Is Bigotry a Mental Disorder

A word from our sponsor:

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Of course it is! People with bigotry disease have been known to harm other people.

Comments

Primitive Sociological Defense Mechanism

Somewhere in our darkest past, pre humans learned to reject others who are different than us as a defense mechanism. The usefulness of it is in decline and we must learn to temper it if we are to survive.

OTOH, there is good evidence

OTOH, there is good evidence that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, so we weren't all bigots ;-)

Kris

{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}

I'd say there's a mistaken

I'd say there's a mistaken assumption here. That is, just because someone has an attitude that expresses bigotry, they're immediately bad. I mean, I'm bigoted against ignorant people.

It's pretty straightforward. If you don't like (intolerant) how _I_ believe, then you're a bigot. That's the definition of bigotry. At a society level, it's a survival mechanism. If you have someone who is radically different from the rest of the tribe, they can be a danger to the ability of the tribe to react to a threat.


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

the age old debate of nature vs nurture.

I think that bigotry is a learned behavior. Charismatic leaders can influence the masses into hatred and bigotry. Charismatic people like Hitler, David Duke, Jim Jones, Donald Trump.

Why, yes - anyone that

Why, yes - anyone that convinces someone else to believe what they do, perforce, makes it so that the 'believer' is _not_ a bigot. FOR THAT GROUP. Any OTHER group that disagrees with the first is consider a bigot for the first group, AND VICE VERSA.

If you think that circles are the greatest shape, and I think that triangles are the greatest shape, if we express antagonism towards the other - we're BOTH bigots. It can be taught, but is generally picked up by life experience and the world around us.

The key isn't bigotry - the key is HATRED. If you hate pederasts because you think what they do is wrong, you're a bigot against pederasts. (most extreme example I could come up with). Bigotry on its own is not necessarily bad, or good. It simply _is_.


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.