Response To Sullivan Article

1. Which of Sullivan's arguments best supports his opinion of our country's assessment of hate crimes?

2. What audience would most likely support Sullivan's claims?

3. Analyze the foundational argument against hate crimes that Sullivan presents.


Response to Question 3:

I think Sullivan has attained a higher mode of thinking. In my opinion, putting the blame, or cause rather, on the basic nature of human beings from an anthropological/psychological viewpoint can be applied to virtually any case.

A great example is his observation that the mere acknowledgement of hate in existence solely provides opportunity for more hate to occur. In my research paper for last year, one of my arguments was that children, during their years of gender discovery, express tendencies of gender flexibility in order to develop the boundaries and constructs of their own genders. Making the concept known will never contribute to its eradication (of the concept of course). That goes for everything. Also with gender, the more that people try to resist gender constructs, like a women applying for job that was intended to capitalize on maybe more masculine aspects of labor, the more evident and blatant the gender division becomes.

Sullivan sees that deeming hate crimes an issue to go to war with will just remind everyone that hate is around. Don't we want to forget that it's around. Which bring me to my next point. Sullivan finds the problem of hate is rooted in the societal constructs that determine our upbringing. It's a psychological issue that needs a psychological solution. He basically realizes that hate is an inherent component of human existence within a society. The point is not to get rid of it, but to get rid of our acknowledgement of it. I mean look how we, as citizens (not politicians), treat the homeless. What is the most common initial reaction to an encounter with a homeless person. Usually short and dismissive, or maybe even no acknowledgement of them at all. If that's how we deal with coexisting with humans with a societal stigma, such as homelessness, why couldn't we treat another in the same way? We, as financially stable components of the population, hardly think of homeless people throughout our day, and we tend to ignore them when confronted. Haven't we essentially eradicated them from existence? I'm trying to say that we don't care about them, i'm simply arguing that our general reaction to homelessness could be analogized with how we can treat hate. We have accepted many things about humans that we can't control. Anger, perversion, religion, ignorance. We don't wage war against these traits and strive to eliminate them from humanity. Can't hate fall under that category?

The way Sullivan breaks down our arbiters' account of hate in reference to the society as a whole shows that it can. Hate is merely a byproduct ( or whatever you want to call it) of living with other humans in relatively close proximity ( by relative i mean "same planet"). The only way we get rid of it is to accept it. I agree with Sullivan in this case.