RE: Are stigmas and and prejudices, inherently based on fear, ignorance and hatred?
February 8, 2017 at 3:43 pm
(February 8, 2017 at 3:15 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Many emotional responses are instinctive. People tend to fear snakes and spiders not puppies or ducks. People are also naturally inclined to distrust strangers. People are averse to dung and vomit but crave sweets and fatty foods. Understanding a threat does not entail ignoring its danger. The question at hand is not the origin of natural feelings or instincts but rather how to attain the judgement to know if and when we should use reason to overcome what nature imposes or to comply with it.This is a fair point, the human mind has a natural threat response. However, I think the question still remains if this threat response is "civilized" in the sense of how we use it with cultural taboos and the laws we impose on others. It seems to me that as a society, we tend to honor the hero and hate the villain. But this doesn't make sense, it doesn't seem like the sort of way that a civilized, enlightened society would think. If we look at people, they're nothing more than biological mechanisms, and furthermore, it's not fair to say that someone should behave according to rules that are implemented by someone with totally different rules. It's as if the person imposing their rules was under the impression that the other person was operating under the same rules, but chose to break them knowingly. Not so. Every person is their own island, they are alone and solitary in their own perspective of the world. A world view can be influenced, but everyone's world view is ultimately different, and so is everyone's interpretation of reality. I often say that reality is objective, but perception is subjective; this exemplifies itself in this case.