Know any bigots?
Research just published, which seeks to provide a measurement of prejudice, concludes that Northern Ireland is the most bigotted place in the Western world. Not exactly a good news story for us. But how can we actually measure something like "prejudice" or "bigotry"? I'll be talking to one of the authors of that new story tomorrow on Sunday Sequence, and hearing from another specialist who has his doubts about this kind of research.
You can read the published study, co-authored by Professor Vani Borooah from the University of Ulster, . Professor John Brewer from Aberdeen University (formerly chair of the sociology department at Queen's University) has raised questions about the methodology underlying this new research. His response is published below.
John Brewer: Is Northern Ireland really the hatred capital of the Western world?
It is the often the retreat of the scoundrel to complain about the methods used to collect data that they disagree with. The methods are not so much the problem here as the inferences drawn, both by the authors and the press coverage. Some problems with the inferences:
a) The equation of bigotry/prejudice with answers to one question – whom would you prefer as a neighbour – is too simplistic. Bigotry/prejudice as sets of attitudes/behaviours are much more complicated than this
b) The results disguise the fact that what is really disclosed here is the absence of social constraints in expressing negative/socially unacceptable views between the national samples
c) The issue thus becomes why people in NI are less constrained than people in other countries in expressing socially unacceptable views – which is not quite the same thing as saying NI is the hate capital of the Western world as some have concluded. There are at least two possible reasons one could consider: the history of sectarianism here has legitimised hate talk, and tthe war here has reduced the constraints on expressing extreme views.
d) Thus what is significant about the results is the legitimation they disclose for the expression of homophobic views – the group which is by far the most disliked as a neighbour in NI. Indeed for the other groups, the national differences are marginal. It is obvious to me why there is less social constraint in expressing homophobic views here than elsewhere – it’s the dominance of conservative religion, especially conservative evangelical religion
I am not saying that the problem here is simply that people in NI are only more likely to display their extremist and socially unacceptable views than other national samples, even less am I arguing that they are no more or less ‘open’ to socially marginalised groups than anywhere else and differ only in their courage to express their convictions.
Working class Loyalism is often thought of as extremely racist, having absorbed the cultural racism of the British working class – and racial attacks are high in Loyalist areas – but research done for the NI Life and Times Survey a few years ago shows working class Catholics to hold similar views; and there has been some instances of racial attack in Catholic West Belfast.
What I’m arguing is that there are more socially unacceptable views/behaviours here, and the research picks up on that, but the real issue is what legitimates these views as socially acceptable and makes them capable of being openly expressed. And the things that I would suggest as important are: the history and culture of sectarianism, in which people grow up within a culture of hate talk, the brutalising experiences of generations of conflict that has made extremism appear normal, and the negative impact of conservative, patriarchal, and homophobic religions that makes it appear OK to demonise and marginalise particular groups.
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