I don't buy it. Young children are the most uncivilised form of human there is and they get on just fine.

The concept of 'instinctive racism' is one of the most racist ideas there is.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 18:29, 1 reply)

I question your generalisation that
young children get on just fine.They often have gangs and scapegoats without being taught to do so.
And if racial prejudice along with other prejudices is not founded on instinct then it must be the product of an intelligent thought process. If that's the case start the car.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 18:50, closed)

This is the same argument used by the church, that man left to his own devices is a murderous savage ruled by instinct, and only the civilising force of (whatever idea it is being pushed) turns him away from this state.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 19:27, closed)

If that is what the church is saying then I disagree with them.
What I believe is that we are a successful organism because of certain useful instinctive behaviours, some of which are now not relevant to our society and hopefully the brain will catch up at some point. Or we could leave it to the U.N.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 19:39, closed)

You could just as well argue that racism was born out of the forces 'civilisation'; church, state and empire, where the deficiencies of 'the savage' where used as an excuse to steal resources, land and enslave.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 19:49, closed)

I could if it wasn't for the fact that the prejudice
pre-dates all of the above. Chimpanzees have it. If we didn't retain part of it we would soon be dead from dithering about whether it's better to steer towards or away from a head on collision.
I agree with the second part of your statement. Calling people savages is a way of scapegoating and gives an excuse to treat them as less than human, a point I made in the lead post.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 20:14, closed)

I'd say the evidence of long distance trade in the Palaeolithic would indicate the natural state of humans is to work for mutual benefit, which is why we're not chimps.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 20:31, closed)

Exactly, the cohesive group with common values.
You've got it spot on there. It's when we meet other groups which we perceive as "different" that the excrement hits the cooling apparatus.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 20:44, closed)

No not exactly.
At a time when people lived in groups of less than a hundred there was long distance trade. I guess this meant different people managed meet each other without behaving like chimps.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 20:58, closed)

There is long distance trade now but
There is also a plethora of negative isms which prevent human beings as a race from realising our full potential.
Wouldn't knock the chimps though. If they hadn't found a succesful regime we wouldn't be having this conversation
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Mon 31 Oct 2011, 21:20, closed)

Chimps are our evolutionary cousins, not our ancestors
So whatever they do or don't do, has no direct bearing on our behaviour, except in as much as all primate behaviour is related.

Just to chip in further, the surviving ancient communities - tribes in the Amazon or Papua New Guinea, who still live as we would have thousands of years ago - have a very strong sense of "us and them" - raiding other tribes' villages for land, food or women. Not sure if that counts as racism, but they certainly don't live in a permanent state of happy-clappy tolerance!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 1 Nov 2011, 13:32, closed)

Probably one of the more reasoned debates on here
Fence sitting personally, I don't think historically modern man has got on well with his other species, did we not wipe out the old Neanderthals? That was modern people working together to overcome a more powerful version of ourselves (if i remember right, they were a lot stronger but we were a lot smarter).

Still, even today, racism or not, people prefer the company of their own be it religious, social or ethnic and that goes for all parties.
(fivetide, Tue 1 Nov 2011, 15:28, closed)

Believing that you’re particular beliefs or practices are somehow representative of the average human, i.e. no one wants to believe they are a weirdo, is a common misconception. Nonces often think everyone is attracted to children, thieves think everybody is dishonest, and racists think racism is normal.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 18:46, closed)

Oh, and know one knows what happened to the Neanderthals. Some think they were out-competed, some think absorbed by hybridisation, or were wiped out by environmental changes.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 19:36, closed)

At the risk of appearing pedantic,
if my family tree is shakey I don't think that has much bearing on the argument, especially as the chimpanzees don't know that's what they are called. Descent from any species of ape produces the same qualities of racism in it's general form.
As for your further chip in. That completely sums up what I was trying to say, but much more concisely. Thanks for that.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 15:31, closed)