Love to Overcome Hate

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Impact Of Hate

Due to the ongoing major conflicts in our world, and the profound impacts they’ve had on people near and far from the actual epicenters of violence, we have decided to bring you a special edition of our Weekly Wisdom series.

Power Of Hate

In addition to the horrors of massive loss of life and destruction, escalations of violence in Israel, Palestine, Russia, and Ukraine have also been responsible for serious psychosocial shifts that can and do lead to more isolated acts of violence. Opinions surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict have been incredibly contentious for decades, but lately this has reached a boiling point that has turned neighbors against each other.

As such, I wanted to share with you all an important article I read recently in Psychology Today, authored by a good friend of mine, Dr. Tyler J. VanderWeele. Tyler is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has also been an important friend and advisor to UEF. Likewise, UEF has been a proud supporter of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, of which Tyler is the director.

Love Overcomes Hate

Tyler’s recent article on how love can overcome hate could not have come at a more critical time and should be required reading for anyone who truly cares about finding ways forward in our divided world. More broadly, the work Tyler and his team have conducted for years has been instrumental in bringing more attention to topics like love and flourishing in academic circles, and how scholarly and medical research can yield important data about the impacts of love in our individual lives and our collective societies.

Overcoming Hate with Love

I ask that you please read Tyler’s recent article and reflect deeply upon it. Also check out https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/ for more information on the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, or check out Tyler’s profile on Psychology today for more engaging and important reading. As always, we encourage you to also check out our resources on flourishing, love, and other related topics at www.uef.org.

About the author

Akhilesh Gupta

Akhil Gupta is the founder and director of Universal Enlightenment Forum, a 501(c)3 corporation. He has been associated with Harvard University since 2015, first as a fellow at Advanced Leadership Initiative and later as an Impact Leader in residence in 2023. Akhil currently serves on The Dean’s Leadership Council at Harvard Divinity School, on the Advisory Board of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, and on the Advisory Board of Harvard’s Chan Initiative on Health and Homelessness.
He is the author of two books “Bridges Across Humanity” published in 2023 and “To Flourish is To Love Learn Play” to be published in December 2025.He was inspired to write these books while studying at Harvard University.
Prior to Harvard, he was the founder Chairman of Blackstone India & Senior Managing Director of The Blackstone Group. He also served in senior positions at Reliance Industries Limited and Hindustan Unilever
Akhil has a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He served on the Advisory Council of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University from 2014 to 2021