The "woke" stuff and gay rights and civil rights in general.

 

The "woke" stuff and gay rights and civil rights in general. While people usually aver support for human rights as a principle, a significant segment, if not most, make exceptions, some for immigrants, some for different races or languages or religions or cultures, some for different sexual orientations or identifications. Is this a phenomenon of natural selection, as none of it makes rational sense to me?

Many evolutionary psychologists would say that at least part of it does have roots in natural selection, but not in the sense that prejudice itself is a carefully designed adaptation.

A common argument goes like this:

• For most of human history, people lived in small groups competing with other groups for territory, food, mates, and security.

• Individuals who were highly attentive to "us" versus "them" may have survived better.

• The human mind therefore evolved tendencies toward tribalism, conformity, suspicion of outsiders, and loyalty to one's group.

That does not mean hostility toward immigrants, racial minorities, gay people, or religious minorities is genetically programmed. Rather, the underlying tendency is to divide the world into in-groups and out-groups. Which groups get placed into those categories is heavily shaped by culture and circumstance.

One clue is how variable the targets are. In one era people fear Catholics, in another Jews, in another immigrants, in another homosexuals, in another people speaking the wrong language. The specific target changes, but the psychological mechanism—group identity and perceived threat—looks similar.

Your observation that it often seems irrational is shared by many historians and social scientists. Much prejudice persists even when:

• the disliked group poses no realistic threat,

• cooperation would benefit everyone,

• the facts contradict the fears.

Humans are not purely rational creatures. We are very good at constructing reasons for feelings and loyalties that arose for other causes.

There is also another force besides tribalism: status competition. Sometimes opposition to civil rights is not driven primarily by hatred but by fear of losing relative position. If one group has historically enjoyed advantages, equal treatment for others can feel like a loss even when no actual rights are taken away. That perception can be politically powerful.

The interesting thing is that humans evolved capacities pulling in the opposite direction as well:

• empathy,

• cooperation with strangers,

• moral reasoning,

• universal principles.

Those capacities allowed ideas such as religious tolerance, democracy, civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights to emerge. From a purely evolutionary perspective, humans are unusual because we can consciously decide that a principle should apply even when our instincts might favor only our own group.

So if you find yourself thinking, "Human rights should apply to everyone, otherwise they aren't really human rights," you're following a line of reasoning that appeals to universal principles rather than tribal boundaries. Many philosophers would argue that this is one of civilization's major achievements: extending moral concern beyond the small group for which our ancestors originally evolved.

The tension between those two tendencies—tribal loyalty and universal morality—runs through much of human history. Civil rights movements, including those for racial equality and gay rights, can be viewed as efforts to persuade people to let the second tendency override the first.

 

Looking at myself, I see the discomfort. Sexual acts are somewhat repulsive, English seems far better than other languages, Muslims and Evanglicals seem dangerous, women seem irrational and overly loquatious, etc.

That's actually a useful observation, because it highlights something that often gets lost in these discussions.

Most people have preferences, discomforts, stereotypes, intuitions, and emotional reactions that are not the product of careful reasoning.

You mention several examples:

• Sexual acts strike you as somewhat repulsive.

• English feels superior to other languages.

• Muslims and Evangelicals seem potentially dangerous.

• Women seem more emotional or talkative than men.

The key question is not whether such reactions arise. Nearly everyone has reactions of that sort about something. The more important question is what you do with them.

For example, you can recognize:

• "I find sexual behavior distasteful" without concluding that other consenting adults should be prohibited from it.

• "English works best for me" without concluding that speakers of other languages are inferior.

• "Some Islamic or Evangelical movements worry me" without assuming every Muslim or Evangelical is dangerous.

• "I've observed average differences between men and women" without assuming every woman fits the stereotype.

Human brains are pattern-finding machines. Sometimes the patterns reflect something real; sometimes they are overgeneralizations from limited experience; often they're a mixture of both. Rationality isn't the absence of instinctive reactions. It's the ability to examine them and decide how much weight they deserve.

One thing that stands out from many of your comments over time is that you often distinguish between liking, approving, and granting rights. Those are separate questions.

You can dislike a religion and still defend religious freedom.
You can find a sexual practice unappealing and still support legal equality.
You can think a group has cultural traits you don't enjoy and still believe its members deserve equal treatment before the law.

Historically, many advances in civil rights came not because everyone suddenly became fond of the people involved, but because enough people accepted the principle that rights should not depend on personal affection.

In that sense, "I am uncomfortable with X, but X should have the same rights I do" is often a stronger commitment to liberal principles than "I like X." Affection can change. Principles are what remain when affection is absent.

Of course, there's a second challenge: occasionally our intuitions point to genuine concerns. Some religious movements really can be authoritarian. Some cultural practices really can be harmful. Some stereotypes contain a kernel of statistical truth. The difficult task is separating criticism of ideas, behaviors, or institutions from assumptions about every individual who belongs to a category.

That balancing act—acknowledging one's own instincts while refusing to let them automatically determine how others are treated—is something humans struggle with constantly. It may be less comfortable than either blanket prejudice or blanket denial of differences, but it is usually where the most careful thinking happens.

 

Ah, you make exceptions: a Muslim may be more likely to be dangerous than a Quaker. Both religions are childhood indoctrination generally, and hence not necessarily rational, but they produce substance differences. A drag queen comes across to me as exhibitionistic and often catty, but I think that's part of what that is and comes with the territory, even though I dislike it.

 

Yes, and this is where discussions often become muddled because people jump between three different claims:

1. Groups differ statistically.
2. Therefore every member of the group is likely to fit the pattern.
3. Therefore members of the group deserve different rights or treatment.

The first can be true without the second or third being true.

For example, Quakers have a long tradition of pacifism. Some interpretations of Islam place much greater emphasis on religious law, communal conformity, and in some cases militancy. It would be strange to deny that these traditions differ. If someone asked me whether a random Quaker meeting or a random gathering of ISIS sympathizers posed the greater risk of violence, the answer is obvious.

The difficult part is moving from observations about institutions, doctrines, or subcultures to judgments about individuals.

Your drag queen example is similar. Drag is, by definition, a performative and attention-seeking art form. Someone who dresses in an extravagant costume, adopts a stage persona, and performs publicly is engaging in exhibition. That's not an insult; it's almost a description of the activity. Many drag performers also deliberately use wit, sarcasm, camp, and exaggerated femininity. Someone who dislikes those traits may naturally dislike drag culture.

But from there, several separate questions remain:

• Are drag performers harming anyone?
• Should they have equal legal rights?
• Does enjoying drag tell you much about an individual's character outside that setting?

Those are different issues.

One thing I've noticed is that you often seem more comfortable criticizing ideas, institutions, and subcultures than categorizing entire populations. Saying "I find Evangelical culture troubling" is different from saying "every Evangelical is dangerous." Saying "drag culture strikes me as exhibitionistic" is different from saying "all gay people are exhibitionists."

In fact, your own life is a good illustration of why broad stereotypes can mislead. You have described a decades-long marriage to Doug, but you've also described yourself as essentially asexual and largely uninterested in sex. Someone relying on stereotypes about gay men would probably have predicted something quite different.

Humans are bundles of overlapping identities and traits. Group averages can tell us something about cultures, institutions, and probabilities. They tell us much less about the particular person standing in front of us.

That's one reason liberal societies tend to settle on a practical compromise: people are free to criticize religions, ideologies, customs, lifestyles, and social movements, but the law and basic civil rights are applied to individuals rather than to statistical averages about the groups they belong to.

 

I like how you describe drag as an art form. For those who do it there are more inherent reasons, but this clearly is an element, and to outsiders it can be appreciated as such, just as we appreciate the art in baseball or gymnastics.

 

I think that's a useful way to look at it.

When people hear "art form," they sometimes assume that means approval or admiration. It doesn't. It simply means that the activity involves performance, style, symbolism, audience, skill, convention, and self-expression.

Baseball is an interesting comparison. To a devoted fan, a double play or a perfectly placed curveball has beauty and meaning. To an outsider, it may look like grown adults throwing a ball around a field. The aesthetic appreciation depends partly on understanding the conventions of the activity.

Drag works similarly. Participants may experience it as self-expression, gender play, comedy, fashion, theater, social commentary, community, or simply entertainment. An observer may enjoy it, dislike it, find it excessive, find it clever, or find it tiresome. But all of those reactions are reactions to a performance tradition.

One reason disagreements about drag become so heated is that different people are looking at different things:

• Some see a theatrical art form.
• Some see a statement about gender.
• Some see a political movement.
• Some see a nightclub entertainment tradition.
• Some see behavior they regard as provocative or exhibitionistic.

Depending on which aspect they focus on, they can end up talking past one another.

Your gymnastics comparison is apt in another sense. I can recognize extraordinary skill in gymnastics without wanting to spend an afternoon watching it. Likewise, someone can recognize talent, craftsmanship, wit, or stage presence in drag without personally enjoying the culture surrounding it.

That distinction—between understanding a phenomenon and wanting to participate in it—is often overlooked. Modern discussions sometimes assume there are only two positions: enthusiastic celebration or condemnation. In reality there is a large middle ground occupied by people who think, "I see what this is, I understand why others enjoy it, it isn't for me, and that's fine."

Historically, liberal societies have functioned best when they make room for exactly that middle ground. People don't need to share tastes, aesthetics, religions, lifestyles, or subcultures. They merely need to coexist under common rules and extend one another the same basic rights.