Sunday 30 October, 9.45am until 10.30am, Lecture Theatre 2 Breakfast Banter
‘Gamal, tell your father Egyptians hate you!’, the Cairo crowds shouted to the politician son of soon-to-be-deposed president Hosni Mubarak in January. The world’s media looked on with cautious optimism and approval as Egypt exploded with righteous fury, and the people expressed their contempt for their leaders. But it is rare for displays of unabashed hatred to be greeted without a degree of unease, and they often illicit strong disapproval. ‘Hate speech’ is heavily regulated or even censored, while to label a political party a ‘hate group’ is to rule it beyond the pale. Political demonstrations in the UK are more often characterised by the party spirit of a pop festival than the antagonism of a traditional industrial picket line. Occasional broken windows and burning placards are presented as marginal and regrettable distractions from the otherwise agreeable atmosphere. Meanwhile trades unions today are more likely to organise anger management courses than incite feelings of class hate. The consensus seems to be that hate is unambiguously dangerous and negative, causing emotional harm to hater and hated alike. Football supporters are widely condemned for shouting hateful abuse at rival fans and players, while many observers were shocked by some Americans’ celebrations of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona – targetting Democratic politician Gabrielle Giffords and killing six others - was widely blamed on the atmosphere of hatred and bigotry that sometimes characterises US political debate. A new institute has been established at the University of Arizona to tone down political debate that might be incendiary, to mediate between groups and to seek out the common ground.
But can such a basic human emotion be all bad? According to the Bible, even God has been known to hate. And surely powerful emotions, including ‘negative’ ones, have always been a driving force behind political progress. After all, people didn’t go into the streets and drag their rulers to the guillotines because they felt ‘so-so’ about their situation. Today, peace, love and compromise are held up as the antidote to the destructiveness of hate. But Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara insisted, ‘people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy’. Some even argue aggressive football chants are a harmless, albeit irrational, outlet for everyday frustrations. Is there something to be rehabilitated in the notion of hate, then? Should we simply be more discerning about the context in which hatred is expressed, disdaining the bizarre, hate-filled Twitter storm against teenage would-be pop star Rebecca Black, for example, while recognising a place for antagonistic feelings in politics and other aspects of life? Or is hate too dangerous an emotion to let out of the box? Should we all just learn to calm down and get along?
Listen to session audio:
 | Dr Roman Krznaric founding faculty member, The School of Life; author, The Wonderbox: curious histories of how to live |
 | Dr Ellie Lee reader in social policy, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies |
 | Pete Mercer vice president welfare, National Union of Students |
| Chair: | |
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Dr Ashley Frawley
Senior lecturer in sociology and social policy, Swansea University; author, The Semiotics of Happiness: rhetorical beginnings of a public problem |
Charlie Brooker, as is his way, spent several paragraphs explaining in considerable detail that David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is in fact a large venomous lizard which eats horses. Graeme Archer described this as symptomatic of
Tom Chivers, Daily Telegraph, 17 October 2011
South Africa's high court has ruled that the anti-apartheid song Shoot the Boer is hate speech and banned the ruling ANC from singing it.
BBC News, 12 September 2011
Why are some people so frightened by Hitler's book? It's so tedious the only thing it's likely to induce is snoozing.
Angus Kennedy, spiked, 2 August 2011
Boris Johnson wrote a piece the other day about you, the readers, in which he pointed out the benefits of the rough and ready world of online commenting. This was despite some of the harsh words he attracted.
Ed West, Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2011
'At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,' he said, 'it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.'
Helene Cooper and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times, 13 January 2011
