JULY 17, MONDAY

PREJUDICE

I’ve always known that I was riddled with prejudices of one kind or another. These intuitive, unasked for, natural biases are part of me. I’ve always been ashamed of them. But now I’m coming to the realization that they are completely natural and probably built into my DNA by evolution.

When not censoring myself I realize that I am biased against African people, gay people, Chinese people, young people, Latinos, women, dominating men, fat people (I am fat), old people (I am old), people with beards (I have a beard). I am not saying that I act on the prejudices or let them determine how I respond to people. I push past most of them. They are just there, they are my first sudden intuitive response to people. Whenever a person walks into a room I put them into a category and which determines my initial blind response to them.

But instead of being mortified by my prejudices I am beginning to think that they are completely natural. Something in me is aware of people who are different from me in one way or another. People who are different from me, who have a different religion, speak a different language, have a different skin color, are a different gender, have a different age perspective, are a different nationality can possibly be a threat to me and me to them. I have to be a little wary with them. Which means, since these categories include almost everyone in the world I am naturally wary of almost everyone.

This must be a natural product of tribalism. I am most comfortable with people who are the same as me in most ways. We naturally bond together and form a protection against people who are different. Humans have probably been doing this since we were human. Being wary of people who are different is a natural defensive posture. And once we bond with a group, any deviation by anyone in the group is a potential threat. We only feel completely secure with a person when they are exactly the same as us which means that we can only be completely secure with a very small circle of people. This is what I am coming to accept.

But this is only half of me. Another side of me wants to break out of narrow differences and to open up to things and to people who are completely different from me because these people and perspectives dislocate me, they undermine my narrow sense of what is proper or right and open me up to all kinds of possibilities.

What I am realizing is that it is natural both to close up defensively but at the same time to open up and explore differences and to be open to new perspectives. I go through each day opening and closing, closing and opening, being paranoid and defending myself and then being openly vulnerable and exploring. Staying at home and keeping the door locked is a way to defend myself, getting on the plane to Montevideo with no idea what I will find there is a way of opening up.

And this helps me to understand and even accept in a way why people who feel that traditional American values are what bind us together and defend us against people who are different feel as they do. These traditional American values are all forms of tribalism: white supremacy, male domination, religious fundamentalism, patriotic nationalism, hetero gender fundamentalism and on and on. These traditional American values form the identity of many people and are threatened by skin colors which are different, feminism, religious diversity, age differences, multi gender equality, patriotism in other countries. And this is completely natural and intuitive. These protective attitudes are all part of natural wariness, ways of closing up and defending ourselves.

But in a shrinking world differences of every kind press in on us more and more intensely. They can either threaten us or allow us to open up and explore in ways that also make us feel vulnerable. Both sides are part of our DNA, we have evolved to be closed and paranoid and open and accepting and wondering.

The question may be individually which side of us makes us feel most alive and stimulated and responsive, closing up or opening up. Which side of ourselves we feel our way to may determine if we feel most comfortable and alive with MAGA traditional values or with liberal exploring values. Both sides are naturally evolved human ways of getting along, the question is maybe how to accept both sides without whacking each other over the head.