The Ideology of Hatred:The Psychic Power of Discourse


Book Description

This book suggests that untying and recognising relations of intimacy and dependency can, under certain circumstances, change the discourse of hatred into relations of peace and even friendship.




The Ideology of Hatred


Book Description

The 21st century might well be called the age of hatred. This is not because there is more violence in the world but because hatred has been transformed from a concept perceived to be a by-product of personal or collective violence into a discursive field. But what if longstanding antagonisms, especially those between social groups, turned out to involve desire rather than revulsion? The Ideology of Hatred develops a psychosocial framework for understanding this new phenomenon by interrogating unconscious mechanisms within national discourse. It opens new and timely venues for thinking about the paradoxes of love and hate while raising questions about social attachment and otherness. Is it possible that hatred operates by maintaining a safe closeness, enhancing the illusion of separateness as well as a sense of proximity at one and the same time? Could it be that love actually survives through the discourse of hatred as an invisible relation of attachment, necessary but unthinkable? A key term in the book is the "political unconscious," a concept signifying the transformation of the unthinkable into a language that disavows the desire of and for the Other. Invoking this and other psychoanalytic concepts, the book proposes that at the heart of all national conflicts lies a riddle: the enigma of desire. The discourse of hatred works today as both a defense mechanism and as a political fantasy whose dream is to annihilate the Other of desire, that familial and different, threatening and intimate Other. Yet because love-in-hatred is denied but not erased, love can therefore also be reimagined. This suggests that untying and recognizing relations of intimacy and dependency can, under certain circumstances, change the discourse of hatred into relations of peace and even friendship. In addition to its strong theoretical component, the book is also based on extensive empirical research, especially into hate relations among Jews and between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.




Attack of the New B Movies


Book Description

Since its inception in 1992, the Sci-Fi Channel (later rebranded as SYFY) has aired more than 500 network-produced or commissioned films. Campy and prolific, the network churned out one low-budget film after another, finally finding its zenith in the 2013 release of Sharknado. With unpretentious charm and a hearty helping of commodified nostalgia, the Sharknado franchise briefly ruled the cultural consciousness and temporarily transformed SYFY's original films from cult fringe to appointment television. Naturally, the network followed up with a steady stream of sequels and spin-offs, including Lavalantula and its sequel, 2 Lava 2 Lantula! This collection of essays is the first to devote critical attention to SYFY's original film canon, both pre- and post-Sharknado. In addition to unpacking the cultural, historical and critical underpinnings of the monsters at the heart of SYFY's classic creature features, the contributors offer a variety of approaches to understanding and interrogating these films within the broader contexts of ecocriticism, monster theory, post-9/11 criticism, and neocolonialism. Providing a further entry point for future scholarship, an appendix details a thorough filmography of SYFY's original films from 1992 to 2022.




Trendy Fascism


Book Description

Explores how white supremacist groups use popular music and culture to teach hate and promote violence. Popular music plays a major role in mobilizing citizens, especially youth, to fight for political causes. Yet the presence of music in politics receives relatively little attention from scholars, politicians, and citizens. White power music is no exception, despite its role in recent high-profile hate crimes. Trendy Fascism is the first book to explore how contemporary white supremacists use popular music to teach hate and promote violence. Nancy S. Love focuses on how white power music supports “trendy fascism,” a neo-fascist aesthetic politics. Unlike classical fascism, trendy fascism involves a hyper-modern cultural politics that exploits social media to create a global white supremacist community. Three case studies examine different facets of the white power music scene: racist skinhead, neo-Nazi folk, and goth/metal. Together these cases illustrate how music has replaced traditional forms of public discourse to become the primary medium for conveying white supremacist ideology today. Written from the interdisciplinary perspective on culture, economics, and politics best described as critical theory, this book is crucial reading for everyone concerned about the future of democracy. “Trendy Fascism has the potential to unsettle how theorists of democracy frame their most basic assumptions in the study of politics. The case studies of white power music are indeed unsettling, and at times they will bring chills to the reader. But, as Love argues, we must confront the realities of and rationalizations for the often-disavowed transnational white supremacist communities and networks in our political present if we are serious about overturning the racial contract pervading late modern states.” — Neil Roberts, Williams College




Hate, Politics, Law


Book Description

References to hate have become ubiquitous in the modern response to group defamation and violence in liberal democracies. Whether expressed in speech, acted out in criminal conduct, or seen as the fuel of terror and extremism, hate is persistently considered a vice, an evil, and a threat to the modern liberal democracy. But what exactly is at stake when societies oppose hate? In Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate, Thomas Brudholm and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen have gathered a group of distinguished scholars who offer a critical exploration and assessment of the basic assumptions, ideals, and agendas behind the modern fight against hate. They explore these issues and provide a range of explanatory and normative perspectives on the awkward relationship between hate and liberal democracy, as expressed, for example, through anti-hate speech and anti-hate crime initiatives. The volume further examines the presuppositions and ideological roots of fighting hate, as well as its blind spots and limits. It also includes discussions on the definition and meaning of hate, the longer and broader history of the concept of hate, and when and why fighting hatred became politically salient. While most research on hate crime is written and published in order to prevent and combat hate, Hate, Politics, Law takes a much-needed theoretical, historical, and exploratory approach to hatred.




Ahok Through Their Eyes


Book Description

A Biography Book of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (BTP). This book is a collection of stories about BTP from the views of 51 authors from various backgrounds. This book was conceived as a 51st birthday present for BTP. This book is the english version of Ahok di Mata Mereka.




Hate Unleashed


Book Description

This book investigates the psychological factors that led to the election of Donald Trump and the accompanying escalation of hate violence and intolerance in the United States. It also spells out the challenge for Americans living in a time of political conservatism and unbridled hostility towards minorities, immigrants, and socially progressive individuals—and what democratic-minded people can do to take action. After the U.S. presidential election in November of 2016, it became clear that hostility, intolerance, and violence targeting minorities, immigrants, and socially progressive individuals was more prevalent in the United States than many thought—and that these hateful sentiments had played a significant role in the election of Donald Trump. What are the reasons for this cataclysmic shift in the U.S.? Have these feelings been entrenched and rampant but under the surface for decades? We are now witnessing the consequences of a different kind of "freedom of expression"— one that is challenging our notions of living in a multicultural and internationally-focused society. Hate Unleashed: America's Cataclysmic Change looks at the process by which America moved away from a progressive democratic model of governance in response to themes of economic and cultural vulnerability. Drawing on the notions of authoritarianism and ultranationalism—as well as insights from polling research and the advent of fake news—Hate Unleashed portrays how American politics became a battleground about culture and diversity. Author Edward Dunbar exposes how xenophobia, the synthesis of hate speech into political rhetoric, and appeals to a nationalism of nostalgia are linked to the escalation in hate activity after the November 2016 election. In his examination of election results, hate crime activity, and the history of black lynching, Dunbar places the Trump victory as the latest battle in the unending civil war of the United States.




Psychopolitics of Speech


Book Description

The human capacity for speech is forever celebrated as evidence of its innate civility. Why, then, is public discourse often - and today more than ever, it would seem - so uncivil, even delusional? The reason, argues James Martin in this timely book, lies in the way speech works to organise desire. More than knowledge or rational interests, public speech services an unconscious urge for a lost enjoyment, stimulating an excess in subjectivity that moves us in body and mind. James Martin draws upon the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan as well as other Continental thinkers to set out a new approach to the analysis of rhetoric and answer the troubling question of whether civil discourse can ever hope to escape its obscene underside.




The Confrontational ‘Us and Them’ Dynamics of Polarised Politics in Venezuela


Book Description

This book provides a theoretical framework for understanding polarised politics. Contrary to the common understanding that polarisation is associated with populism and illiberal democracies, this book demonstrates that polarisation is by no means the result of one anti-democratic side of the conflict. By proposing this analytical inquiry, this book advances a new theoretical framework to characterise politics as either polarised or not. This framework is a unique approach that integrates people’s agency and socio-historical constraints to explain polarisation in depth. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of discourse, subject, and governmentality, and Laclau’s concept of logics and hegemony, this framework focuses on how to distinguish polarised politics from another form of politics. As a technology of power, polarisation can be performed by a variety of actors and is governed by a broad, conscious end, that is organising society by reducing the possibilities of alternative ways of thinking, speaking and doing politics to two options. This study takes a deep dive into the political polarisation in Venezuela, a country with almost two decades of conflict between Chavismo and the Opposition disputing the meaning of democracy, and with the most critical crisis in the Americas as a result of polarisation. With close attention paid to the logics or rationalities of power to explain what lies behind definitions of democracy. This analysis allows us to observe the rationalities and dynamics beyond what is said, in particular, the book explores hegemonic logics (myths, fantasies of threats and promises) used by both political groups to create a political identity.




The Definition of Anti-Semitism


Book Description

What is anti-Semitism? The Definition of Anti-Semitism is the first book-length study to explore this central question in the context of the new anti-Semitism. Previous efforts to define 'anti-Semitism' have been complicated by the disreputable origins of the term, the discredited sources of its etymology, the diverse manifestations of the concept, and the contested politics of its applications. Nevertheless the task is an important one, not only because definitional clarity is required for the term to be understood, but also because the current conceptual confusion prevents resolution of many incidents in which anti-Semitism is manifested. The Definition of Anti-Semitism explores the various ways in which anti-Semitism has historically been defined, demonstrates the weaknesses in prior efforts, and develops a new definition of anti-Semitism, especially in the context of the 'new anti-Semitism' in American higher education.