How did the politics of hatred that emerged in the post-World War I era challenge the old priority of political philosophy? Why did these politics become such a force in the twentieth century?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: The politics of hatred—in which hopes of a better world depended on the elimination of enemies, whether defined by nationality, race, creed, or class—challenged the old priority of political philosophy: the attempt to reconcile law and liberty in a society of peaceful, constructive collaboration. In the United States, for instance, the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization, with millions of members and millions of sympathizers at its height in the 1920s, embodied the politics of hatred, victimizing supposed racial, religious, class, and economic enemies (blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Catholics, and trade unionists). In France, in the treason trial of Alfred Dreyfus, which traumatized the country from 1898 to 1906, intelligence officers collaborated with a real traitor in order to frame a Jewish officer on fake espionage charges, justifying themselves on the grounds that "the real issue" was "not whether some wretched individual is innocent or guilty" but "whether Jews and Protestants are or are not the masters of the country." All over Europe and the Americas, anarchists and communists screamed for the extermination of a variety of enemies of their own—rich peasants, capitalists, clergy—and, later, when they achieved power in some countries, took the opportunity to engage in corresponding massacres. Haters were like other utopians of the time, striving to contrive a perfect world. Theirs was a warped vision, arising from doctrines of progress and perfectibility, which had been commonplace in Europe since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. From the nineteenth century they inherited Social Darwinism, which seemed to provide a scientific basis for advocating the inherent inferiority and dispensability of some people. Hatred really began to take over from national and imperial interests as a major force in generating political change after World War I was over. At that time, extremism found a huge constituency among demobilized soldiery, unemployed workers, and impoverished bourgeois. From 1917 onwards, the ascent of extremist parties to the ranks of contenders, at least, for control of most of the world´s great powers and major states created mounting expectations that in future international conflict would reflect ideological divisions rather than the national and imperial rivalries typical of the previous hundred years.