Tolerance: An appropriate Answer to Hate?

TY - CHAP

T1 - Tolerance: An appropriate Answer to Hate?

AU - Johansen, Birgitte Schepelern

PY - 2018/1/1

Y1 - 2018/1/1

N2 - In public campaigning and NGO mobilization against hate crimes, tolerance is often called upon as the antidote to hate. Yet, while tolerance in its classical liberal versions is a balanced negative attitude in contexts of profound disagreements, when mobilized in the context of fighting hate, tolerance loses its negative emotional component. This happens, the chapter argues, because the anti-hate activities promote an understanding of difference (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) in which acts and beliefs are largely invisible. Instead, what is foregrounded is political being. Such an understanding of difference may work well to underscore the irrationality of harboring hate against them, but it significantly alters the meaning of tolerance. When the fundamental message in the anti-hate mobilization is that these differences are illegitimate sites of aversion, what we are left with is a simplified dichotomy between either hate or tolerance as benign acceptance or even warm embrace.

AB - In public campaigning and NGO mobilization against hate crimes, tolerance is often called upon as the antidote to hate. Yet, while tolerance in its classical liberal versions is a balanced negative attitude in contexts of profound disagreements, when mobilized in the context of fighting hate, tolerance loses its negative emotional component. This happens, the chapter argues, because the anti-hate activities promote an understanding of difference (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) in which acts and beliefs are largely invisible. Instead, what is foregrounded is political being. Such an understanding of difference may work well to underscore the irrationality of harboring hate against them, but it significantly alters the meaning of tolerance. When the fundamental message in the anti-hate mobilization is that these differences are illegitimate sites of aversion, what we are left with is a simplified dichotomy between either hate or tolerance as benign acceptance or even warm embrace.

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9780190465544

T3 - Studies in Penal Theory and Philosophy

BT - Hate, Politics, Law

PB - Oxford University Press

ER -