Summary Of What's So Bad About Hate By Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan suggests the origins of hate to be evolutionary in his article, “What’s So Bad about Hate?” If hate really is “hard wired,” then that would mean all of the hubbub about obliterating hate is just about as useless as trying to obliterate opposable thumbs. Sullivan’s statement carries so much meaning because it illustrates such a nasty concept with an air of tolerance that is rarely ever considered. He proposes that instead of fighting hate, we accept hate for what it is: an integral part of the human experience. Instead of fighting, we should focus our energy on tolerating hate, and through toleration we can achieve much more than we ever did by trying to combat our very nature.
If Sullivan’s observations are correct, then one

would assume any legislations against hate crimes to be backwards and counterproductive. If this were so, then hate would not be to blame for “hate crimes,” because it is us humans that use hate as a means to enact violence or personal attacks on an individual or group. In many ways, Sullivan suggests that it is the legislations against hate crimes that have caused the most violent hate crimes. If there was a universal tolerance for hate, instead of this exaggerated backlash, then there would be less violent hate crimes to report about.
In thinking of the silliness involved in hate crime legislation, I am reminded of the wonderfully appropriate South Park episode entitled “Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000.” Within this episode, Token – a black student – calls Cartman a “fatass,” and Cartman throws a rock at Token’s head in retaliation. This is first settled by the principal with a simple two-week suspension, but the FBI intervenes, labeling it as a hate crime because it involved a white boy attacking a black boy. What follows is a hilarious satire of the judicial system, ending with a guilty verdict and a juvenal hall sentence, with the judge’s last words being: “I’m making an example of you… to send a message out to people everywhere… that if you want to hurt another human being… you better make damn sure they’re the same color as you are.”
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Sullivan’s problems with hate crime legislation mostly lies in the fact that hate is immeasurable, and cannot be applied universally or else it would counteract itself.

The punishment of a crime should not be determined by the motivation for the crime, yet that is exactly what hate crime legislation does. It places emphasis on a crime for the wrong reasons. Hate crimes victimize more than just the victims, and this is why the punishments are more severe, but Sullivan argues that any crime victimizes more than the victims. He suggests that random crimes with no prejudice in place can be perceived as something even more frightening, as the entire community feels threatened instead of just a group. Proven in Sullivan’s article is the worthlessness of the “hate” label. I would agree that it only serves to further discriminate, instead of achieving the peace and equality that it pretends to stand

for.
Again I am reminded of that South Park episode. Cartman’s friends wish to get him out of juvie hall – purely for selfish reasons, I might add – so they formulate a committee and talk to the governor. It is here that they reiterate the ideas that Sullivan presents, convincing the governor that hate crimes are a “savage hypocrisy, [because] all crimes are hate crimes.” These surprisingly intelligent 8 year olds conclude their presentation by declaring hate crimes to only exasperate the idea that one race is different than the other, or a gay man is different than a straight man, when the just thing to do is to treat every crime, victim, and perpetrator equally, regardless of what color they are, or sexuality they possess.
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Gordon Allport illustrates the prejudice involved with labels of primary potency in a selection from his book The Nature of Prejudice (1954). He references an experiment conducted by psychologist Gegory Razran that clearly shows the effects that labels can have on an individual’s perception. The results conclude that most everyone carries some innate prejudices, and whether you know it or not, the labels in the world are indulging on those prejudices. There is no proof that Jewish people are inherently less beautiful than – say – Caucasian people, but something has instilled that idea into our heads as we were raised.
This is similar to the common fear of snakes, even though most of us have never had a negative encounter with a snake.

We were raised to believe snakes were scary, and we saw our parents, friends, and movie stars get scared by snakes, so our brain figures that it would be a good idea to get scared of snakes too. I assure you that if a person had been raised with only positive encounters with Jewish people and Jewish names, and had not been subjected to any previous prejudice from any other individual about the Jewish people, then he would be completely baffled as to why there lies such negative connotation for the Jewish name. Everyone has their own prejudices, but the negative prejudices stand out the most because negativities are far more interesting to us. That’s why you’ve never heard of a positive rumor being started. It’s always about how someone did something bad. Nobody wants to spread the rumor that Steve is a genuine fellow. It’s much more exciting to talk about how Steve had an

abortion.
Razran’s test shows just how backwards our prejudices can be. For someone to think a Jewish person is beautiful – only to say otherwise once they actually learn that the person was Jewish – is completely nonsensical. Labels color our perceptions with the prejudices instilled upon us in our past. It is almost impossible to have a pure thought anymore. We see a person and cannot judge that person simply based on their merit. Instead we take into account their skin color, their political and ethnic background, their names, and anything else we can find that will help us generalize an individual as much as possible. We do this because we hate surprises. We want to know exactly what we are in for because we hate the idea of time wasted. “Why should I bother talking to that person, they are not worth my time,” is what many of us will assume, because the more we assume something like that, the less opportunities we have to struggle over. The more people we preemptively close out of our lives, the less people that can harm us, bother us, or waste our time. It is this selfishness born out of fear that controls the very aspect of our perceptions. Labels are the tool we use to easily identify what we should be afraid of. After all, the less you work hard to know, the more you can lazily assume, and the latter is always more tempting.