[ExI] Fundamental Concept

[William Flynn Wallace]

response to Ivor
William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 5:42 PM
to me

>  You cannot get rid of racism. It is about the most natural idea there is.
> A baby is born xenophobic - not trusting anything different. The sound of
> anyone’s voice other than their mother’s causes alarm, like Daddy’s deeper
> voice. Many fathers want to hold their babies and tend to them, and the
> baby wants Mama, and only Mama. In one case I read of, a mother almost
> immediately went back to work and hired a sitter. After a few months she
> would come home and want to hold and tend to the baby and the baby got
> really upset and preferred the sitter. So one can learn to fear one’s own
> mother!
>
> Later, anyone and anything different may be feared: different voices,
> different clothes, food, music, religion, skin color, people of a different
> gender - anything. We still have some of this as adults. We say things like
> “They eat what?” “I’d never touch that.” “Don’t they look silly in those
> clothes.” So if they are different they must be distrusted, at least at
> first.
>
> So the different things and people start out fearsome. Then events of our
> lives can alter those fears - making them safe or increasing the fears.
>
> Around here you see pictures of criminals in the news papers and TV and
> 90% of them are Black. What is a young kid to think? Most criminals are
> Black and so Black people are to be feared. I have no doubt whatsoever that
> the police are more afraid of Black people than whites or Asian, etc.,
> causing overreactions to perceived danger.
>
> Now you can tell babies, kids, teens and adults that not all of this group
> is bad. Many are as good as we are or maybe better. But fear is the hardest
> emotion to change. It has literally saved human lives for many centuries
> and is still doing so.
>
> You can even see this is lab rats: teach a rat that he will get shocked if
> he does something, then try to eliminate the fear by eliminating the
> shock. It will take weeks and weeks and even then the fear can come back as
> strong as it ever was by giving just one shock.
>
Xenophobia may not be genetic (though I think it is), but it seems learned
in the womb.   bill w

On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 1:20 PM Ivor Brians via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> The group offered in my opinion, some good answers, especially,
>
>    1. Forgiveness 2) Access for all to unlimited resources.
>
>
>
> Some years ago, I started pondering why things are the way they are, why
> they aren’t better, and how we might change this. Initially I came up with
> about 10 items which I felt, if practiced, would eliminate strife and war.
> As I continued pondering, I added more to the list and then continued to
> drill down on each of them to reveal the most fundamental aspect of each.
> Many overlapped and some, if practiced would eliminate the need for others.
> I realized humanity would resist the most fundamental so, I looked for
> temporary solutions, and this added more items. Until recently I had 15
> items. Of these, I felt the most fundamental one which could possibly be
> addressed, was our tendency to form groups (I’ve since come up with what I
> feel is a more fundamental concept which I will post later).
>
>
>
> From the draft of a webpage I plan to post:
>
> “2. INCLUSIVENESS - moving beyond WE vs THEY
>
> Banding together in a hostile world, we formed groups. Today, for the most
> part, our environment is no longer dangerous. The main exception comes from
> our own kind and springs from the exclusion of others, a self-perpetuating
> practice. If only we can see The Family of Man as one group, I believe it
> would be the end of most struggle, strife and war.”
>
>
>
> There is more to this of course. And from a practical point, people will
> resist giving up their group identity. I realize there are fundamental
> things driving the formation of groups (which I will post later).
>
>
>
> I am interested in your input.
>
> Ivor
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210207/99bedcf3/attachment-0001.htm>