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Hate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2023

Ute Frevert
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
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Summary

Hate preachers are not only rife among religious fundamentalists. They are also found in the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum. In social media, waves of outrage and hate speech targeting politicians and journalists are the order of the day. Women are most severely affected. Friedrich Ebert, the first Social Democratic President of the Weimar Republic, was already receiving hate mail in the 1920s. The author Bertolt Brecht once wrote that hate distorted a person’s features. He was referring to hate towards the National Socialists, who forced him and many others to emigrate. In Brecht’s view, this hate was understandable, but it made its victims resemble their hate-filled persecutors all too closely. This chapter shows that hatred as a political instrument has always reared its ugly head when people make radical distinctions between friend and foe and attempt to destroy their enemies by force. Democratic societies, in contrast, have made hatred a punishable offence. After 1945, the lesson has finally been learnt, with exceptions: in democracies, people argue, persistently and vehemently, polemically and pointedly. But they do not hate.

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The Power of Emotions
A History of Germany from 1900 to the Present
, pp. 179 - 193
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Hate
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.011
Available formats
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Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Hate
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.011
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Hate
  • Ute Frevert, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin
  • Book: The Power of Emotions
  • Online publication: 14 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009376792.011
Available formats
×