Instinct

X is for Xenophobia…

humanist55
This post is part of the A to Z 2020 Challenge. I have decided to theme the posts around personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis, including my resumption of Blogging!

There are very few words in dictionaries beginning with X but here is one you can get your teeth into…

Xenophobia – is it an instinct?

A little scout on the internet quickly reveals how debatable the subject of Xenophobia and its mechanisms are, almost as intractable as Nature v. Nurture and this is because we are in the same area of research v. belief. It is very hard to devise experiments that conclusively deal with instinct partly because you cannot create or find control subjects who have not been “taught”, however unconsciously, certain biases.
What we do know, is that babies have no undue reactions to babies of other races or colour, and, experimental psychologists claim, adult subjects shown photographs of all sorts of people, react more to different age groups than to different colour or ethnicity.
The philosopher Karl Popper said that it didn’t matter how you came up with a scientific theory, it was how you tested it that counted – and that since you can never establish something to be true everywhere, you were better to try and disprove a theory rather than prove it and thus find yourself in possession of something true for the time being… So he disagreed with the ideas of Freud and indeed all psychoanalytical theory because it was impossible to falsify. Einstein’s theories on the other hand, accounted for some of the flaws in the reigning Newtonian physics and so could be accepted for a time (they too have now got holes in and physicists are looking for theories to replace them…).
So perhaps it is not possible to get a definitive answer as to whether xenophobia is an instinct and focus instead on how it plays out in humans.

Is Xenophobia a choice?

If it’s difficult to screen out the teaching of xenophobia to infants then we must examine how that teaching takes place and for sure, it ranges from very subtle and unconscious biases that even good liberals may not be aware of as they raise their children, to raging bigoted indoctrination by other less liberal parents. Then again, it is not just parents who can consciously foster xenophobia – you only have to look at the exploitation of baseless, even non-sensical prejudice against immigrants in the ongoing Brexit debacle where just last week, vegetable pickers were being flown into the UK which has apparently voted against freedom of movement. What were the first actions of Trump upon election – the banning of Muslims traveling from certain countries, playing to the xenophobia he had stoked up in his election campaign? Of course, immigrants are always a handy distraction from politicians’ own failings be they management or putting their hand in the cookie jar.

Who are the ones that choose to teach their children hatred? They can be the wronged and downtrodden or the perpetrators of oppression. In Northern Ireland, partition took place to create six counties where the majority were Protestant and the minority, Catholic. The Protestants abused their power, “Catholics need not Apply” notices in job adverts, Catholic areas allowed to become slums, etc. So Catholics taught their children to hate the “Prods” whilst Protestants had to demonize the Catholics who remained a threat to them – if for no other reason than that their birth rate is higher and they will one day be in a position to vote for the reunification of Ireland.

Who chooses to oppose xenophobia? Liberals for sure, and they are usually prosperous enough not to be threatened by the alleged or actual consequences of high levels of immigration – their children not so likely to attend schools where multi-ethnic classes might reduce the academic standards. But also those who have learned better in life to trust and choose better.

Popper opposed Communism for the same reason as he opposed psychoanalysts – because he saw their beliefs as untestable, as matters of belief and thus choice. I believe that we should hold firm to this understanding that xenophobia is a choice, disproving the theories which its proponents push forward, for whatever spurious reasons and choosing instead to work together as human beings. If the present Covid 19 crisis has taught us nothing else – it is surely that together is strong, sharing is best in a common enterprise to beat the virus…

T is for Trust…

humanist55
This post is part of the A to Z 2020 Challenge. I have decided to theme the posts around personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis, including my resumption of Blogging!

Do you trust your Politicians?

In a democracy, we choose people to represent us in doing the job of managing our country because the knowledge, processes and institutions involved in running a country are beyond most of us. In an ideal world, politicians would be elder citizens who have worked in the “real” world and bring a variety of experiences to the table. Too often, we get instead, a class of professional politicians who have never done a day’s work outside the bubble of government.

We have to place our trust in the politicians we elect and under the stress test of the present Covid 19 crisis, many governments are being found wanting, many are taking the opportunity to seize power in a more authoritarian way under cover of the crisis yet some governments, many led by women, are doing much better than others.

Sex and Trust

I am fascinated by the part that instinct plays in the human way of life. We must spend something like 21 years raising a family so the power of sex and love must glue us together for the duration through what, for most couples, is bound to have some ups and downs. Yet is said that infidelity on the part of men is down to their instinct to spread their seed wherever they can, and before the advent of genetic testing, men (and women) could mostly get away with this. However trust, once broken by infidelity discovered, is hard, and for some, impossible to rebuild. Women are often portrayed as the opposite of wild oat sowing men – faithful nest-builders yet not only among humans but also among some birds, has it been discovered that certain females partner up with good providers – first of nest-building materials and then food for the chicks. However the female then secretly mates with a more “fit” and showy male thus getting the best of both worlds…
In some bird species, such as the Bower Bird, it is the quality of the nest building and decorating which is the criteria for selection of a mate by the female whilst for others, it’s all about the Peacock plumage. How does this relate to trust in politicians?

“Male” and “Female” Values in politicians.

In an article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox in Forbes, she writes about how the countries which have the best response to the corona virus crisis have one thing in common – women leaders! Iceland, Taiwan, Germany, New Zealand, Finland, Iceland and Denmark all have women Premieres and all have had better responses to the crisis than say Britain, the US, Brazil, India or Russia where right-wing politicians are consolidating power and wielding it unwisely at the cost of the lives of their citizens. Taiwan has had an exemplary response to the virus – a fast, testing and tracing based response by Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan (which was lost to the world because the WHO is China leaning and wouldn’t acknowledge the existence of Taiwan or the warnings it issued about what was happening in China let alone report on its successful strategy!).
Iceland is a large island with a small population and a pioneer of whole-population genetic testing (which revealed lots of infidelity-produced babies that led to many divorces in Iceland) and so tested its entire population under the leadership of Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, and “will become a key case study in the true spread and fatality rates of COVID-19” according to Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. Avivah goes on to suggest that for years, research has shown that the leadership styles of women have much to recommend them and points us to an article on 7 Leadership Lessons men can Learn from Women.

Are men led by the instinct first to reproduce and then to grasp power – the biggest and best tail feathers? Are some women seduced by the Donald Trumps of this world with their bright orange colouring and big towers? Are all women consummate nest-builders and faithful partners? How much are we driven by instinct to the detriment of common sense? These are the things that keep me awake at night – but on the evidence of the present crisis, whatever drives the women premieres in whom their people have placed their trust, seems to be working much better than the countries where men are the chosen ones…

H is for Happiness

humanist55
This post is part of the A to Z 2020 Challenge. I have decided to theme the posts around personal and societal responses to the Covid 19 crisis, including my resumption of Blogging!

Happiness is a Warm Gun…Momma

This song penned by John Lennon is full of double-entendres. Lennon explained that he got the title from an article in a National Rifle Association magazine and he divided the song into three sections, “the Dirty Old Man”, “the Junkie”, and “the Gunman (Satire of ’50s R&R)”. By the last, he meant his sexual desire for Yoko Ono. That there are those for whom a literal warm gun is happiness, that some apparently find happiness in drugs whilst sexual love is yet another form of happiness shows what a complex thing is our “pursuit of Happiness”.

Getty Stock Images


Can we be happy all the time?

In the practice of Zen (and bearing in mind that those who know don’t say and those who say don’t know) it is said that there is constant attention to carrying out the simplest task of living with perfection. Does this bring happiness? It doesn’t sound full of highs nor lows and most people believe that without the lows, we cannot have the highs of happiness. If this present crisis is doing anything positive for us, it is to give us the chance of reflecting on what makes us happy, either because we are deprived of it, thinks lovers separated by social isolation, or because we are with the source of our happiness – oh to be young and in love and in lockdown – would you ever leave your bed! And no, its not just the young who are happy to be locked down with the one they love…
In nine months time, there is likely to be a baby boom whilst it is from the post-war baby boom that many of the victims of Covid  19 are drawn. Whilst this will undeniably reduce some of the future costs to health services for whom the preponderance of older patients, living longer with increasingly solvable but expensive conditions, it will give civil servants no happiness any more than the loss of migrants and the very poor who are also more susceptible to the disease will give no happiness except perhaps, to the vilest of right-wing politicians.
Meanwhile, we take our happiness in lockdown as we may…

Is Happiness an Instinct?

A friend of mine once told me how, during a search for a friend who it was thought, had drowned himself in a local lake, she went in a rowing boat with her lover, and after a time, they wordlessly pulled into the shore and made love. She described it as somehow instinctual, driven, and it puzzled her that in the midst of sorrow and dread, that this should have been their reaction. Many young women gave themselves to young men about to depart for the fighting during the Second World War (perhaps all wars) and if there was a moment of happiness for each of them, did it result in a happy event nine months later. (Imagine the psychologists trying to devise an experiment to test that hypothesis!) Happiness can be mixed with poignant sadness if the father never made it back or perhaps was not even known – so maybe the urge to procreate in the face of disaster is an instinct rather than the pursuit of momentary happiness. If we are driven by instinct, then where does happiness fit in? We human beings need to stay together for perhaps 21 years in order to raise a family, so the joys of sex are but rarely resultant in pregnancy but can form the glue that holds couples together – if they are lucky, and that is why it is not just the young, who may be enjoying the lockdown in their empty nests.


Do animals feel happiness?

It’s so hard not to be anthropocentric when looking at animals, to see the dog with its head on its master’s lap, to watch seagulls shooting the breeze or lambs leaping as they are in the fields here, and not imagine they feel happy – who knows. When I watch lambs playing, I simultaneously feel happy for the moment and sad because I know that very soon they will no longer be frisky but head down grazing for the rest of their lives with no great appearance of happiness ever again…

So there are my thoughts for the day – gather ye rosebuds in whatever ways you can at this sad/happy time. Listen to the bird-song without the roar of traffic, bask under skies not crisscrossed with con-trails, breath deep in the less polluted air, love the one(s) you’re with, practice Zen or whatever floats your boat (within the confines of the lockdown) and if you haven’t got a boat, your mind can imagine whatever you like and you can be happy with it… 

What has made me happy? Last night I took my new telescope outside for the first time and looked at the moon, large and even though slightly hazy, pure magic and wonder!