One sees this sign everywhere these days, but I don’t see the words, “. . unless you’re a Republican” on it. Those, I gather, are apparently okay to hate.
I think they left something out. . . .
June 24, 2018 • 3:15 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I echo pretty much all:your sentiments on this subject, Jerry, and I find myself having to repeatedly remind Gethyn to maintain some semblance of neutrality, even though we fall on the left side of the spectrum…
No exceptions are mentioned: not KKK, Nazis or skinheads either. Is that puzzling? Is it not OK to be intolerant the authoritarians and racists while trying to promote tolerance in general?
Unwillingness to tolerate intolerance and hatefulness is one thing. I don’t think the KKK, Nazis and Skinhesds deserve tolerance. I don’t want to tolerate them.
But I want to be careful that I don’t become hateful myself.
Does this mean that I want to be all lovey-dovey, “spiritual” and full of sweetness in the face of horrid ugliness?
No, I do not. I’m disgusted and horrified at the sh*t that is happening.
What I want to avoid is becoming so enraged myself that I become ugly – and ineffective. I don’t want to become poisoned by my own hate.
And I don’t know that feeling hate necessarily leads to effective action against the KKK etc.
I remember back during the Vietnam War. I was in such a hateful fury against the war and against President Johnson. I wrote him a letter that was full of rage – and did no good. I just raged and raged, and I don’t see that I accomplished any useful purpose.
I don’t want to spew more negativity around. Nor do I want Trump & Co. to get me so riled up that I make myself sick with anger.
I find that word, “tolerance” interesting. I won’t hate you or like you, I’ll just put up with you. Tolerance is the least thing we can do. I guess it’s better than nothing. So no, I don’t tolerate ignorance or racism or other types of bigotry. I don’t put up with it. I outwardly speak up against these things. And I support those who are being hated even when it looks like they can take care of themselves, because it always helps to have so,eine else back you, especially if you happen to be from the same race, class, nationality as the ones doing the hating.
Not tolerating doesn’t mean I’m violent but it does mean I’m not putting up with and accepting some dumb ass rationale and behaviour.
There are authoritarians on both sides of the political spectrum.
Both sides do it? Equally?
In an historical context, communists governments have been just as authoritarian as fascist governments. In terms of the here and now, it’s the left that is talking about free speech restrictions.
I’d say the sign is just fine the way it is.
I bought a bandana from a farmer’s shop in Otorohanga, featuring the ‘stars and stripes’. Its winter here now, but I will wear it in the summer to protect my red neck.
“…but I don’t see the words, “. . unless you’re a Republican” on it. Those, I gather, are apparently okay to hate.”
I’m a little bit puzzled. Surely you don’t mean that Republicans are fair game and can be hated?
Or do you mean that Republicans are an exception and do hate while other people are busy not hating?
He means that many of the people who post these signs think it’s perfectly fine to hate 30 to 50% of the country (when people say “Republican,” they usually mean those who support particular policies that are promoted by the Republican Party, which is why I used those particular percentages).
I don’t want to presume to speak for anyone else, let alone our host, but I take the message to be that there are those who, while professing the message on the sign, nonetheless betray that sentiment through their hateful attitudes toward Republicans.
If you read the Huckerbee post and PCC(E)’s replies to some of the comments on it, the sentence “those, I gather, are apparently okay to hate” is revealed (at least to me) as dripping in sarcasm.
It’s not OK to hate a Republican just because they’re a Republican. It is OK to hate a lying, immoral, corrupt racist who conned his way into to the Presidency by appealing to gross nativism.
Nativism. That’s a nice way to put it. Conservatives looking for crazy ideas and a guy with an empty bag. Many of them continue to think he really lowered their taxes when all he did was raise their debt and leave them with a dim future.
They should not be surprised. Trump, “the great businessman” has always used such tactics.
Absolutely. Also, my emotional reaction to a party as unprecedentedly repulsive as this current Republican party is not under my control. I can choose not to abuse people in the street or online, and I can choose to treat people decently even if their politics are beyond the pale, but I can’t choose not to hate them. I do hate them, and I’d urge everyone who does hate them to not be ashamed of that hatred; rather use it in _productive_ ways. Not by kicking out Sarah Sanders, as satisfying as that may be, but by doing all the things that you calculate will hurt the Republicans most from an electoral standpoint.
Talk to wavering voters in a friendly, unpatronising way; highlight the behaviour of this moral singularity of a POTUS whenever you can, emphasise how much you have in common with the average Trump supporter and how little either of you share with Trump himself. And most importantly never let what he is doing to America attain a shred of normality at any point.
Think about what Trump would want you to do, and do the opposite. Use your hatred; it can be rocket fuel, and it’s there precisely for moments like this, when you face someone as profoundly dangerous as Trump. Control it, focus it in productive fashion, but don’t feel ashamed of it.
‘…appealing to gross nativism’, yes, and voter disenfranchisement, and outside help (24/7 Russian trolling) and -in all probability- fraud.
Back to the OP, I do see what our host means, and (if so) it is deplorable.
I gathered that the intentions of those making the sticker were noble, and that they did not want to exclude ‘republicans’ (plz correct me if I’m wrong). Despite that, I’d not sport such a sticker for 2 reasons:
– 1 it is easily interpreted in the sense our host was alluding to.
– 2 tolerance needs some reciprocity. Why would I be tolerant of fundamentalist Islam, if it is not tolerant of me?
I’m not sure I’ve got the point of this, so apologies if I’m wrong. Is this an indictment of Republican hatred, or an indictment of hatred of Republicans? If it’s the latter, is hostility towards Republicans really unacceptable given their rancid behaviour, their absolute contempt for any moral standards at all? What is a person meant to do? Like them? Force themselves to feel nothing for them?
I do hate/despise the Republicans, at least the majority of them. I think they’re ethical wastelands. That doesn’t mean I’m going to abuse them in the street or post threats against them online, but I’m not going to feel bad about finding them repellent. Tolerance doesn’t mean liking people who are awful. It just means tolerance, that’s it. I don’t expect people like that to like me either, I expect them to tolerate me.
That’s Republican politicians I’m referring to, but I admit I feel the same about a dispiriting chunk of Republican voters too, those who have behaved appallingly enough to warrant it, and there are an abundance of them around.
I don’t know what’s going on in America that’s precipitated this post. If it’s the illiberal left behaving with their usual counterproductive stupidity and nastiness that would be depressingly predictable. But I can say I’m not completely rational in everything I say and feel. I do hate certain people, or at least hate what they stand for, and given the extent to which they’ve tied themselves up with their political beliefs it seems to amount to the same thing. I’m not ashamed of having people who I despise.
+1
Me too.
(Oh, sorry, somebody stole that, didn’t they).
OK, +1
cr
Hear! Hear!
Some of the comments on the earlier post disappointed me. I live in rural SE Utah in a community split nearly evenly along liberal and conservative lines. Actually there is a third component of centrists and those with no discernible politics. A community like mine is extremely rare in southern Utah. We are generally as red as red can be. In three houses across the street from me are three very conservative families, one I would even call a Sage Brush Rebel, leaning way towards the Cliven Bundy spectrum of politics. To the south lives a middle of the road school teacher. To the north a couple that is mildly sympathetic to my politics. I have never had an impolite encounter with any of my neighbors. I am slightly well known in my community and have run for office (losing by a small margin in a local race). A mentor used to say, “We have opponents, not enemies.” This always resonated with me because,unfortunately, I was once in a position where I had enemies, at least some people were trying to hurt or kill me. I was in the army fifty years ago. I try to take this attitude to heart. Politically it is difficult if not impossible to create change in an enemy but sometimes it is possible to find ways to deal with opponents. The objective of every encounter is to get someone closer to your position. This is particularly important if you are a citizen volunteer lobbiest. The rules are pretty simple. Present your position without being argumentative. Try to find a way to connect. Try to get a little information so that you can reformulate your approach in the future. Try to understand the opinions of others.
I do understand that this is probably easier for me than some others. I am white, I am straight, I am male and my privilege kept me out of jail when I was younger.
This is such an excellent post. People find it so much easier these days to hate their political rivals for many reasons, from the internet/social media alerting them to every tiny hateful thing that a single person did (and thus associating those events with every one of their political rivals), political polarization, etc. But I think the biggest factor is that people have become isolated from one another in physical life as well. We no longer interact with our neighborhoods and, if we do, we form groups based on ideology.
Thankfully, I live in a place where most people on the street know each other. We have people with a diverse range of political and social views and yet, somehow, we all get along. Hell, we all really like each other. It’s so easy to believe that anyone who disagrees with you does so out of a hateful heart if you never bother to encounter them. Most people these days don’t want to encounter those who disagree, lest they become exposed to evil.
And one of the families I know is a black, conservative family. So, my ability to be polite and enjoy the company of those who don’t completely align with my own values is not dependent upon my being white, straight, or male (hell, I am Jewish), just as it doesn’t for that black family. We’re all happy together, and happy to recognize the diversity of human nature and intellect. We all realize that, like any other species, we are a diverse one in many ways (ways that matter far more than skin color, religion, sex, or gender), and we appreciate it.
I agree, this is an excellent post.
Excellent post and it gives me the opportunity to whip out this anecdote:
A young Tory MP took his place in the House of Commons and, pointing to the Labour benches opposite, said to Winston Churchill “so that’s the enemy”. Churchill responded “no, son, that is the opposition” then, pointing to the Tory benches said “that’s the enemy.
I love Churchill stories – thanks for this one I haven’t heard til now
It’s actually quite well known in the UK, but it might be apocryphal.
MIGHT be?! ;^)
The sign is virtue signaling, pure and simple. What other purpose can it serve?
And in fact, there’s a sign for that:
https://teespring.com/shop/virtue-signaling-has-no-home-h#pid=623&cid=102381&sid=front
Ha! That’s a sign I could use in my neighborhood.
That sign with its KEK heart led me into the shady word of internet slang. Fortunately, I found a site internetslang.com to help me out. Who knew KEK=LOL and KKKK=Korean LOL? And non-PC or worse types reign there.
Thanks for doing the research. 🙂 Yeah, I looked at that site and decided I really didn’t want to poke around anymore…but I was curious about the KEK especially.
Yeah, definitely the MAGA crowd. I hate it when morons are right.
This made my day! I especially liked the “to make the americas big again” in Russian.
The media follow trump around like bugs at night to the light. Since the beginning this is exactly what he wants and uses it always to advantage. Two years of this and I’m not sure we have learned much. Do what some are doing around the country at the local level. Get people registered to vote and then, more important get them out to vote. This is really the only way and all this hate crap will get you nothing.
It’s not the hatred or disgust that’s the problem. The problem is how unproductive they are with it. They seem much more concerned with just advertising their hatred than actually using that hatred to do something politically worthwhile.
No-one who really cared about beating Trump at the next election(and who had thought about things for any amount of time) would endorse something as electorally cancerous as identity politics, never mind double down on it as a chunk of the left has since the election. If they really cared they’d behave with a hell of a lot more pragmatism and intelligence than that. They know it’s unpopular, they surely know it’s divisive, but they continue with it unabashed. Ditto extreme political correctness.
The only conclusion one can draw about people like that is that their professions of concern about the state of America under Trump are fake, and they’re not actually bothered.
+ 1
I’m not American – I’ve never seen the sign before
For those like me THIS is the official HHNHH site for more info.
And this is
Most of what is called “hate” these days is just the normal human propensity to form separate groups. That propensity definitely hampers efforts to form a cohesive multi-ethnic state (or super-state), but calling one group “hateful” for expressing natural feelings while whitewashing or denying those same expressions in other groups is a recipe for disaster.
“It’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall.”
or a Russian.
or, very often, White.
I hate bad ideas. I have no feeling of guilt about that. Hate has a purpose but it has to be directed judiciously.
I love you Dr Coyne! Thank you for being reasonable!
Where should hate go, exactly? Surely, an individual who expresses hate who lives here, they can… they can stay, right? It’s just the emotion of hate that has to sort of jump out of the haters body and book the first flight out of the country. Not the person. Because that’d be…
As darwinwins said, it’s virtue signalling.
But I see no mention on it of Republicans. I guess it’s only a swipe against them if you know (or believe) that they’re the most significant party of hate.
Or is it one of those BS ‘dog-whistle’ things where everyone is supposed to know what you mean even when you don’t say it?
cr
I’d say the message is condemning racists, fundamentalists, homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes, etc. That that set happens to overlap with one party much more than the other is just an unavoidable fact… 😉
(And IMO it’s way too blatant to be a dog-whistle of any kind.)
Almost everyone thinks their side represents the good guys and the other side are the villains. Partisanship is an easy trap to fall into. I can’t imagine anything less productive than two groups filled with self-righteousness shouting at each other.
I agree. And I think many of us here (USians on WEIT) have been pretty fed up with both of our main political parties for some time, now.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t still think traditional liberal/progressive values are more humane and conducive to a healthy democracy than traditional conservative ones; but I do think people need to accept the fact that both political persuasions are going to continue to exist and the only solution is to try to find common ground and accept compromises.
I admit I am having a great deal of trouble not hating a significant portion of humanity these days. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m not saying I’m right in the head. I’m just saying I know I could not in all honest put that up in my yard. I’m a very sad and angry person, and that’s before politics enters into it.
My mother once admitted she thought that, as a small child, I was not strong enough for this world.
I certainly do not hate ALL Republicans nor do I hate any because they are Republican. But there are specific ones I do shun, and I suspect I would probably evict Ms. Sanders from my restaurant, though I wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of Schadenfreude about it.
IF that leads to other restaurants evicting various Democrat candidates, so be it. John McCain and Mitt Romney are still welcome in my (hypothetical) restaurant.
FREE WILL JUSTIFIES HATE!
WE MUST KILL IT.
Sorry, I’ve got gardening to do.
I know that I do not see these sorts of signs in Republican neighborhoods. Perhaps I’ve missed them.
The signs in Republican neighborhoods look very similar, but NO is replaced with A.
J
To reject hatred wholesale invokes a paradox, similar to the principle that if there’s an exception to every rule then there must be an exception to the rule that there’s an exception to every rule.
I think this sign echoes what Bob Dylan referred to when he sang “While others say don’t hate nothing at all except hatred.”
Today’s Republican, Trumpian, Party embodies and feeds upon hatred.
There are people I don’t like. But then when I see them we get along fine for a while. Where does dilute turn into hate. Hate is s petty strong word. I do use the word sometimes. I don’t like people that disagree with my views. Mostly I dislike people that abuse and make fun of other people even people I agree with I dislike when they are abusing other people. I just hate that.
Now there’s a sign we needn’t worry about seeing on the north lawn of the White House, under the “American Carnage” regime of its current occupant. The man exudes hate and resentment and cruelty from every pore — and breeds hate in his opposition. He’s clearly never had a better angel perch on his shoulder and whisper in his ear.
If someone harbors hateful ideas, if they are enacting hateful notions, the last thing you want them to do is shut up about it. It is far better for such an individual to get their emotions out in the open, it just might help them change their minds.
Asserting the position that such an individual has to magically erase their emotions is a recipe for… well, not love anyway, as the fancy official signage of the HHNHH campaign assumes.
Some religious traditions require a scapegoat for rites of purging and purification. As Benjamin said, “theology is wizened, and keeps out of sight”.
I’m not a Republican, but I know quite a few, and they’re not comparable to the KKK, so that rhetorical shotgun is pretty boring for me now. Even admitting to that is dangerous nowadays, though. No one dares to talk, because everyone wants to keep their jobs, and not be accused of being “one of them”. So much emotional heat, so little light.
(-and I’m all for ritual, BTW, but we need to understand what the ritual is supposed to be doing and what it’s actually doing, &c.)
You defend your republican friends who are not racist are your on risk. Do it you get attacked pretty strongly as lying about Trump Voters. That is a direct quote. But defending democractz does not result in any better results. Then you are accused of being an authoritian socialist with no morals.
Both sides cannot be right. But they self righteously claim to be .
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to my right…