DailyKenn.com — I'd like to have a few moments of lone time with Robert Sapolsky. He is the former Stanford professor and neurology researcher.
My question for Dr. Sapolsky: "Am I an us or a them?"
The reason for the question is simple. Sapolsky seems to find a neurologically based reason for contention. It's something he apparently thinks we, the human race, can get over our divisiveness with enough enlightenment.
To make his point he notes that we tend to perceive ourselves as divided between 'us' and 'them'. And I agree. He also seems to the believe the us-vs-them paradigm is a bad thing. And I agree, with few exceptions.
I couldn't help but notice Sapolsky's presentation on C-SPAN concluded with a supporter making a snide remark about then-president Donald Trump. So, would that make me a them? Another presentation recorded during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings drew snickers from his audience. Again, would that make me a them? More telling was when he called out angry white males during that presentation. They, it seemed, are to blame for the Trump win in 2016. One last time: Am I a them?
Here's the irony.
The left is appalled by the us-vs-them mindset that permeates human thinking. We should all get along, they say. The problem is: Those unenlightened them won't stop dividing us between us and them!
Does anyone besides me see the hypocrisy?
I will continue to read and listen to Robert Sapolsky. He has much to offer. But I will resist becoming one of his us. I will remain one his them.
That makes me wonder: Why do we hate each other?
Nature, apparently, has selected for the survival of people groups who look out for themselves. Those who fail to do so fail to be people groups.
As Sapolsky points out in his book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, humans are hard wired to favor those most like themselves and reject those unlike themselves. View a short video of another being jabbed by a needle, and you will recoil with empathy. However, if the skin tone of the person being jabbed is similar to your own, your reaction will be more intense.
That's the way we are hard wired.
I notice there is virtually no lack of empathy for needle pricks in Iceland. That is because the population mostly shares the same skin tone. The same could be said of Northern Ireland where the virtual homogeneous population fights over religion rather than skin color.
Realizing there are natural fault lines that divide us, such as race, religion, and culture, we should logically conclude that the most efficient and effective method of preventing us-vs-them within a given culture, is to strive to make that culture as homogeneous as possible.
And that, my friends, is why Western nations require a sane immigration policy and effective walls. Such measures will help us from becoming a boiling pot of us vs them.
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