å Sunday, December 3rd, 2017

Sara Ahmed starts off with a passage from an Aryan web site that talks about how the emotions people feel for seeing something they don’t like isn’t hate but really love. She goes into more detail in her article “Affective Economies” about how her take on emotion and how it differs from other’s view on the subject. She goes against the notion that emotions are a private matter and that it just moves from one person to another. She goes into how emotions from my understanding are connected between the individual and the collective and this connection is important to understanding people’s views. She takes that Aryan example of how they picture the white person’s job, security, wealth, and purity and everything they love is being threatened by others. The love the Aryans have for their nation stems from their rewriting of history saying that the whites had built the land they love instead of the migrants and slave and call themselves the victim. Their telling of the story puts them as victims with their rights under danger and their nation being threatened. The hate they see the other as helps being the white subjects and the nation closer to each other. That is how emotions affect how people react and form a collective, common fear, hate, and love bring these people together. Another example of how emotions shared between people can affect the world around those people would be the 9/11 attacks. The terrorists shared the love of their religion and beliefs and used those beliefs to justify their actions. Their actions also led to the emotions Americans felt after the attacks, fear of more attacks, and hatred of the attackers and the want for vengeance. This was only spurred on by media which highlighted Americans fears. All of this now led to more groups fueled by different emotions in wake of the attacks and the following war.

In “Affective Economies” Sara Ahmed determines emotions, such as hate, as part of an economic model that have the ability to gather people together. Emotions do not reside within an object even a single person. Emotions are affected by the slightest detail that occurs in one’s surroundings. Often times emotions, like hate, are based of their counter emotions, love. For example, in the beginning of this excerpt Ahmed shines a light on the Aryan Nations Website. These groups of individual are embodying the emotion of hatred according to the minorities that the Aryan Nation protest against. Although the Aryan Nation participate and organize rallies and chants against minorities, they truthfully believe they are doing it for the well being of “their” country. They believe these sets of minorities are taking jobs, thus, devaluing their country. This in turn rallies together all “whites” who believe in this ideology and creates a community. Furthermore, Ahmed goes on to describe the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The terrorists acted out of love of their religion and beliefs. The dedication and love they had for their religion and beliefs brought the terrorist of September 11 together. For the American people these acts were an act of hatred and provoked fear among the country. Likewise, Americans united themselves as a result of the terror attacks. Politicians and the media then used the U.S vulnerable state of fear as a chance to promote the war. The vulnerable state the American public was in allowed the war to receive positive feedback. The American public believed the terror attacks of September 11 needed to avenged. Furthermore, soon after the terrorist attacks the American public perceived anyone who appeared to be Middle Eastern, Arab or Muslim negatively. Again, fear was able to collect another group of individuals together to create a community but in this case a negative notion was created against them.

Hate and fear is inevitable in every society. As infants, we often portray some hate toward our parents when we do not have our way. As we grow, we continue to strengthen our hate based on various factor including social class. In her article, “Affective Economies,” the authors wants to address that the economic induces us to hate another. She uses the immigration issue to illustrate division among groups. For instance, a white person believes that immigrants are coming into their country and taking over their jobs, due to this Americans portray hate and fear toward these immigrants. Over time, this hatred progresses to prejudice. With the over growth of foreigners, laws are establish to reduce migrants from entering the country or administering visa in poor countries. She emphasize that we often portray some right to illustrate hate when a group interfere with our safety and security. On the contrary, it is true the unemployment rate in the US is the fault of the immigrants. Many American believe this is sole the immigrant’s faults. However, losing of a job is not the immigrants fault, and why is it believe this problem started solely because of migrants. Many jobs in the US have moved overseas because of cheap labor and in turn, many immigrants flee in hope of making more money in foreign countries, so that they can take care of their family. They author wants to point out that hate comes from within, it come from the frustration of the economy, this comes from the lack of avenue and means. Yet the only way to solve our problems is to blame the outsider. She wants us to openly share our nation and welcome all to its fruitfulness. A nation is build starting with one not me.

In Sara Ahmed’s article, “Affective Economics,” she discusses how emotions such as love and hate play a role in defining the person that we become and how society perceives us. These emotions often take us to new boundaries and make us do things that we wouldn’t do if we thought it through, but these feelings often make us act out of emotions instead of rational thinking. She explores how love and hate are correlated, more so than we know of. When people act in situations based off of hate, they usual do for a particular reason. When Ahmed, talks about people acting out of hate such as child molesters and rapists she talks about them acting out due to threat of loss. People often see hatred as an emotion that is a psychological nature, but it is important to see how they work and how they develop. There are certain economies of hate that she discusses, such as how emotions reside in objects and subjects, rather than how another person makes you feel. She also discusses how capitalism plays an important role in our emotions, how people strive for success and money often makes us think about ourselves only. Certain emotions are motivated by other feelings. The feeling of fear often makes a person act off of instinct. Fear is strong emotion, because it is what you are afraid of what is coming, but not what is actually going to happen. Fear can often take over your whole body both physically and mentally. It is not necessarily about overcoming the fear because often times even when you face that fear, it still never leaves your mind. The discussion of how a white boy was scared by a black man, shows how fear does not reside in the subject. The white boy begins to shiver and recognizes his shiver as a fear, while the black man himself feels fear, because his existence is threatened. People are not scared by others because they are fearsome, but rather fear is contained in the body. This leads to people acting involuntary due to the fact that the brain sends signs that the body is afraid. It is often that people’s emotions are based off of a related subject and for that reason together we feel and these emotions are what bring us together.

In her article “Affective Economies,” Sara Ahmed explains how our emotions ties us to different communities in society and how emotions are a cultural practice rather than a psychological disposition. For example, in the beginning of her piece she talks about the mixed race couple, the rapist and child molester, immigrants and foreigners and their relationship towards the ordinary (the white nationalist, the white farmer, the white Christian, the white working man and the white housewives). We see that in society “white” is seen as ordinary and everyone else that doesn’t fit that description are viewed as “others” and are separated into different circles. In an excerpt from the Aryan Nations she explains how the emotions of love and hate shows the boundaries between the individual subject and the nation. She explains how the white “ordinary” feels endangered by the “other’ because of their fear of losing something. So, it is suggested that their love of their nation is what prompts them to hate anyone that posed a threat. When she discusses the speech on asylum seekers given by William Hague, she explains that the repetition of “sticky words” can generate an emotional response from people. These are words that are sort of powerful and unforgettable. So using those same words will evoke a certain response for the public. She supports this by showing how the current British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, used the same “sticky words” as Hague and still brought about the same implications. Hague used words like “flood” and “swamped” to associate asylums and the loss of control and “dirt” and “sewage”, to portray the anxiety of being “overwhelmed” by potential proximity of others. Blunkett these words to describe the effect that children of asylum seekers would have if they were taught by local schools. However, he was criticized and replaced overwhelmed. Although it may seen that “overwhelmed” cleared up the implication of “swamped” it still evoked the sensation of being overtaken by “others”. Ahmed says that by doing this the nations was constructed as a subject that couldn’t cope with the presence of “others”. Therefore, the “others” are a threat to the nation as a whole (Ahmed, 122).

Sara Ahmed opens her essay by with a quote from the Aryan Nations Website. Many people view them as being hateful with the way they view others, but they perceive their feelings as coming from love. They have a love for their country, people, and culture and they view others as being a threat, even comparing interracial couples to child molesters and rapist. It is the love of preserving themselves that they believe other people confuse for hate. This is an alternative way of viewing their lifestyle and it is accomplished through the use of emotions. This has the power to change they way they are perceived. She talks about the rights of the people and the grounds of the nation in this essay both of which are under attack according to the Aryans. One emotion that was discussed was fear, and how it is something that is felt from the outside and works its way in. There was a white child that saw a shivering black man and interpreted his action as aggression causing him to be scared. His perspective gave him the right or the grounds for feeling scared. Fear creates a divide between people and by expressing his fear the white boy is said to expand while the black man being the one who is feared is said to be contained because he is afraid of the impact of scaring the little boy. Emotional work has the power to bring people together, spread them apart and/or develop places in societies. Ahmed describes what they Aryans say as imaginations and fantasy and through emotional work they can bring them to life. Once people become conditioned to view the other as dangerous, it validates mistreatment. The boy was taught that black men are dangerous so seeing a black man with a natural human reaction produces fear. Once he has that real intense feeling it is hard to dissociate fear from the black race. He will feel he has a right to want to protect his own and his nation.

In Sara Ahmed’s article, “Affective Economies,” she discusses her views on emotion and states that it’s not hate that makes people react to things in a certain way but it’s actually love. According to the narrative in the beginning of the article, its the love for the nation that makes the white supremacist hate others who they recognize as strangers because they’re taking away their jobs and their future in a way. Hate doesn’t make people act a certain way but love does. The love of the nation makes people who love it act out of hate when their nation is being threaten. It interesting to think that people hate actually comes from love. The correlation between love and hate is odd but makes a lot of sense. Love is what makes people act with hate toward others because they’re defending what they love. When people feel like their nation is being threaten or their jobs they start to form hatred toward what is threaten it. According to Ahmed the hatred people express is form within them and it express outward toward people, places and objects. Ahmed argues that fear works to give people a sense of being overwhelmed and makes them feel like they can’t achieve to be contained. She states that people fear certain object in an effort to avoid dealing with the true and bigger cost of their fear. According to Ahmed emotions are within us and dealing with our emotion isn’t the problem but the subject of it, is almost like our emotion are the victim. Our emotions are what makes us do what we do on a daily base and our emotions are what makes us form opinion on things and people, it’s hard not to form opinion on things when we let our emotions blur our judgement.

In “Affective Economies” by Sara Ahmed she examines how external environmental factors contribute to the emotional stability of individuals. She does this through examples, starting with the Aryan Nation website and its’ perpetuation of hate. In her examination of these hate groups and their content, one thing that she wants the reader to keep in mind is that they love to hate. And it’s in this love, that there is a sense of approach that can be garnered and understood by the perpetrators. Perhaps, and this is something that I think, in understanding the causal relationship between the individual’s love of perpetuating hate and why, further empathy and understanding can be gained. And in turn, can crumble their movement, too. These examples that she uses continue to extrapolate this idea of having a different basis of understanding why people hate the things that they hate, and how we interpret that information differently than they do. Which gives the readers an added sense of perspective, but, and this is also what I think, does little to justify the criminality of their behavior and their hypocritical response to similar treatment. It’s not difficult to argue that when subjected to the same treatment, these hate groups fail to comprehend why anyone would treat them in such a way, and why they shouldn’t treat other’s in such a way either. Which is curious, I think, as it outlines something a little more important when it comes to people that are subjected to hate groups and ideologies. And it’s that the things and people that they are taught to hate, or have come to love to hate, they don’t exactly view as human or anything worthwhile to save. Which is why it’s so acceptable for them to treat the people that they hate in such an awful way but when they are subjected to the same treatment they can’t tolerate it and quickly fold.

In her essay, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod discusses cultural explanation and the mobilization of women.  During the War on Terror there was a skeptical focus on Muslim women. Lughod discusses the connection between the War on Terror and the cultural mode of explanation.  When the tragic attack on New York’s World Trade Center and the U.S Pentagon occurred there was this need to understand culture of the attackers. There was this need to understand the meaning of a religious ritual and about the Islam faith and about it’s women to kind of help people grief and figure out the reason behind these attacks.  Lughod makes a good point about the need to learn about the Islam culture, she questions how is knowing about the culture of the region, particularly its religious belief and treatment of women going to help us understand why these tragic events occurred. Instead of focusing on their religious belief, people should focus on the role the U.S had with relation to the development of the repressive regimes. The U.S used the oppression of Muslim women as a means to justifies war as a necessary to free victimized Afghan women. During the time that the Taliban were in control Afghan women were forced to wear burqas and if they were seen out in public without them they’ll be punished and sometimes killed. Many people believed this to be a violation of women rights. When the U.S took control over the country many claim to have succeed and help the Afghan women be liberate when in reality even after they were free from the Taliban these women continue to wear their burqas because it is part of their religion. Lughod argues why must their be a correlation between the way people cultural dress and political problems. There shouldn’t be a reason to label people from a certain culture as oppress because of the way they dress and also major political decision shouldn’t be made because of it either.

Emotions of love, hate, and fear are extremely powerful and are the root to some of the most tragic stories of American history. In her article,”Affective Economies”, Sara Ahmed draws from these tragic examples and explains how love and hate are interrelated and misunderstood, between victims and their perpetrators. Her beginning excerpt from the Aryan Nations web site begins her explanation and position of how some people only see hate, however the individual or individuals act out of love. It is as if she wants the reader to have a sense of compassion for the perpetrator because for them it was done out of love and for a purpose to preserver this love. The terrorist from the 9/11 attacks in New York City, acted out of love of their religion and God, of which they believed they had the rights and grounds to do so. For Americans however, these acts were hateful and done without grounds and definitely had no rights, Sara explains how fear is the root to these emotions. Former president George W. Bush, had addressed saying how the future of America would not be one of fear or terror, rather by using the love American’s have for their country it is grounds to preserver and move along without fear or terror. Then he declared war and the this fear and terror was projected towards American citizens so that could feel that they had the rights and grounds to go to war. I think that there was a lot more to this than Americans tend to believe. The media used this fear from the terror attacks to keep Americans afraid of anyone who was affiliated with the ethnicity or religion. The media introduced a new color system that used red, orange, yellow, blue, and green which was intended to alert the intensity of terror, basically it showed how afraid Americans were supposed to be, with red being the highest and then lowering respectively. Again demonstrating how emotions are relative to the rights and grounds of the nation and how fear was used to deter from the fact that the country was at war.