Interesting hypothesis. Some 'substitutes' for racial bigotries come readily to mind: anti-Muslim (from evangelical Christians and current American society); anti-Semitism (eg from the Nazis); anti-Palestinians (from Israelis). Perhaps anti-Liberals?
The need to assert individual or group superiority, I would guess, is based on an actual sense of inferiority, and if an individual or a group doesn't have objective reasons to feel good about themselves the only alternative is to assert the inferiority of others.... The room that this creates for psychopathology and sociopathology is huge. I would guess that this is a recurring phenomenon in human history and current events. What do you think? Lawrence -----Original Message----- From: William Beaty [mailto:bi...@eskimo.com] Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 8:11 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Shanahan goes off the deep end! On Thu, 4 Jun 2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: > >I had a large insight into my own psychology, and theirs. My "inner > >bigot" tells me exactly what's going on: CF-haters respond to CF > >supporters in the same way that racists respond to non-whites: with > >intolerance, with very strong feelings of superiority, and with > >buried hatred. It's definitely an ego thing, but it seems to better > >fit the mold of "race hatred." > > In the case of the late Douglas Morrison this was literally true. That's simple racism. But since we can't detect heretics by skin color, and since "science bigot" is all about detecting inferiors ...life becomes like a Dr. Seuss book, where they're obsessively trying to discover whose bellies have stars. Here's another issue. Racism is no longer accepted in public! So what's an insecure hater to do? They'll need to find some other "inferiors" who can be safely attacked without drawing public condemnation. If it's a widespread problem, then we'd expect to find large groups of non-racist "bigots" who all managed to find the same socially-acceptable victims. Then look for the usual "racial" slurs, hate-group politics, self- congratulatory prose describing their own superiority and their success at "defending purity," and describing the inhuman, inferiority of their victims who threaten to contaminate the world with their dirtyness. The whole racism nine yards, but directed against caucasians. Any groups doing this? I notice that, in conversing with people from certain online skeptic groups, they seem driven half insane over the question of whether I'm a "woo woo" or not. Am I one of those disgusting inferior enemy types? Or am I a fellow scientist skeptic, "one of us?" This whole issue seems crazy unless you look at the history of bigots, and their obsession about intermarriage and the "obvious" differences they emphasize between their superior selves and the non-white victims. Regarding skeptics versus woo-woos, isn't there a whole spectrum? Where extreme examples are at the ends of the spectrum, with lots of people in the middle? Not to a bigot. Either you're a skeptic colleague and totally pure, or you're one of the dirty inferior woo-woos, with nothing in between. Why? Simple: people with the wrong skin color are supposed to be "all the same," disgusting dehumanized stereotypes. And then the bigot supplies a list of derogatory characteristics which supposedly describes all their hated enemies. So, if we on vortex are the dirty woo-woos, then we're all the same, and not really human. We're hated stereotypes, not people. It's critical that we be dehumanized with no chance to escape it. No woo-woos and skeptics going out for drinks after the conference; we might accidentally convince them that we're like them. We woo-woos are all secretly creationist fanatics, right? If we deny it, then we're just lying. And we all hate science and want to destroy it for some inscruitable woo-woo reasons of our own. We all believe in phrenology AND the flat earth AND lunar hoax AND cold fusion since we're so disgusting and mindless. Most important: a bigot's goal is not to treat us as students, to educate us and heal our sad ignorance. The bigot's goal is xenophobia: to stop us at all costs, lest we overwhelm the carefully defended last bits of unsoiled purity that remain on earth. Ok, five in the morning, time to stop. (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-762-3818 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
