Righteous Hatred: How Ideological Zeal Breeds Jew Hatred
by Peter Boghossian
What causes educated, ostensibly moral people to support movements calling for violence? This isn’t a rhetorical question.
In this episode of Conversations, I speak with Dr. Jake Howland. Jake is a Holocaust scholar, author, historian, and Provost at the University of Austin Texas (UATX). We explore the uncomfortable resurgence of Jew hatred across the globe and try to make sense of how moral frameworks that once fought for justice have now turned against the people they sought to protect.
Jake’s story begins in 1981, when he and his wife honeymooned in Eastern Europe. Behind the Iron Curtain, he saw the aftershocks of totalitarianism—crumbling infrastructure, cultural amnesia, and the void where Jewish life used to be. That experience shaped his scholarship and worldview.
What struck me in our conversation was how that history maps onto current reality. From the psychology of Nazi youth to the performative, cultish ideologies of today’s progressive activists, we’re watching history repeat —not as tragedy or irony, but as something insidious: Wickedness masquerading as moral righteousness. Pinker eloquently writes about people doing bad things not because they want to do bad, but because they want to be good.
We talk about:
How the left produces nihilistic ideological lunatics
The irony of being a homosexual for Hamas
The weaponization of identity and the myth of “oppressor vs oppressed”
The need for an existential threat to bring people together
How slogans have replaced arguments
“What happens when critical thinking is replaced by propagandistic slogans—and moral clarity is abandoned for righteous activism? We know the answer. Nothing good.”
Jake Howland
At UATX, Jake and my colleagues are doing real work—teaching students to think clearly, to be forthright in their speech, and to resist ideological pressure that permeates academia today.
The stakes—freedom and humanity—are too high to ignore.
Guest: Jake Howland, Ph.D., Holocaust Scholar, Author, Provost at UATX
Really fascinating discussion.
Looking forward to listening to this tomorrow. I just wrote a piece on why have liberals lost their minds wondering about similar things!