Hate spin : the manufacture of religious offense and its threat to democracy / Cherian George.

Author
George, Cherian [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2016]
Description
xviii, 308 pages ; 24 cm.

Availability

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Firestone Library - Stacks K5305 .G46 2016 Browse related items Request

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    Subject(s)
    Series
    Information policy series [More in this series]
    Summary note
    In the United States, elements of the religious right fuel fears of an existential Islamic threat, spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric into mainstream politics. In Indonesia, Muslim absolutists urge suppression of churches and minority sects, fostering a climate of rising intolerance. In India, Narendra Modi's radical supporters instigate communal riots and academic censorship in pursuit of their Hindu nationalist vision. Outbreaks of religious intolerance are usually assumed to be visceral and spontaneous. But in this book, the author shows that they often involve sophisticated campaigns manufactured by political opportunists to mobilize supporters and marginalize opponents. Right-wing networks orchestrate the giving of offense and the taking of offense as instruments of identity politics, exploiting democratic space to promote agendas that undermine democratic values. The author calls this strategy "hate spin" - a double-sided technique that combines hate speech (incitement through vilification) with manufactured offense-taking (the performing of righteous indignation). It is deployed in societies as diverse as Buddhist Myanmar and Orthodox Christian Russia. Here, the author looks at the world's three largest democracies, where intolerant groups within India's Hindu right, America's Christian right, and Indonesia's Muslim right are all accomplished users of hate spin. He also shows how the Internet and Google have opened up new opportunities for cross-border hate spin. The author argues that governments must protect vulnerable communities by prohibiting calls to action that lead directly to discrimination and violence. But laws that try to protect believers' feelings against all provocative expression invariably backfire. They arm hate spin agents' offense-taking campaigns with legal ammunition. Anti-discrimination laws and a commitment to religious equality will protect communities more meaningfully than misguided attempts to insulate them from insult.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-292) and index.
    Contents
    • Hate spin as politics by other means
    • By what rules? : human rights and religious authority
    • God, Google, and the globalization of offendedness
    • India : Narendra Modi and the harnessing of hate
    • Indonesia : Democracy tested amid rising religious intolerance
    • United States : exceptional freedoms, fabricated fears
    • Pushing back, through media and civil society
    • Assertive pluralism for a world of irreducible diversity.
    ISBN
    • 9780262035309 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    • 0262035308 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016014335
    OCLC
    946159852
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