What are the underlying causes of hate crime?

[Silas Loom]

Actual unfairness too though?



Yeah that's the bit I was musing on. Like we could broadly say 'division' of various types (nationalism, culture, etc.) under capitalism is the cause of much of what is legal hate crime in the UK now, but if we widen the definition beyond a current legal one to broader attacks on people that have been 'othered' I think some complicated evolutionary stuff might come into play, and today's stuff gets exacerbated on the back of that?

Yep, when it comes down to it, the fundamental problem is that humans are a really poor choice of dominant species to place in a hyper-connected and mobile industrialised society.

 

[Sue]

Actual unfairness too though?

Sure.

 

[Eric Jarvis]

Thinking about people I hate...the people I hate, either individuals or class of people, is based on direct experience of the harm they do to me or things and people I care about. I'm not planning to criminally attack them, though the thought has crossed my mind.

In my experience just about everything that has harmed me has been done by a middle class middle aged white man wearing a suit and tie.

 

[InArduisFouette]

as weel as fear /ignorance / Tories/ Populist politicians

- massive blind spots / lack of understanding of intersectionality ... leading to quislings such as the TERFs and the whole 'gays against groomers' thing

 

[Silas Loom]

In my experience just about everything that has harmed me has been done by a middle class middle aged white man wearing a suit and tie.

Should be very easy to track him down then, given that almost no-one wears ties any more.

 

[ska invita]

Actual unfairness too though?

what do you have in mind?
call me old fashioned but the only unfairness i am aware of is that dished out by the capitalist military-industrial complex and tbf yes that unfairness leads me to hatred.
Maybe the SNP plan to make sure people are better aware of who their class enemies are and encourage them to direct their hatred in that direction

 

[LDC]

what do you have in mind?
call me old fashioned but the only unfairness i am aware of is that dished out by the capitalist military-industrial complex and tbf yes that unfairness leads me to hatred.
Maybe the SNP plan to make sure people are better aware of who their class enemies are and direct their hatred in that direction

People suffer genuine unfairness and shit lives, then for various reasons blame the people who aren't responsible. So to some extent actual unfairness is the cause of their hate/whatever.

 

[ska invita]

People suffer genuine unfairness and shit lives, then for various reasons blame the people who aren't responsible. So to some extent actual unfairness is the cause of their hate/whatever.

yes but then as has been noted in many examples its certain areas with almost zero migration where there's the strongest anti migrant feeling..... or hatred against people based on sexuality/gender etc, where this has nothing to do with peoples material conditions, and a material connection cant even been fabricated by propagandising hate-mongers

i guess there isn't a simple answer, there are a variety of examples and circumstances, each with their own web of causes and effects

I do think a common underlying factor though at a base level is this thing about narrow ideas of normality leading to othering others, which some people are stuck in, and which can become an endemic social problem in some communities.

 

[ska invita]

Here's an example of a prosecuted hate crime, check the details of her opinions in the link

Politician's wife Lucy Connolly jailed for race hate post

Lucy Connolly, wife of West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly, is jailed for 31 months.

www.bbc.co.uk

No sign of unfairness or fear, it's just pure hatred of people perceived as others

 

[JimW]

Strikes me that the dynamics of our social arrangements create a lot of people with anger and violence in them and then certain narratives give them a target to vent that they can rationalise as permissible and justified.

 

[ska invita]

Strikes me that the dynamics of our social arrangements create a lot of people with anger and violence in them and then certain narratives give them a target to vent that they can rationalise as permissible and justified.

Really well put, catches all the different permutations

 

[LDC]

Strikes me that the dynamics of our social arrangements create a lot of people with anger and violence in them and then certain narratives give them a target to vent that they can rationalise as permissible and justified.

Yeah that's a very sharp summary, thanks.

 

[redsquirrel]

With regards to individual hate crimes there are obviously a multiplicity of factors.

But as regards the politics that engenders such crimes then to dismiss material factors I find frankly bizarre, particularly when it comes from people who consider themselves some sort of socialist.

The whole basis of class politics is that the class struggle informs the politics of people and society, and vice versa.
Indeed most socialist would agree that part of the purpose for pursuing socialism is that the creation of a society where economic exploitation is removed (or at least vastly reduced) will if not eliminate discrimination based on sex/race/gender/etc will move towards equity and liberation. So surely the opposite also applies - the increased exploitation of workers and pressure put on them is also going to result in a society where hard right populist politics may find it easier to grow.

EDIT: Of course workers are individuals, and have their own individual set of circumstances and changes to their material conditions will affect them in different ways. A materialist explanation is not a deterministic one.

 

[smokedout]

to my mind it's the same with the transgender wars, the tory party really brought it up - i was given a leaflet referring directly to the tory review of it at the @ bookfair in 2017.

Not sure that's really how it went down. The leaflet was a lie, it was based on a cross party review much of which the Tories had rejected. May did then try to bring in self id but I don't think that was 4d chess to divide the left but an attempt to score some socially liberal points at a time when the existence of trans people was less controversial.

What was also going on at the time was the decision of the religious right in the US to go hard on trans issues and generating a load of noise plus a building row on the left as resurgent old school terfs began organising against the growing acceptance of trans rights and clashed bitterly with a younger trans inclusive feminists. It was then that the UK right wing press selected trans people as their latest moral panic and as ever politicians began to follow suit.

 

[krtek a houby]

Fear, ignorance, not being able to handle change and some people just for twisted entertainment.

 

[Epona]

Poverty and exclusion - when people are struggling, they look for an easy target to focus their anger towards.
The ruling class via the media manipulate this to keep the focus off the real cause of hardship.

 

[krtek a houby]

Poverty and exclusion - when people are struggling, they look for an easy target to focus their anger towards.
The ruling class via the media manipulate this to keep the focus off the real cause of hardship.

This too. But nobs can be bigots as well.

 

[Epona]

This too. But nobs can be bigots as well.

It's entrenched throughout society from top to bottom. They've done a very good job of making sure that people are more likely to want to take a pop at their neighbours than them.

 

[chemn]

i think Fear is overplayed, people dont necessarily 'fear' the 'others' they hate, they look down on them, are disgusted by them, etc thats different from fear

This may have already been said, but perhaps the looking down and the disgust is as a result of the fear? I think it harks back to tribalism? Different = not within out tribe = something to be feared/ looked down/ disgusted by/ at the very least treated with the utmost suspicion because they are 'unknown', and therefore a potential threat.

 

[krtek a houby]

This may have already been said, but perhaps the looking down and the disgust is as a result of the fear? I think it harks back to tribalism? Different = not within out tribe = something to be feared/ looked down/ disgusted by/ at the very least treated with the utmost suspicion because they are 'unknown', and therefore a potential threat.

It's an old, old story. Look at the classic westerns - stranger comes to town and many are suspicious against them, some blaming stranger/s for everything that goes wrong...

 

[hash tag]

There is of course a historical aspect to all of this which has been passed down through generations.
Can go back to the Royalists and Parliamentarians of English Civil War or the religious thing with the heretics
Catholics and Protestants in Tudor times or go even further back to the Crusades which again was down to
the right sort of religion.

 

[Kaka Tim]

In a sentence - fear which is caused by ignorance.

As for challenging. I can’t see a way to break the fear and ignorance without encountering those you have the fear of and realising you are all people under the same sun with the same hopes and fears

It's a crazy idea but, who knows, it might just work

 

[ID47]

Difference and phobia of difference must be at the very base.

 

[pug]

Generating hate is a group activity. Almost all human groups have something outside that could be analogous to an enemy, the group needs the enemy to aid its functioning, most engage in demonising the enemy on some level and that's where the hate is generated, mined from the individual and refined for the use of the group.