Poll: Is hate our natural answer to the unknown?

[Gwarr]

Maybe unknown and hate were pretty strong terms so I'll try to rephrase this without changing the thread title as that would be confusing .

I'm not talking here about things you are eager to discover ,all humans are curious by nature , I know that . I'm talking about things you know about but yet they seem so far from you . For example lets take the Arab culture : Do you know where they live? Yep . Do you know the basics about their culture? lets say yes . Does that stop a lot of people from fearing them (which really translates into hate ) just because they're different ? No , it doesn't . Same can be said about gay , lesbians , any racial group that's a minority etc .

Do we all feel this fear , hate even if we don't want to? Does our education inhibit this natural response? Do we control it? Is this the reason uneducated people are usually the most racist? or some people are just born racist and they can chose to control their true self .

 

[Hagi]

I don't think we really have a natural reaction to the unknown.

I think our initial experiences as very young children do colour us though. Is exploration and putting everything in your mouth encouraged or discouraged? Do new things cause the child pleasure and joy or fear and pain? etc.

And I'm well aware that sounds like a bunch of bull-crap pop-psychology. But it's very true that early experiences have a significant effect on our early brain development, although of course not always to the extent suggested in some theories.

As for fear of the dark. I don't think that's really fear of the unknown. On the contrary, I think we know the dark pretty well and have learned that it has a tendency to startle us. People and objects often suddenly appearing when we don't expect them cause us to be cautious and even afraid, especially when we've experienced several 'jokes' and even horror movies and stories.

 

[HeavyWeaponsSpy]

To the close-minded idiot, yes. To the more intelligent man who is willing to accept the unknown, no.

 

[Kair]

Our reaction to the unknown is uncertainty, and some respond to uncertainty with anger. It takes character to respond well to doubt. Most of humans do not have character.

 

[RJ Dalton]

No. *Fear* is our natural response to the unknown. Hate is a secondary response based around that fear.

 

[Gigano]

It's certainly a natural answer, although far from the only possible one, and very seldom a justified one when going by (secular) logical reasoning and ethical philosophies.

Anyway, Freedom of Thought, so it's really people's own business who and why they hate, so long as they don't violate the legal rights of the object(s) of said hate. All kinds of weird sorry homophobes have every right to be weird sorry homophobes, so long as they don't oppose equal rights being given to gay people by the state.

 

[blizzaradragon]

It's not just hate by itself, it's fear of the unknown that turns into hate. What happens is the fear leads us to questions like "What if person X does action Y to me?" or "What if group A changes how item B affects me?", which causes us in turn to hate until we learn otherwise.

 

[Avistew]

I think mistrust is the natural response, so that we don't rush into things and get hurt. It's instinct. It's because we don't trust new things right away that we're still around.
Hate can be caused by mistrust and misunderstanding, but it doesn't always stem from it.

 

[Kargathia]

I never , ever expressed hate for these groups but , if I was uneducated , would I do the same thing? or would I be a hate mongering thug that goes on racist rallies and attacks people because they have darker skin?

Most of your post is already answered in a way that I have nothing to add to, but this part was rather interesting.

I'd say the answer is yes, and no. You wouldn't be a hate-mongering thug when uneducated, just as small children aren't racist. They only feel the instinctive fear and wonder of all things unknown when they see somebody who's "different".
Nature and nurture are both involved, but to what extent each their influence is, is still one of these unknowns of psychology.

There was a rather interesting study a while back though, that tried to check how much of our racial prejudices are only good manners. Good manners decrease the more stress is put on us, so they went and stressed out people in a natural way, before posing them a bunch of questions that rated how racist and xenophobic they were.
The "natural way" of stressing people was to simply empty a few trash cans at bus stops and stations to make a mess I'm pretty sure we've all encountered - when not caused by science.
The ones who were stressed out because they were sitting amidst the rubble were decidedly more racist than the ones sitting in a clean area.

 

[Kagim]

People mistrust the unknown. Mistrust is very good for not dying when you have no clue what something is.

Rather then die violently at the hands of something you have no clue what it is you stay on guard and defensive of it. If for any reason you are provided evidence (Regardless if it is true or not) to like or hate it your bias will be formed.

So as for homosexuality, upon hearing.... I dunno lets make up something... "Gays are over 9000% more likely to contract aids and spread it to straight people" followed by lots of pretty stats and colorful circles labeled with the word pie one with absolutely no bias will start off with that little 'fact' in their mind. Regardless of any actual truth to it.

Mistrust is not a bad thing, but it can be used to manipulate people. People don't start off hating things.