How to bring our innate propensity to xenophobia under rational control? Column for Kompyuterra #124

{"translated_text":"←\nDmytro Shabanov\n→\n\nThree conclusions that can be drawn after discussing the reasons for differences between people by the color of their skin\nHow to take rational control of our innate propensity for xenophobia?\nDoes ethnicity possess independent being? Reflections on disagreement with Lev Gumilev\n\nColumn for Kompyuterra #123\nColumn for Kompyuterra #124\nColumn for Kompyuterra #125\n\nI have had to write more than once about the limitations of rational control over our behavior. Our goal-setting is influenced by many innate mechanisms that were formed at a completely different historical and evolutionary stage and are therefore anachronistic. Our intellect is a tool for achieving goals, the setting of which it typically regulates only to a small extent. Nevertheless, to the person himself, his goal-setting does not seem irrational. Thanks to the protective mechanism of rationalization, our intellect can explain anything, with greater or lesser stretches. And in reality, the setting of the goals we pursue is influenced by very strange psychological mechanisms; some of them could shock our mind.\nDo you know about the \"uncanny valley\" phenomenon, described by Japanese researcher Masahiro Mori in the 1970s? In its narrow interpretation, this phenomenon concerns the perception of humanoid robots. We feel sympathy and interest toward humans, curiosity toward robots unlike humans, but robots very similar to humans, strangely enough, evoke disgust and fear. I think the interpretation of this phenomenon can be broadened.\nDisgust and fear are evoked by someone similar to me and to those like me, but different; seemingly \"one of us\" but \"incorrect one of us,\" a carrier of some unusual marker.\nBoth Russian and Ukrainian society are now split into parts. We painfully perceive the markers of \"incorrect ones of us,\" feel the irrational irritation caused by these markers, and seek ways to rationalize it. Probably, a significant part of the discussions shaking our societies is rooted in primitive innate programs that ensure our isolation from strangers.\nOne of the oldest and most instructive stories about markers distinguishing one's own from strangers is contained in the Book of Judges. Feuchtwanger reconstructs this scene most instructively in a book I sincerely consider great. I am speaking about the novel \"Jephtah and His Daughter\" (in the translation by Yevgeny Zakharyin, which I quote further — \"Jephthah and His Daughter\"; the translator uses Hebrew names rather than continuing the tradition of Russian Bible translations). If you haven't read it — read it, this book is available online. Thanks to this novel, I understood something important regarding the idea of God. In Feuchtwanger, the emphasis is on the fact that the speech marker was needed not for fighting enemies, but for the treacherous destruction of allies. The Gileadites, one of the tribes of Israel, were fighting the Ammonites — and at the decisive moment received necessary help from another tribe, the Ephraimites (Ephraimites in the more familiar interpretation). The Gileadites and Ephraimites, in essence, are one people; a little later, when Jephthah became judge of Israel, he united them, albeit briefly, under his leadership. But at the described moment, the Gileadites, led by Jephthah and his favorite Emin, did not share with the Ephraimites the honor of victory over the enemies, which led to fratricidal slaughter.\n\"…instead of the word 'river' the guard used the word 'shibboleth,' which meant 'a small, shallow body of water,' which was insulting to the Jordan.\n—The water has receded, and here, at the crossing, the Jordan has become a shibboleth…\nThe calculation was simple. The guards wanted the people of Ephraim to call the Jordan a shibboleth, pronouncing the sound 's' instead of 'sh.' And they finally achieved it.\n—Yes, we want to cross the 'sibboleth,' the Ephraimites confirmed.\nEmin's fighters rejoiced.\n—Well, try again, say the word correctly: 'shib-bol-eth'! they taunted.\nThe unarmed warriors of Ephraim made a second attempt. But they failed again.\n—You are warriors of Ephraim. You tried to deceive us! — the guard concluded.\nHe gave the signal, the Ephraimites' skulls were split open and their bodies were thrown into the Jordan.\nEmin, telling Jephthah what was happening at the ford, was laughing. Jephthah was laughing with him\" (Lion Feuchtwanger).\nWhy is it important whether the people at the crossing were concealed enemies or betrayed allies? Fighting an enemy in the logic of war turns out to be justified, but usually (except for specific cases of identifying spies and saboteurs) does not require 'hooks' like characteristic features of pronunciation or appearance. \"Shibboleth\" and other markers are needed to identify 'incorrect ones of our own,' not obvious 'strangers.'\nDo you understand that 'incorrect ones of our own' are hated more than strangers? I won't refer to the truisms of ecology, which show that the intensity of competition increases as ecological niches converge. Let me give another literary example instead, from \"Everything Flows\" by Grossman. By the way, this fragment helped me once approach understanding the personality of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin).\n\"One of the memoirists describes how in Switzerland she went for a Sunday walk in the mountains with Vladimir Ilyich. Gasping from the steep ascent, they climbed to the top and sat on a stone. It seemed that Vladimir Ilyich's gaze was absorbing every detail of the alpine mountain beauty. The young woman excitedly imagined how poetry was filling Vladimir Ilyich's soul. Suddenly he sighed and said: 'Oh, how the Mensheviks are messing things up for us'\" (Vasily Grossman's genuine hatred is evoked not by the bloody tsarism, his strategic opponent, but by the Social Democrats, who differ from him in their assessment of tactical questions. And certainly between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks there were marker differences important to them — their own 'shibboleths.'\nInvariably, the rejection of 'incorrect ones of our own' turns out to be inadequately, irrationally strong. The reason for such emotionality is an innate propensity for xenophobia. This is the result of selection maintaining parochial (parish) altruism, which I have already had occasion to describe. Parochial thinking ('own' — 'stranger') is connected with both the most elevated and the most base traits of our nature. The problem is especially acute when it is necessary to recognize 'incorrect ones of our own,' who, of course, are worse than simply 'strangers.' Do you recall the reflections of a well-known representative of the special services about the boundary separating 'enemies' and 'traitors'?\nWe live in a complex world where different people are mixed together. We encounter the most various markers that, consciously or not, define our attitude toward them. I will give a couple of examples that are painful for me personally.\nThe medical faculty of our university recruits several hundred Arabic students per year. Without completing their studies here, due to some laws of their own, they have the opportunity to finish their education in Western Europe. Most of them don't really exert themselves here, simply waiting out the time. Their instruction is conducted in English, but some of them don't even know that. My colleagues teach biology in these Arabic groups, and Arabic groups walk around our faculty. They talk loudly and laugh, paying attention to nothing. If such a group stands in the corridor under the doors of an auditorium where classes are being held, neither the teacher nor the students in that room can hear themselves. Requests, threats, or curses almost never help.\nOnce my wife (she also teaches at our university) and I went out into the corridor — and saw a group of Arabs exiting an auditorium ahead of us. They were having fun, opening umbrellas and slowly parading under them through the university; we indignantly exchanged glances. I turned toward the stairs and left that floor, and my wife, who was going in the same direction as they were, was forced to overtake them (by the way, getting them to let you pass is also a non-trivial task). Later she told me that they walked behind her, whistling and shouting.\nThe upset and indignant wife was puzzled about what had caused such a reaction from the Arabic students. My version is as follows. In their culture, a young woman can be in a public place only with a husband, father, or older brother. If she walks alone — she is a woman of easy virtue. A proper man should despise her, and she must fulfill all his whims. Being in a country with completely different notions, and not just somewhere, but at a university, our Arab guests don't consider it necessary to make any adjustments to their behavior. Experiencing moral distress in classes taught by women teachers, they take it out on other young women (though they are still a bit afraid to be rude to their own teachers!).\nAnd now guess what emotions I feel when I hear characteristic Arabic intonations in the corridor. What a 'shibboleth'!\nAnd our faculty from year to year recruits an increasing number of students from Turkmenistan. They study on contract, complete their studies to obtain a bachelor's degree, and depart for their homeland. Alas, wanting to earn money on contract students, the university admits Turkmen students to studies even if they don't know Russian or Ukrainian (and most often not English either). As a result, their education becomes a charade. The Turkmen students themselves are satisfied with this, the leaders of their community are too, and the university administration puts up with it (they would just pay the money that is urgently needed to plug holes in the budget). As a result, a stratum of students appears in the course who don't want to do anything, hiding behind real or simulated ignorance of the language. Do you understand that this destroys the educational environment, preventing everyone else from learning?\nI was especially outraged when I learned from one of the Turkmen students who really does try to study that other representatives of his country have complaints against him: by fulfilling the teachers' requirements, he is betraying his compatriots, showing that they too could do something!\nNow you will understand the emotions that a teacher experiences when entering an auditorium where half the students are citizens of Turkmenistan. What to do with these emotions, I will say a bit later, but first I will give a couple more analogies, one from the sphere of education and the second relating to serious problems of domestic policy.\nAnother educational example from Ukrainian realities. I have found myself in companies of teachers from all over Ukraine. One of the sore subjects is complaints about bad students. Teachers from Russian-speaking universities of Eastern Ukraine, recounting phrases by worthless students that struck them with their illiteracy and inadequacy, quote them in Ukrainian. Teachers from Ukrainian-speaking universities of Western Ukraine will quote particularly stupid phrases in Russian. Ukrainian-language usage in a Russian-speaking university and Russian-language usage in a Ukrainian-speaking university have already become markers of inadequacy.\nAn example from Russian domestic policy. Those who went to demolish the vegetable warehouse in Biryulyovo were exhausted by countless offenses related to this specific business. But they went not to demand compliance with legal norms, they went to demolish people of different ethnic origin. And their appearance is wrong, and their intonations are foreign! Do you see how attention to the causes of discontent is substituted by attention to markers, to 'shibboleths'?\nMostof people fixated on some markers will be able to justify why their anger is righteous. In their microcosm, the people who did something unpleasant for them belonged to certain ethnic groups and, besides these markers, demonstrated unacceptable behavior. Can one put up with this?\nAnd here's where the dog is buried. With many violations of norms, indeed, one should not put up. But (at least simply for the sake of cerebral hygiene, as one of my colleagues says) one should not allow oneself to become fixated on markers of other nationalities. Remember: emotions are evidence of the work of unconscious programs! Catching the hated markers and reacting to them is precisely the path to which our parochial altruism pushes us. It could have been useful for life in humanity divided into small antagonistic groups, and is completely inadequate for life in global humanity.\nDo you remember the column about a zoologist's creed? There I briefly discussed three possible ways of interacting with our innate programs affecting sexual behavior. These three ways are denial (Freudian repression in particular), capitulation, and rational modification.\nNaturally, regarding our parochial xenophobia (as in other cases) the most common variant is denial. It cannot be that some zoological emotions are guiding me! I am indignant at these strangers only because they violate important moral principles! And already the denial of innate programs prevents understanding that attention to principles and rule violations is being substituted by attention to markers…\nCapitulation to innate programs takes on the character of ideological nationalism. Proponents of this approach will explain why 'healthy' national feeling should lead to aggression against other peoples. Here attention to markers is raised on a shield and supported by arguments about 'blood,' 'biology' (understood completely incorrectly), and 'duty to the nation.' Several thousand years ago such an approach could have been adequate…\nAnd what is the path of golden mean, rational modification? There are no unambiguous answers here, but one must still search for the optimal course of action. The first and absolutely necessary step is not to cling to markers. Often one must distinguish among the carriers of those who are not the source of real problems, and selectively support them!\nThe problem is not what voices Arabs speak with in the corridors, but that some students do not adhere to the norms of behavior at the university. The best way to change the situation is to punish for violations of norms, in no way limiting (preferably — encouraging) those who behave properly. By the way, colleagues working with Arabic students emphasize that among them there are those oriented toward studying, and working with them is a real pleasure.\nThe problem is not from which country the Turkmen students came, but their unwillingness to exert themselves. I have already supported and will continue to support those of them who are ready to exert themselves, and I will readily approve of any of their compatriots who truly demonstrates a desire to work. Oh, if only one could expel or hold back for a second year those who don't want to study! Alas, solving this problem is beyond my competence.\nThe problem is not the Russian or Ukrainian language usage of bad students, but the organization of the educational process, which necessitates dragging along 'ballast.' Surely, by meeting those who speak a different language and are ready to learn, one can find a way out of the deadlock.\nThe problem is not that there are many workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus in Moscow. The problem is that the city and country use semi-slave and illegal labor. The problem will not be solved by restricting guest workers, but by enforcing labor protection laws. This solution is beyond the competence of those who are outraged by the realities of Biryulyovo, but in any case their energy should be directed in the opposite direction. In their interest is not restricting guest workers, but protecting (both from racketeering by law enforcement and from mockery by officials and arbitrariness by employers) those of them who work legally and are not involved in criminal schemes.\nIf we want to be rational beings, we need to track the triggering of xenophobic programs in our psyche, not allow ourselves to become fixated on the markers of 'incorrect ones of our own,' which our attention will obligingly suggest to us, and solve real problems without getting distracted by trifles…\nAnd now the final question. How to implement these solutions in life?\n\n←\nDmytro Shabanov\n→\n\nThree conclusions that can be drawn after discussing the reasons for differences between people by the color of their skin\nHow to take rational control of our innate propensity for xenophobia?\nDoes ethnicity possess independent being? Reflections on disagreement with Lev Gumilev\n\nColumn for Kompyuterra #123\nColumn for Kompyuterra #124\nColumn for Kompyuterra #125"}