''Why We Hate'' is a six-part documentary television series which is an "exploration into the human condition of

hatred Hatred or hate is an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things or ideas, usually related to opposition or revulsion toward something. Hatred is often associated with intense feelings of anger, contempt, and disgust. Hat ...

and how we can overcome it." It was directed by

Geeta Gandbhir Geeta Gandbhir is an American Filmmaking, filmmaker known for her work as a director, producer, and editor. She has won multiple awards including Emmy Awards and Peabody Awards. Early life and education Gandbhir grew in the Boston area. Her f ...

and

Sam Pollard Sam Pollard may refer to: * Sam Pollard (missionary) (1864–1915) British missionary to China * Sam Pollard (filmmaker) Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards ...

and produced by Steven Spielberg's

Amblin Television Storyteller TV Distribution Co., LLC, doing business as Amblin Television, is the television production division of Amblin Partners. It was established in 1984 by Amblin Entertainment as a small-screen production arm for Steven Spielberg's ''Am ...

and Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions. It was released on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

on October 13, 2019. On June 17, 2020, it was announced that a TV special titled ''Why We Hate: The Reckoning'' would premiere four days later.

Summary

In the first episode, ''Origins'', evolutionary anthropologist

Brian Hare Brian Hare (born 1976) is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. He researches the evolution of cognition by studying both humans, our close relatives the primates (especially bonobos and chimpanzees), and species whose cogn ...

and research scientist, journalist and author

Vanessa Woods Vanessa Woods (born 1977) is an Australians, Australian science writer, author and journalist, and is the main Australian/New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel. A graduate of the Australian National University with a Master of A ...

explain the origins of hate in natural selection: intensive

cooperation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

and

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

in the

in-group In social psychology and sociology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example ...

was a key factor for the success of our

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, but corresponds with

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

and

for the out-group. The second episode, ''Tribalism'', follows psychologist Laurie Santos as she aks why we divide the world into "us" and "them".

Group psychology Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (''intra''group dynamics), or between social groups ( ''inter''group dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision ...

shows the mechanisms of

tribalism Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civilizat ...

, that makes us love our group and possibly hate other groups, and how this shapes our perceptions. In the third episode, ''Tools & Tactics'', journalist and author

Jelani Cobb William Jelani Cobb (born William Anthony Cobb; August 21, 1969)
''Contemporary Black Biography''. Gale, 2005, updated Ja ...

researches the fact that our capacity to hate does not work automatically, that hate often is purposeful awakened - and how this is done using

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

tools like

dehumanization upright=1.2, link=Warsaw Ghetto boy, In his report on the suppression of the Nazi camps as "bandits". file:Abu Ghraib 68.jpg, Lynndie England pulling a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, Abu Ghr ...

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

s and more. In the fourth episode, ''Extremism'',

extremism Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied sha ...

expert Sasha Havlicek searches how people are driven to hateful extremist

ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

and what factors lead to de-radicalization. The fifth episode, ''Crimes against Humanity'', follows international criminal lawyer Patricia Viseur Sellers as she investigates

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

s and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

- showing the perpetrators as well as those who resisted the call to hate. In the sixth episode, ''Hope'',

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist specializing in neuroscience that deals with the anatomy and function of neurons, Biological neural network, neural circuits, and glia, and their Behavior, behavioral, biological, and psycholo ...

Emile Bruneau shows how critical thinking, education and cooperation can help combat hate.

Episodes

Production

Spielberg has long been interested in an exploration of humanity's capacity for hatred and how it can be overcome. According to Spielberg, "Getting to the root of the human condition is something I find not only fascinating, but absolutely necessary in understanding who we are. With the team in place, we delve into historical and modern-day stories of hate, traveling around the globe to uncover its mystery in others and in ourselves. If we understand why we act the way we do, we can change the way we act. That is what we are uniquely capable of as human beings." ''Why We Hate'' has been in development for the past four years.

References

2010s American documentary television series 2019 American television series debuts 2019 American television series endings American documentary television films Discovery Channel original programming Films about social issues Television series by Amblin Entertainment {{US-documentary-tv-prog-stub