Conclusion

When Myrtle Vance, the three-year-old daughter of the town sheriff, was found strangled in Paris, Texas, in 1893, suspicion fell on Henry Smith, a young black man. He had been beaten up by the sheriff prior to the child’s disappearance, and it was rumored that he wanted revenge and that he had been seen with the girl on the day of her disappearance. The evidence against Smith was, however, circumstantial at best. As anti-lynching activist and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett noted in her 1895 pamphlet ...

Baby, It’s in Your Nature

In its new guidelines to help psychologists address male violence, sexism, and misogyny, the American Psychological Association suggests that misogyny stems from the masculinity ideology our culture adheres to. While the masculinity dogma is part of what inspires men to hate women, two other ideologies are needed to explain the misogyny incarnate in contemporary culture: doctrines here called “the feminine ideal” and “the myth of female filth.” It’s imprinted into the minds of little girls that they need to live up to society’s standards of femininity. Women who deviate from traditional gender norms become the targets of misogynistic hatred. The flipside of the feminine ideal is that women’s implicit association with bodily “stuff,” manipulation, and irrationality makes all women prone to misogynistic contempt. Along the way, this chapter shows how sexism differs from hateful and contemptuous misogyny, and why women who belong to multiple marginalized or stigmatized groups are particularly prone to misogynistic attacks.

And Justice for All

There is a strong sentiment in the general population that we need to put an end to the hate crisis in our society. Politicians and policymakers have it in their power to prevent this crisis from escalating further by regulating not only (physical) hate crimes but also hate speech. This has already been done in many European countries, where hate speech typically is considered a form of group libel that defames members of the targeted group. Law professor Jeremy Waldron has offered an argument for this perspective on hate speech. Hate speech, he argues, is criminal group libel. This chapter argues that Waldron’s argument doesn’t accomplish what he says it does, because most hate speech doesn’t make, or imply, any factual claim and therefore fails to be defamatory. The chapter then offers an argument for curtailing hate speech that is premised on the political philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ notion of communicative rationality. Finally, other solutions to the hate crisis are considered.

Keep the Change, You Filthy Animal

Far-right supporters paint a rosy image of the luxurious lifestyle of the 1950s white middle-class families or the Southern family living in peaceful agrarian communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In each imagined society traditional white American families lead satisfying, stress-free lives, which they built through honest hard work. The traditional values they embraced offered clear guidance on how to move up in society through hard work and willpower, unburdened by people of color, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, homeless, or other “inferior free-riders.” This American Phantasy lies at the core of the nefarious ideology that underpins white nationalism in America today and makes far-right extremists look down on non-whites with dehumanizing contempt and explode in hateful fits of rage when they don’t acknowledge their “proper place” in society. The newfound confidence of far-right extremists is partially due to the fact that the president refuses to condemn their hate crimes, but also to the ease of recruiting new members among hard-working people who tire in their struggle against the tide and young people who are increasingly likely to harbor vulnerable dark personalities, making them so thirsty for accolade that extremists specializing in ego-stroking have a good chance of recruiting them.

Bad Blood

In his landmark essay “Freedom and Resentment,” the philosopher Peter Strawson coined the term “reactive attitude” to refer to our emotional reactions to wrongdoing or acts of goodwill in the context of social relationships, such as your resentment toward a person who wronged you or gratitude toward a person who did you a favor. These emotional reactions, Strawson argued, are beneficial because they serve to uphold the standards of our moral community. Strawson didn’t take an official stance on whether hatred can perform a similar beneficial role. But subsequently, a number of thinkers have argued that it serves no worthwhile purpose. In terms of safeguarding our moral ideals, we are better off without it. Hate is frowned upon because of its close ties to vengeance. Vengeful hate is dehumanizing. But, this chapter argues, vengeance is not essential to hate. Without it, hate can be a gateway to moral vision.

It’s a Thin Line between Love and Hate

We expect a lot from strangers, for instance, that the valet guy doesn’t steal our wheels, that the babysitter doesn’t abduct our children, and that the barista at Starbucks doesn’t poison our white chocolate mocha. But romantic relationships, friendships, parent-child relationships, and other varieties of intimate relationships introduce a whole new dimension to what we expect and demand of each other. It’s against the backdrop of our intimate relationships that we sign prenups, make custody agreements, write wills, and open joint bank accounts. But most of our interactions in intimate settings are shaped not by contractual agreements but by our preferences, core values, and prior expectations about how other people should behave. No wonder people embark on relationships with clashing concepts of what count as oversights, slights, betrayals, and unforgivable sins. Our differing expectations, preferences, and core values create ample opportunities for misunderstandings to arise and wreak havoc. It is not surprising, then, that antagonistic emotions, such as disrespect, resentment, hate, and contempt, are commonplace in intimate settings. But, as we will see, they are not equally toxic. Our intimate relationships can survive the torments of hate and resentment, but they crumple under the weight of disrespect and contempt.

Hit Me with Your Best Shot

In common parlance, “contempt” is often subsumed under “hate.” When we speak of group hate, hate groups, hate crimes, hate speech, hate campaigns, and hate mail, this is the sense of “hate” we have in mind. We can call this the “wide sense” of hate. This chapter offers an analysis of hate and contempt as complex emotions that have other emotions as proper parts. Contempt, it is argued, is composed of disgust and condemnation, which is a strong form of disrespect for or disapproval of a person for her failings overall or as engaged in a particular pursuit. Hate, in its narrow sense, is composed of resentment (or indignation), condemnation, and apprehension. Along the way, it is shown that disrespect is the component that unites what the author calls the “antagonistic emotions.” The latter include anger, resentment, indignation, envy, blame, contempt, and hate.

Killing in the Name Of

This chapter grapples with the nature of group hate and collective hate. Group hate is hate targeted at groups or individuals because of their group membership. Collective hate is hate that a group has toward a common target or that group members have toward a target on behalf of their group. Collective hate is a special case of collective intentionality, the capacity of minds to be jointly directed toward objects, people, values, or goals. Collective hatred requires a joint commitment to hate or to act as if one hates a person or group. After fleshing out the concepts of group hate and collective hate, the chapter looks at the role of propaganda, fake news, and group polarization in securing a joint commitment to hate certain groups or people who belong to those groups.

Bad to the Bone

Hate and contempt are emotions. But hate- and contempt-proneness are personality traits, traits that are particularly common in borderlines, narcissists, and psychopaths, but also in far-right extremists and others who hate people on account of their group membership. Although both hate and contempt are sometimes morally defensible, the failure of people with hate- and contempt-proneness to adapt to situational factors make them prone to display hatred in ways that are morally inappropriate. This raises the question of whether hate- and contempt-prone people are responsible for their morally indefensible behaviors and to what extent they choose to act maliciously. This chapter argues that the malicious acts of hate- and contempt-prone people are grounded in their defective moral character but that they are nonetheless responsible for their abhorrent acts.