Aberrations

The 1918 flu pandemic is probably the biggest modern natural disaster you never heard of; 50-100 million died (3-5% of the world's population). These are American soldiers hospitalized at Camp Funston. Learn more about the 1918 flu pandemic here >

Yesterday I took a CNN commentator to task[1] for using "aberration" to describe racism.

Now, entirely apart from the fact that racism is reprehensible, it is, unfortunately, no more aberrant than the flu (and just as unavoidable).

It's an artifact from our evolutionary past. We're wired to see other communities as potential threats.

Our species has also grown up enough to understand why and treat it, just as we treat disease with medicine or ignorance with education.

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Flu prevention poster circa 1918

I might add that you can't use the term "aberration" without a fairly well-formed idea of "normal."

Unfortunately, we allow others to characterize issues in terms that require reference points without ever insisting they define them.

Disagree?

If you can find one human society ever in the history of the world that did not express racism, by all means, enlighten us.

Now…

I am not saying a hurtful behavior is acceptable because it's wired into us.

Quite the opposite.

I'm saying there are indeed standards we appeal to that conform us to better behavior and invite terms like "kindness," "mercy," "justice," etc.

(There's those pesky reference points again.)

[2014-05-19]

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[1]

Inhibition deteriorates with age ("chromatic dementia"?) >

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