{"id":101432,"date":"2026-03-20T04:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=101432"},"modified":"2026-03-21T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T14:15:07","slug":"its-okay-to-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/03\/20\/its-okay-to-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s okay to hate …"},"content":{"rendered":"

On his Substack, Frank Furedi<\/a> defends the right to hate:<\/p>\n

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Image from Frank Furedi’s substack<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In recent decades hate has become thoroughly politicised to the point that the mere mention of the word serves as a prelude to discrediting, delegitimating and criminalizing its target. In public life the charge of practising the politics of hate is frequently deployed by leftist promoters of identity ideology against their opponents. The claim promoted by The Guardian<\/em> that states that “a Tory party that stokes hatred is the real threat to our democracy” is illustrative of the attempt to associate conservatives and other critics of identity ideology with the politics of hate.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

The project of transforming hate into a malevolent ideological standpoint is underpinned by the assumption that all displays of the emotion hate are potentially malevolent. In effect the very human emotion of hate is now frequently demonised as a pathology.<\/p>\n

In recent decades hate has been transformed into a stand-alone cultural stigma. According to dominant cultural conventions it is sufficient to use the word hate without any reference to the object of this emotion. It is now common to use the word, Haters. It is not necessary to indicate who the Haters hate. The term Hater serves as a negative identity. As one study acknowledged, “persons branded as ‘haters’ are effectively excommunicated from the polity”.2<\/sup> The use of the term hater morally contaminates its target.<\/p>\n

According to the cultural script that prevails in the West, hate serves as a secular form of moral evil. One expression that captures this evil is that of “The Hate”. By placing a definitive article in front of hate a permanent threat to society is invented. This reified public threat demands vigilance and willingness to mobilise to defeat its manifestations. For example, this is the approach of the campaigning group Stop The Hate.3<\/sup> The content of The Hate is deliberately left vague so that it can serve as the target of a variety of different campaigns.<\/p>\n

The politically motivated designation of hate to describe the behaviour of an individual or a group is not simply an act of description but also a boundary-setting manoeuvre. It basically works as a warning that signals the claim that The Hater cannot be included within the confines of a democratically governed public space. The Hater exists on the wrong sides of the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate politics. This sentiment is frequently communicated by the slogan “Hope Not Hate”, which establishes a moral boundary between legitimate and illegitimate politics. From this perspective hate serves as a diagnostic label for illegitimate public life. Imposing a moral quarantine on those branded as haters is regarded is necessary for the maintenance of a just democratic society.<\/p>\n

The frequent use of the slogan “Hope not Hate” smuggles a moralising ethos into public discourse. Through the drawing of a moral contrast between the secular evil of hate, hope emerges as a progressive political virtue. The transformation of hate into a morally toxic antithesis of hope assists the political polarisation that afflicts society. Since haters are regarded as beyond redemption dialogue with them is pointless. The only appropriate response to their words is to criminalise it. Hence the proliferation of rules and laws criminalising Hate Speech.<\/p>\n

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  1. https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2024\/mar\/04\/a-tory-party-that-stokes-hatred-is-the-real-threat-to-our-democracy<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Post, Robert, “Concluding Thoughts: The Legality and Politics of Hatred”, in Thomas Brudholm, and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen (eds), Epilogue, in Thomas Brudholm, and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen (eds), Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate, Studies in Penal Theory and Philosophy<\/strong> (New York, 2018; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 June 2018), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/oso\/9780190465544.003.0013<\/a>, accessed 12 Mar. 2026.<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. https:\/\/www.stopthehate.uk<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Update, 21 March<\/strong>: Welcome, Instapundit<\/em> readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack<\/em> \u2013 https:\/\/substack.com\/@nicholasrusson<\/a> that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On his Substack, Frank Furedi defends the right to hate: In recent decades hate has become thoroughly politicised to the point that the mere mention of the word serves as a prelude to discrediting, delegitimating and criminalizing its target. In public life the charge of practising the politics of hate is frequently deployed by leftist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,28,53],"tags":[262,186,1020,139,417],"class_list":["post-101432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-media","category-politics","tag-culture","tag-freedomofspeech","tag-progressives","tag-psychology","tag-victimlesscrime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qo0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101454,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101432\/revisions\/101454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}