Cuda2020

And how does that work, please enlighten us.

Cuda2020

That's not being in touch with anything, but rather, simply behaving like an unconscious unevolved animal. Is that where you set our bar for us?

Even an instinct, still ways through some decision making before deciding to take flight or stand and fight. R****m, the beginning concepts of contempt, are not based in fear, therefore it is not instinctual, it is learned. First by their initial environment.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Children will automatically show more trust to individuals of their own race... Infants especially... They also tend to perceive their own race as being more advantageous...

R****m can certainly be reinforced... There is a nurture element to it... But there is also a natural aspect... Hence the need for this education you speak of...

EN Submarine Qualified Loc: Wisconsin East coast

Don't understand why you keep referring to races of people. The different ethnic origins and traits don't constitute a race. Just like boxers and poodles are dogs. not races. merely breeds. If you don't want to apply breed to humans, ok. Use what you want but there is only one human race with multiple variations as to breeding, ethnic origin, etc. How can anyone be r****t when we are all the same bunch? You might be for or against some groups but we are the same race.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

There is a book out there titled Deep Survival: Who lives, who dies, and Why.

Lawrence Gonzales, the author, provides anecdotal evidence that trying to intellectually reason through a life threatening circumstance can get you k**led. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. The emotional and physiological responses to life threatening situations can overwhelm the instincts embedded in our DNA.

In one chapter, the author is aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier. He is in the pilot's ready room attending the pilots' pre-flight briefing for their first night landing quals. The Landing Signal Officer, who is responsible for guiding the pilots to a landing back on the carrier in a way that doesn't get anybody k**led, is giving the pilots their briefing. Here's what the LSO told them:

"You're at the quarter mile and someone asks you who your mother is: you don't know. That's how focused you are. Okay, call the ball (land the aircraft). Now it's a knife fight in a phone booth. Remember, full power in the wire. Your IQ rolls back to that of an ape."

And Gonzales writes: It sounds as if he's being a smart ass, but deep lessons also are there to be teased out like some obscure Talmudic script. Lessons about survival, about what you need to know and what you don't need to know. About the surface of the brain and its deep recesses. About what you know that you don't know you know and about what you don't know that you'd better not think you know.

Call it an ape, call it a horse, as Plato did. Plato understood that emotions could trump reason and that to succeed we have to use the reins of reason on the horse of emotion. That turns out to be remarkably close to what modern research has begun to show us, and it works both ways. The intellect without the emotions is like the jockey without the horse.

IOW, if you are not emotionally and mentally prepared to deal with a life threatening situation, your natural instincts to stay alive can easily be overwhelmed.

Oddly, as Gonzales reiterates throughout the book, one human response to life threatening situations can make all the difference - a sense of humor.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Dogs are divided into breeds... Another word for breed is subspecies... Race is also a term for subspecies...

We are all one species, Homo Sapiens, nut we are not all one race... We can be divided into various subspecies... Each if which can be further divided into various ethnicities and subgroups....

As such it is relatively easy to assign a term like "r****m" to various ideologies and actions...

EN Submarine Qualified Loc: Wisconsin East coast

Enjoy your opinion. Homo Sapiens is as far as I go.

Simple Sam Loc: USA

I don't set the bar for anyone other than myself. All I do is observe just how low that bar can be set in some cases. Humans and animals share basic emotions and those emotions can function as building blocks, with more complex emotions being blends of basic ones. For instance, contempt is a blend of anger and disgust. Contempt uses the building blocks of fear, avoidance, and anger. Not all complex emotions can be deconstructed into more basic ones, and the theory does not adequately explain why infants and animals do not share in complex emotions, and in your example; contempt. Therefore the feeling of contempt is a learned response. Contempt is not necessarily linked to race, religion, or sex. This is why most Americans (irrespective of race) do not condone h**e groups because their "actions" are contemptuous.

Note, basic emotions evolved in response to the ecological challenges faced by our remote ancestors and are so primitive as to be ‘hardwired’, with each basic emotion corresponding to a distinct and dedicated neurological circuit. With more complex emotions, it is the emotion itself (rather than its potential object) that is culturally shaped and constructed. Schadenfreude is not common to all peoples in all times. But, it can become pronounced during e******ns or sports events. Just like contempt, it is a complex emotion which has evolved from basic emotions and not part of our DNA.

Being predisposed through inherited DNA is different from complex emotions. Joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking are basic to all animals to include humans at birth, teaching is unnecessary. We are not born with emotional intelligence, those are the attitudes and emotions we learn. Fortunately, emotional intelligence is malleable.

Simple Sam Loc: USA

Okay, thanks for the input.

maryjane

Exactly the right question we need the answer to!!

debeda

I think so too. I didn't see that as a liberal or conservative meme, but a thought provoking analogy.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

It did provoke our thoughts... We simply disagreed with the premise...

Cuda2020

We agree education is the key. Looks like our definition of r****m is different. Children, small children, would feel most comfortable with what they are more familiar with, I wouldn't call that r****m, but your theory is interesting, where did you get it from?

I believe if a baby opened it's eyes to person not of it's race and was brought up by it, that would naturally be the one they would most readily embrace, that's familiarity not r****m. Just my opinion, as with your theory, is yours. The important thing is what we do agree on.

Ironically we have two fictitious stories on such a matter, Tarzan and Jungle book. Yes they're fictitious, but they both try to prove that point.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Yes.. Both Tarzan and the Jungle Book help to underscore the point I was making concerning r****m being a genetic characteristic..... In both cases the young homo sapiens were raised from infancy by caring parents of a different species... And both grew up to be fine young men... Who both wished to live with their own kind... And eventually made the t***sition...

There are numerous studies concerning children and r****m.. I have a file with some interesting ones somewhere on a USB... I will make the effort to look for them...

Another interesting study (the name escapes me, but I have it printed out and in my study somewhere) concerns a fascinating test... Individuals of the white and black race were hooked up to a monitoring device and then shown videos of hands being pricked by needles... There were three categories: white hands; black hands; purple hands... As might be expected, individuals reacted to a greater degree when hands matching their skin color were pricked... This would seem to indicate a subconscious r****m... But if far greater interest, was that individuals reacted to a greater degree when the purple hand was pricked then when the hand if the opposing skin color was pricked... Which would seem to indicate that we are genetically predispositioned to ignore the pain of "others"...

Education allows us to live life to a greater degree... Unfortunately, too much education these days is lacking in practical experience... Want a child to overcome racial tendencies??? Place him in a situation that forces him to acknowledge they first exist, then allow him to accept them as a part of himself, and finally allow him to work out strategies to counter them himself...

This desire to ignore biological differences, rather then embrace them as a part of what makes us us, is bizarre and will ultimately lead to conflict between various groups...

Cuda2020

Collectively we all set the bars. This is why we try disparage r****m from others, it is a hurtful dogma.
It being a DNA factor, I don't agree with that analogy. R****m is a learned condition. Just to be clear, you do realize this premise you're debating is not mine?

Yes, we do share some primitive baseline emotions, but we have the mental capacity for a much greater understanding which is why I don't buy into comparing us to something so unevolved as ants or even animals. Yes I find it interesting analyzing instincts which are intrinsic in us, but as far as a general study, one cannot observe our instinct's without our rationale. Comparing r****m with an infant or toddler is a moot point when we're dealing with the behavior of adult human beings.

I believe we are in agreement here.