Whenever possible, and often when inappropriate I feel great joy in ridiculing Aggies and their
beloved institution. To me, Aggies, famous for their hooting and hollering, are silly. Just a goofy
bunch who constantly have to cope with the fact that they should have gotten better grades and
taken more extracurriculars in high school so as to end up in Austin instead of College Station. I,
like Jane Coaston (2021) does for Michigan State, revel in A&M’s failures close to the degree
which I celebrate UT’s. I know plenty of Aggies who “hate” UT and I know plenty of Longhorns
who “hate” A&M, but I, however, am not one of them. Yes, the Aggies are historical rivals of my
school and yes they are annoying regarding said rivalry, but how much does that really matter.
There is a great misunderstanding regarding rivalries that increased disdain for the other side
means you are a better team player for your own–this is unequivocally false. We have seen in
sports and politics that this mindset shifts a team's culture, causing its most important
conversations to focus on the other side's failures instead of its own. When that happens,
productivity pauses, echo chambers open, and shouting matches begin; therefore, hate for the
other side is directly harmful to your side’s progress. It is not entirely unnatural, we are a
collaborative species after all, it is in our nature to pick a group and back it. Where it is not
normal, and becomes unhealthy for the individual and society, is when we become so divided
and blinded by our onesided support that we forget that those “opposed” to us often lead lives
with goals and challenges similar to our own. People who back a side with moral indignation
often fail to humanize their adversaries or consider the reasoning behind their actions and goals,
making it easier to dismiss opposing views as irrational while remaining unwilling to reconsider
their own positions. True, structured, hatred has no place in an intra-reliant society like the US
and ultimately blinds us to the reality that our progress is deeply intertwined with the progress of
those we view as our rivals. Coaston’s comparison between sports fandom and political
polarization highlights a learned human bias that directly threatens socially productive behavior.
Political hatred dehumanizes, hinders both internal-party and macro-level governmental
progress, and compromises the objective reasoning required for ethical decision making; simply
put, there is no place for political hatred in a society like ours.
The unfortunate reality is that hatred is not some strange defect in human nature; it is a feature of
it. Coaston (2021) explains how sports fandom develops through geography, community, and
socialization. It turns out that political affiliation is not all that different: most people do not
arrive at their political beliefs through a years-long process of philosophical inquiry, instead, they
inherit them. They absorb them from parents, friends, teachers, schools, and communities. This
is not necessarily a bad thing, no person can independently think of and verify every belief they
hold, but the problem arises when loyalty to the group begins to supersede loyalty to the truth.
Psychologist Henri Tajfel's Social Identity Theory suggests that people naturally categorize
themselves into groups and derive part of their self-worth from those groups (Tajfel & Turner,
2004). This means that criticism of the group begins to feel personal. We have all experienced
this feeling before, but when it turns political, it becomes much more serious because the
outcomes of our ignorant loyalties become much more socially impactful than a delusional
Cowboys Twitter rant. Suddenly, a criticism of the Democratic Party is a criticism of Democrats
and a criticism of the Republican Party is a criticism of Republicans. Unfortunately, people have
a hard time detaching their identity from the group to which they associate with. It makes sense
to describe yourself based on your affiliations and tendencies, but it does not make sense to shift
your beliefs so that they cookie-cutter fit with the groups to which you belong. The distinction
between an idea and an identity begins to disappear. In politics, people become so emotionally
invested in their side that every disagreement feels like hostility and every criticism feels like
betrayal. At that point, political discussion ceases to be an exchange of ideas and becomes a
contest of loyalty.
What makes this dynamic particularly destructive is that it does not merely damage relationships
with the opposing side, it damages the side practicing it as well. It sounds reasonable to believe
that the louder the disdain for a rival group, the stronger the loyalty to one’s own until one
considers the practical consequences. A football team will not have a good season if it spends all
its time studying its opponents' film and none of its own. Similarly, a political movement that
dedicates its energy to mocking, ridiculing, and condemning its rivals while refusing to
acknowledge internal shortcomings will eventually stagnate. In class we discussed groupthink
and echo chambers, environments in which members become so insulated from dissent that they
begin to mistake agreement for correctness. History is filled with examples of organizations that
failed not because they lacked intelligent people, but because they lacked people willing to
challenge prevailing assumptions (as seen in the Challenger disaster (which we discussed in
class)). When preserving the reputation of the group becomes more important than evaluating
information honestly, mistakes become inevitable. Confirmation bias compounds the problem
further: we actively search for evidence that confirms our existing beliefs while dismissing
evidence that threatens them. As Coaston notes, fans routinely perceive negative information
about their team as biased. Political partisans do exactly the same thing. The result is a cycle in
which every failure becomes somebody else's fault and every criticism becomes evidence of
persecution. No individual, institution, or political movement can improve under those
conditions.
Perhaps the most troubling consequence of political hatred, however, is what it does to ethical
decision making. Throughout this course Professor Q. has repeatedly returned to the idea that
difficult problems require deliberate, critical reasoning rather than instinctive reactions based on
feelings or what we heard from other sources. Ethical decisions are rarely made worse by
gathering additional information, considering alternative perspectives, or questioning one's
assumptions. Hatred discourages all three. Once we have convinced ourselves that the people on
the other side are ignorant, malicious, or morally inferior, there is little incentive to understand
why they believe what they do, meaning that their arguments can simply be dismissed before
they are even considered. This runs directly contrary to the idea of moral pluralism discussed in
class. Moral pluralism does not require us to agree with every viewpoint, nor does it require us to
pretend that every argument is equally persuasive, it merely recognizes that complex issues often
involve competing values and competing priorities that reasonable people can weigh differently.
Jonathan Haidt (2012) argues in The Righteous Mind that political opponents frequently reach
different conclusions because they are emphasizing different moral foundations rather than
because one side is intelligent and the other is foolish. This more broadly means that
understanding why someone believes something is not the same as agreeing with them. In fact,
understanding must precede meaningful disagreement. The moment we stop trying to understand
our opponents, we cease engaging in ethical reasoning and begin engaging in tribal warfare. One
produces solutions. The other produces enemies.
Coaston's article ultimately convinced me of something that extends far beyond sports. The
greatest threat posed by political hatred is not that it causes people to dislike one another;
disagreement has existed in every healthy democracy throughout history. The real danger is that
hatred transforms disagreement into identity and identity into blind allegiance. I will continue
making fun of Aggies, and Aggies will continue making fun of Longhorns. Sports rivalries are
entertaining precisely because very little is actually at stake, but political disagreements are
different. The people on the other side of a political issue are not rival fans occupying the
opposite section of a stadium, they are fellow citizens who must continue sharing institutions,
communities, and a future with us regardless of who wins the next election. Going forward, I
think Coaston's argument should encourage greater intellectual humility. Recognizing the reality
that geography, social circles, and community play a significant role in shaping our beliefs does
not require abandoning conviction; It simply requires abandoning the comforting illusion that
everyone who disagrees with us arrived at their conclusions through ignorance or malice. A
functioning society depends upon our ability to criticize ideas without dehumanizing the people
who hold them. The moment we lose that ability, we stop behaving like citizens and start
behaving like fans.
References
Coaston, J. (2021, October 30). Opinion | How Could I Ever Love Michigan State? The New
York
Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/opinion/michigan-football-rivals.html?referr
er=masthead
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (2004). The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. In J. T. Jost
& J. Sidanius (Eds.), Political psychology: Key readings (pp. 276–293). Psychology
Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203505984-16
Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
Vintage Books.