Ideologies of hate
 

What I'm going to try to explain will be long and convoluted in all likelihood but I'd like to try to do so. So what do I mean when I speak of an ideology of hate? Like all generalisations it's not that accurate and it's probably not that meaningful but in terms of rubbish generalisations we spend excessive amounts of time pontificating over it's probably worth a thought or two. Ideologies of hate are essentially exclusionary ideologies. They are not limited by classical definitions of liberal or conservative or religious or not religious. They aren't really about what we think but are far more to do with how we think it. If you think I'm wrong and ideologies of hate means something else don't bother telling me because that's not what I'm interested in. It's the concept, not the language we use to describe it that's important.

Ideologies of hate tell you you're a victim, of greedy capitalists, of hate-filled atheists, of invasive religions, the identity isn't really the important thing. The important things you're told are that a) you're a victim b) there is a group to blame and c) we can help you. Immediately you are confronted with a "them and us" scenario. However this all becomes irrelevant because the fact that "we can help you" is the real point behind the polemic. You may have been victimised and there may have been a group to blame but there is rarely a just way of redressing these wrongs and it does not involve the indiscriminate sort of hatred that arises from these ideologies.

Fundamentally ideologies of hate aren't about justice. Justice is not the important thing for a just world is not what is sought. What is sought is an enemy, someone against whom we can define ourselves and pull together. But pulling together is not the desired goal. As with many things the desired goal is power over our fellow human beings. The desire is a fairly "natural" one. People are concerned about the intentions of others. In a world of six billion plus human beings to imagine that there are no people out there who seriously desire to exterminate, enslave or otherwise generally **** up large portions of the world's population is to be short-sighted.

The terrible thing is that ideologies of hate corrupt our reason. They use incidental facts and our human concern to convince us of the necessity of our war. To question is at best misguided, at worst conspiratorial. The goalposts are constantly shifted, the group we are fighting against is once x, y and z, now becomes a, b and c. Pragmatically speaking little changes, we have enemies, they hate us, we have to defeat them before they can seize control over us. The inhumanities which we can excuse because what our enemies would do is far worse are unimaginable.

Ideologies of hate don't need to make sense on any level. All they need to be is sufficiently large for the human mind to fail to grasp the complexity of it all in an instant. Because once that is possible you can always question whether or not you were previously mistaken. Some people believe and do terrible things in the name of all that is good and just, some don't and do them anyways. Some can be swayed by argument, some cannot.

The great enemy of ideologies of hate is human reason. Unfortunately for us this is not an easily won conflict. Sometimes we are tired and fail, sometimes we are weak and cannot succeed and sometimes we're both and not sure what we're after. However we can draw solace in the fact that regardless of its faults we still possess it. Your own ability to reason is the best, indeed it is the only weapon, against those who present you with enemies who do not hate you and wars that they didn't want to fight.

Most people aren't after you. Most people don't give a **** what you're doing. Trust not those who tell you they're doing something for your benefit when you don't understand why. Ideologies of hate succeed when you abdicate your responsibility to use your own reason to determine what is right and wrong. It's not just tolerance, it's humanity.

Every once in a while it's nice to attempt to explain our stupid paradigms of thought you see.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I blame Yahwe

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

No. I just wanted to fit in

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

i dont understand Yahwe are u blaming yourself.. or god ?

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

So in other words you're saying that the current American government is a bit like the Nazi's because they both use this ideology of hate to justify their wars. Think of it, when you look at it from this angle the American and Nazi regime have quite a few similarities.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

Jonny if I've understood what you are saying (of which there is no guarantee) I think you're getting your causation wrong fairly dramatically. Most people don't slip into "us versus them" views because it's a quirk of the human condition that we enjoy doing so; there's usually a "thing" that makes "us" angry, and the people doing the "thing" are "them". I don't see what's inherently illegitimate about this approach, and I really can't understand how you came to your interpretation. (If that is your interpretation. It's quite hard to tell because frankly two out of every three sentences in your post were exercises in melodrama and it was hard reading.)

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

From my limited experience, people often spend just as much time hating people almost identical to them than some kind of "other". Speak to have any hard leftist for any considerable period and you'll probably find he spends a lot more of his time hating some other obscure Trot sect than he does "the capitalists". (The People's Front of Judea syndrome). Even the extreme right (who you'd think would have a simpler ideological system since it all boils down to hating darkie) have the same sort of issue - some of the more high profile convictions of far-rightists in this country have resulted from feuds within those circles.

Also, I don't think I would agree that there are "ideologies of hate" as such. There are ideologies which place the cause of various social problems in different places (capitalism, immigration, liberals, an oppressive state system or whatever) but that isn't necessarily incorrect as Phang has noted.

I personally try to avoid the term 'victim' in this sort of context since it has a lot of other connotations (and has been horribly been mis/overused) but in one sense we are all victims of one type or another. We are all occassionally victims of inept bureaucracies, heavy handed legislation, corporations with less than shining ethical standards, frauds and other crimes perpetrated by those acting outside the law, etc, etc.

The problem seems to not be the original premise of an ideology in most cases, but how this then transforms over time. The every day business of doing politics means that the nuances of an ideology are lost and originally rational positions become more and more emotional. So perhaps originally you "disliked" the French because you found their government's position on the war on Iraq. But in the act of politics (e.g. trying to persuade other Americans to boycott French products until their policy is changed which is a legitimate enough tactic) you begin to insult Frenchness in general and then your dislike is much more like a hate, and falls victim to the irrationality you describe.

Conversely, I have seen Marxists who start with the premise "Iran is under pressure from American imperialism, therefore I will call for limited support for Iran in this particular context while remembering the anti-democratic, theocratic and un-Marxist nature of Iran" (#1). However, after several dozen arguments where people point out how evil Iran is they find themselves trying to "bend the stick" back the other way and mention how Iran, compared to other countries in the region is perhaps moving in the right direction and not as bad as people think while obviously having major problems (#2). Then, a little while longer they actually start merely noting the good things about Iran in discussions (#3) - again, as a counter balance. It's difficult to continually say one thing and believe another for some honest folks and so they end up defending uncritically the Iranian government both internally and externally (#4). And then they're just a cheerlader for Iran who spews bile and hate against any opposition (#5).

Through this transfer from #1 - #5 they go from rational position to irrational emotional position, but for understandable enough reasons. Their politics doesn't really change, and the fault wasn't in their original ideological premise but in the every day execution of their political discourse.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

'othering' is a natural process - i agree with begood and not phang here. Every individual and every group defines who they are by who they are not.

I could ramble on for a while, but it boils down to the fact that its easier to define what you arent, what you dislike, who you dislike, than who you are and what you believe in.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I'm fairly sure this is tautological; give me an example of it that can't be restated as a double negative.

Yeah, but that's because once you find a flaw in something it tends to stay flawed, and when you havent found a flaw in something all that means you havent found a flaw yet. Saying that something you think is bad is bad is often a safer bet than saying something you think is good is good.

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That doesn't necessarily imply hate though. I'm a man, which could be restarted as "I am not a woman" but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to be antagonistic to this "other" or want to live separately from them or whatever.

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Our distaste generally arises due to the fact we fail to understand a lot of what other people are after. Most people don't live their lives in dramatically different ways.

Also melodramatic writing is :cool: so **** you.

Indeed it does not. What I described as ideologies of hates are a subset of exclusionary ideologies, not the totality of them!

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

So if it makes sense (iraqi's defining american soldiers as occupiers, claiming they are the enemy, and advocating attacking them, for instance), then its not a "ideology of hate" ?

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

Whose thread are you reading?

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

Yes but the us and them concept merely works as simplistic reasoning tool that happily absolves the thinker of actually thinking.

It's not so much humans enjoying doing so, but because it's easier. Simplistic dichotomies are far easier on the mind (lynch him then all our problems will be solved!) than working out the whole problem and going about it pragmatically. If you're mugged it's far easier to conclude it's because he's from this race/nation/area/school than to work out exactly why he mugged you and go about changing the conditions that brought about the mugging. And everyone likes a good lynching.

And didn't your mother tell you that internet melodrama is cool these days?

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I'm too hungover to read more than a paragraph but I'm betting it was just an insanely long insult about my mother so I'll read it later hopefully!

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I'm not really sure what you're getting at but I don't think reason is the solution, to be honest.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I see. And how did you arrive at that conclusion?




Cool, I did a philosophy undergrad joke.

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

Wouldn't a philosophy undergrad joke be more along the lines of "how do you know you exist?"

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

If a bottle of Guiness is opened in a pub and JBJ is in a forest, will he still hear the sound?

I agree with much of what you say. However, some hate is engendered by feelings of superiority by the hater. Feeling victimized is certainly a control device but so is feeling extra better than another group. Southern plantation owners felt superior to their slaves and didn't necessarily feel victimized. However, they engaged in a hatefull ideology perhaps as differentiated from an ideology of hate?

Re: Ideologies of hate
 

I'm asking you.

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My entire point is that the actual existence of a victims vs oppressors scenario is largely the creation of people who fail to understand how reality actually operates. Ideologies of hate are more about methodology than the actual origins of the ideology.

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Okey, so nobody is targeted as a group? Oppression based on group-basis, religious/political/ethnical etc. doesnt exist, have never happened?

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No seriously, whose thread are you reading?