Re: say what?
Re: Re: say what? -- Jim Top of thread Post Reply Forum
Posted by:
aunt bea ®

10/31/2017, 08:43:41
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In your post you said: 

Racism in the most general sense is as bland and meaningless syndrome as favouritism or bullying. It's a basic aspect of human nature and it cuts all ways everywhere, always has, always will, it's just part of human nature. Big fucking deal.

I assumed that when you are talking about racism as human nature, you are talking about our tendency as a social species to group people into Us and Them. There has been a lot of research into this especially in the last 10 years. It has even been demonstrated in other intelligent social species like other primates and I believe some smart bird species as well like ravens. But humans have the unique capacity to abstract this concept beyond kinship relations so that marines for example will sacrifice themselves for their "brothers" who are of course unrelated to them.

The research I am referring to is neurobiological. Certain parts of the brain respond very quickly to differences in facial features signifying in groups and out groups. In particular those that are responsible for fear (amygdala) and disgust (insula).

This is at the core of some of the aspects of Islam that you are always touting. Isn't that obvious?

What is maybe not so obvious is the connection to pastoralist honor-based societies. That is a big discussion, too big for this post, but suffice to say that pastoralists tend to place a high value on fighting for honor and kinship. It has to do with all that sheep stealing and stuff like that. So what starts as neurobiology and evolution ends with culture, survival and the unique human capacity for abstraction.

So I have to disagree with you that yes, it is a really big fucking deal, and in particular for the topic about which you are so passionate.






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