Racism, anti-Semitism, nationalism, chauvinism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of intra-species xenophobia are considered by Konrad Lorenz, author of the book “So-Called Evil”, to be the most serious of all dangers threatening humanity in modern cultural-historical and technical conditions. Lorenz believes them to be the result of intra-species selection that acted on our ancestors for tens of thousands of years, while Erich Fromm, in his book “Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, considers them one of the main obstacles to human progress. What should be done and how can this evil be eradicated?
Let’s assume that scientists are right and intolerance must be addressed so that it does not hinder progress and threaten humanity (although it has existed for tens of thousands of years, and progress has somehow coped with it; however, let’s leave this logical inconsistency on the conscience of scientists). Do campaigns against racism, for example, help to defeat it, or do they have the opposite effect?
In 2020, the UN held the “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” in South Africa, where it was stated that (I quote) “any doctrine of racial superiority is scientifically unsound, morally reprehensible, socially unjust and dangerous and should be rejected along with theories attempting to establish the existence of separate human races”. How is it possible to declare doctrines and theories scientifically unsound before they even exist?
Jens Rydgren, a professor of sociology at Stockholm University, writes in his work “The Logic of Xenophobia”: “racism and xenophobia may appear quite rational from the aggressor’s point of view when they are ignorant about the target of the attack, or misled” (my free translation from English). One does not have to look far for an example: Borat Sagdiyev from the eponymous film believed that Jews could turn into cockroaches. He was not to blame for having such knowledge in his curly head, and he did not intend to question this truth. Based on the amount of information he had about Jews, Borat reasonably harbored animosity towards them.
It is very difficult to make Borat stop hating Jews, who, in his belief, can turn into insects. The only way to deal with such radical anti-Semitism is to explain or scientifically prove that this version is a fabrication.
It is worth noting that not every xenophobia is as comical as Borat’s fear of Jews. In the vast majority of cases, every hatred has a perfectly logical explanation underlying the offensive generalization.
For example, according to statistics, more than half of the homicides in the United States are committed by dark-skinned citizens, while they represent only 13% of the total population. Should a police officer, when detaining a dark-skinned criminal, remember this statistic and take stricter security measures than if he were detaining, say, an Indian? Would using this statistic be an insult to the specific offender, who did not choose to be dark-skinned?
Another example: currently, the vast majority of civilian aviation pilots are men. Should an airline, when hiring a female pilot, conduct additional training and checks, for example, on stress tolerance, because women handle it worse? Should airlines warn passengers that a woman will be the pilot on their flight? Would such information be an insult to the specific female pilot, who may be more stress-resistant than the average representative of the social group “women”?
I mean that not all xenophobia and even hatred is unfounded and is a prejudice. It is necessary to be able to distinguish one from the other and to fight against the latter, getting rid of meaningless violence and aggression, which, as we know from Fromm, is the main obstacle on the path of human progress. The only remedy against prejudices can be enlightenment.
However, the opposite is happening. The UN, as we see, condemns any theories about the existence of races, and instead of identifying contradictions, emphasizing differences, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different social groups, all people are declared equal. Instead of enlightenment, which always rests on doubts and internal conflicts, we are offered empty slogans like “black lives matter”, which are emotionally charged. Education is blocked. Sharp social issues are taboo. Scientists are stripped of their honors. Any discussion of inequality that does not contain radical polarizations and unequivocal condemnation of all things bad is recognized as racism and leads to a boycott of anyone who inadvertently enters into such a discussion.
A few years ago, I participated in a computer conference in a small Western European city. In private conversations with several speakers like myself, we touched on the topic of racism, and I allowed myself to mention what I wrote in this article above: not everything is so straightforward, and it is worth understanding that if people of color commit several times more crimes, it is not enough to demand unbiased treatment of them, we also need to deal with the crimes, doing something to reduce their level. Within a few minutes, the table we were sitting at emptied. The discussion stopped before it even began, because the participants simply ran away from the sin.
Supposedly moving towards a noble goal – reducing xenophobia – we achieve the opposite effect, because we act with repressive methods. Tabooing the topic and intimidating scientists will not eliminate the roots of social, racial, gender, or national conflict. Only education and enlightenment, which require open discussions and debates above all. However, discussions are becoming fewer, debates are prohibited, and dissenters are silenced.
Perhaps it is beneficial for someone to, under the guise of fighting hatred worldwide, solve the opposite task: igniting the fire of xenophobia with the fuel of stupidity, narrow-mindedness, and obscurantism?
Translated by ChatGPT gpt-3.5-turbo/42 on 2024-04-20 at 14:21
