Discrimination is (in)human: we are the problem ánd the solution • Identity Abounds

We live in a world that is connected but divided. One of the most important questions of our time revolves around the encounter and relation between different people(s). More than ever before, through unprecedented mobility and modern technologies, we get into contact with others from very different backgrounds. But as the world is increasingly opening up, we are closing ourselves down.

Discrimination exists in many forms: on the basis of ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, nationality… It is an eternal issue, present in all times in all different contexts.

What should we do against it? How can we fight it? The first step would be to learn where it comes from. Discrimination is a natural human inclination.

Humans have evolved living in groups. Belonging to a group and protection against enemy groups was crucial for survival. This is the context in which our minds were wired, producing the inherent tendencies to:

perceive the world in terms of groups (categorization);
rank those groups (hierarchization);
and favor members of our own group (in-group bias).

These tendencies allowed and allow us to make sense of the information overload we are confronted with in a complex world and to secure our well-being as part of a group.

Humans still live and think as groups, though those groups may today be as big as a country or an ethnicity. We recognize these tendencies in our talents to generalize and form prejudice. Being fundamentally tribal, humans like what is familiar. Discriminatory biases are in all of us, simply because we are human.

In moral philosophy, emotivism holds that people’s ethical convictions are not based on rationality, but on some non-rational feeling or preference. The mind then pretends this is not the case by providing justifications. This is backed by neuroscience: decisions are made before we think we made them; before they became conscious to us.

If you ask a racist ‘Why do you not like [members of X group]?’, they will explain to you why that group is different, and hence inferior.

Our brains do not only justify our impulses – they can also oppose them. Social norms of universal human equality are widely recognized and many of us find discrimination morally reprehensible. We believe that we are all equal in our ‘humanness’; no one is more ‘human’ than others.

Here’s the central point to recognize: endorsing the principle of equality is fighting against our own human nature. Our instincts, emotions, and impulses are all primitive in nature. Higher order thinking is what separates humans from other animals.

So the first step we have to take is to realize that to not discriminate isn’t to not do something, but to do something. We must take the conscious decision to go against our natural and automatic way of perceiving things. It is a second, corrective action.