And eventually, he wept for the first time in a decade, not from weakness, but from relief.

He didn’t lose his anger entirely, but he redefined it. He began volunteering with a local men’s mental health group. He wrote a letter to his Mother, apologising for the ways he’d shut down. He no longer blamed “outsiders” for his suffering. He had finally made peace with the insider who had been hurting himself.

Hatred as a shortcut to belonging

Anger is not always about destruction, sometimes it’s about connection. Without healthy emotional outlets, young men may find community in shared blame. Whether it’s political echo chambers, such as: X and GBnews, online forums, or pub talk, being angry together offers belonging without the risk of vulnerability.

But this tribalism comes at a cost. It may offer temporary relief, but it deepens the emotional isolation underneath. Compassion, by contrast, requires young men to say, "I feel," "I need," and "I hurt," words many were never taught to use.

The historical weaponisation of hatred

History shows us how hatred has been used to unite people through fear. Leaders and regimes have exploited male pain, particularly in working-class communities, to redirect anger toward scapegoats, not systems.

“The receptivity of the masses is very limited… all effective propaganda must be limited to very few points and harp on these in slogans.”

-  Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

This kind of manipulation thrives when emotional illiteracy is normalised. When boys are told to “man up” or “don’t cry,” they grow into men who struggle to access empathy for themselves or others. Hatred becomes a mask. But underneath is often shame, grief, and a deep longing to be seen.

Compassion is strength, not weakness

Contrary to what culture might suggest, compassion isn’t soft, it’s radical. It’s a conscious decision to stay open, even when life teaches you to close. It takes more strength to offer kindness in the face of pain than to lash out in anger. But for men, accessing that strength often starts with unlearning the idea that emotional openness is a threat to masculinity.

“Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”

- Dalai Lama

A call to young men: Look inward, not downward

If you’ve known poverty, rejection, or trauma, you know how heavy it is. But ask yourself honestly: Is that weight making you more compassionate or angry? Are you punching up at those in power or punching down at those just as powerless?

Because hatred often travels downward. It’s easier to blame the refugee than the corporation. Easier to resent the neighbour than challenge the system.

But what would it mean to stand still with your pain and allow someone else to stand with you in it?

What I see in the therapy room

When men finally allow themselves to feel grief instead of anger, their posture softens. Tears come. Breath returns. The nervous system settles. It’s not weakness, it’s healing.

As a counsellor, I recognise I hold space for that transformation. I know the cost of disconnection. And I see time and again that once men start to feel, they begin to care not just for themselves but for others, too.

We live in a society that is deeply uncomfortable with male vulnerability and yet desperately needs it. Not performative softness, not silence, but true, embodied compassion, the kind that takes courage, the kind that saves lives.

To any man reading this: You are not your rage.

You are not the voice that says it’s weak to feel.

You are worthy of compassion and powerful when you offer it.

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.