You and discrimination

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This article is an addendum to the mechanics of discrimination.

 

You and discrimination

We have explored how discrimination works in the mechanics of discrimination. We know the behavior is natural and depends on information. We also know that simple negative messages resonate more than complex explanations. Politicians who know how it works, can use it for good or for bad.

So, now.. what?

How can this information benefit me?

In my country we have a large community of Turks and Moroccans. Both Turkey and Morocco are Islamic countries. Due to social economic circumstances they formed close-nit groups in major cities (they were brought in as temporary low paid industrial workers).

Via the mechanics of discrimination we now have three distinct groups. Turks, Moroccans and native Dutch. We have had struggles. This is not so strange. Muslims of course are potential terrorists. Furthermore Turks and Moroccans are criminally inclined, unreliable, lazy and they steal our jobs. Their culture is primitive. They are about 200-400 years behind.

The Dutch of course are all arrogant and condescending. They divide the good jobs amongst themselves and keep any colored people out*. They are decadent and immoral. All their women are whores. They know nothing about Islam and are all atheists.

*though our government policy is that of positive discrimination, requiring certain amounts of new Dutch in certain jobs, the practice by industry is quite different.

The question arises, is this all actually true? 

What do Dutch people do in their daily lives? 

And Moroccans and Turks? 

What does anyone do?

Most people in the world do the same exact things. The Chinese wake up in the morning and prepare breakfast for their children. The Dutch bring their children to school and go to work. Sometimes both a Turkish husband and a Turkish wife have a job, sometimes the wife stays at home. American children get out of school somewhere in the afternoon. They followed various classes from biology to literature. After school Japanese children have activities like sports or go home to play or study. South African office workers get out of work around 16:00-17:00. German parents prepare the evening meal when they get home. They talk to their children and look over their homework. Afterwards they watch TV. In the evening Argentinian parents go to sleep, their youngest children having done so just a few hours earlier.

Next to this we all have the sports we follow, the debates we engage in and similar life goals we want to achieve. Marriage, kids, career.

The company i work for employs a lot of new Dutch. I found that there is nothing to support the notions i had earlier in my life about Moroccans and Turks. There are lazy, nasty, cheating, backward and obstinate Turks. Just like there are lazy, nasty, cheating, backward and obstinate Dutch. There are super awesome, wise and well behaved Turks. However most Turkish people do what i do, think about things like i do. They might not eat pork...big deal. In practice they are just another colleague. They do feel a bit discriminated against, which is true, and which is natural.

Yes there are actual but mostly superficial differences. Some do matter. Islamic culture has stood still for centuries with respect to certain behavior, like female rights, though not so long ago it was the most modern culture in the world. Dutch people are keeping the good jobs to themselves and know little about Islam though think they know enough.

In summary: we humans are really not that different. It is the mechanics of discrimination that is our enemy. Dutch women are not whores and Moroccans are not lazy. By and large we are and act the same. When we grow up we just get different tags attached to our brains, our group identities. The mechanics of discrimination do the rest. They make us susceptible to misinformation. Most of what we believe, or rather feel about the other is not true. Futhermore all morals are taught and arbitrary. Judging others by them is hardly fair. Our behavior of course is still guided by the mechanics of discrimination, with almost exclusively negative consequences.

So, where is my benefit?

Well, it is in your behavior. Seek out the other side. Get to know a black person, a white person, an Islamic person, a Christian person. Your fears will subside when you realize they are much like you, and have no intention of killing you or locking you up*. Remember, the salience of features based on which we discriminate in the world is influenced greatly by information, both from experience and teaching. Once you know a Moroccan orange usually tastes great, you will feel comfortable buying them from a Turk ;). You will become less vulnerable to bad politicians spreading divisive messages. You will even get to know yourself better, recognizing the me in the other.

*i advise you to avoid the stupid people, the ones with the hate banners and little books that contain the ''only truth''. they do want to lock you up. their followers are often just scared or programmed.

Debates: Vegans versus Meat Eaters Addendum

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The disconnect between food and production

In early history the act of killing was connected to the production of food. The killing of a large animal was a communal act. Whether we killed livestock or hunted prey. The butchering and distribution of the meat was also done communally, the latter according to status.

Our ancestors were well aware of the feelings of the animal. The more the animal could express itself like we do, the more respect it got, even to the point of worship. There were rituals for slaughtering cows, statues and temples build in their honor, but not for fish.
Our ancestors were also very close to the animals. The management of livestock formed an integral part of tribal life. Today tribes like the Masai and the Inuit continue the traditions of caring for and killing animals with respect.

In modern societies this has changed. Modern man has been distanced from the production of all most all goods, by industrial development. We are all good at one thing, specialists. A garbage man does not make his own coats or furniture, builds his own house or manages his own money. Banks, factories, and construction companies execute these jobs.

Today there is a disconnect between food and the way it is obtained. We are still well aware of the feelings of animals and have respect for individual animals. We are raised with pets, movies with animal characters and trips to the zoo. We see cows in the fields and in commercials, whales and dolphins on tv. Most people pride themselves on being pro nature.
However, our food comes from supermarkets. We have have no more experience killing our food, and no clue how it lives. Most people today can not be asked to kill an animal, because the emotional barrier is too great too cross all of the sudden. We also have trouble handling the facts of the bio industry when confronted. The shock of the ill treatment of beings we consider cute and good is hard to take.
Today most of us try to ignore any information about our food. A lot of us opt to buy meat produced via fair treatment*. However some of us will opt to abstain from meat all together because even if the animals are treated fairly, the act of killing something that is so similar to us can not be handled anymore. The step from buying fair meat to becoming vegan is a small one.

The following questions can be raised:
Would we change our ways if we were forced to care for and kill our own food?

If so, would we again be able to emotionally handle the killing?

*fair treatment is a relative term. Some sources of meat actually do provide their animals with the natural habitat and lifespan the animal would have, more or less, if humans were just another predator like wolves. However, as man is clever, so is industry. Many products sold under this term are far from fair in that sense.

Debates: Vegans versus Meat Eaters

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Debates: Vegans versus Meat Eaters

• Introduction
• Definitions
• Variants
• Motivations
• History
• Motivations Examined
• Animal Well Being
• Rationalization
• The two perspectives
• The Animal Perspective
• The Human Perspective
• Public debates: perceptions and emotions
• Conclusions

Introduction

In modern times a debate is raging between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Accusations of cruelty versus animals are countered by arguments of elitism and activism. The debate often seems to lack logic while containing a lot of emotion and opinion. Activism shown in the news and youtube video's by pro and contra groups testify to this. Although the debate is very public, it seems only a handfull of people are concerned with it. Most mainstream people seem to hold no strong opinions about vegetarianism or meat eating. We can ask ourselves why this debate is fought with such emotion. Why has it not yet been resolved? What are the beliefs and who is ultimately right? And why do not more people participate? After all it's about what we eat everyday.
Vegetarianism of course is the new kid on the block. If there can be identified such a thing, the 'otherside' is formed by the existing mainstream practices. They merely attempt to preserve the status quo. It is not like democracy vs communism, but more like tax free versus taxes. Hence i will take a closer look at vegetarianism, and only casually at meat eating. I will attempt to examine it's history, practice and it's motivations. After this we can take a look at the debate.

We start by asking the right questions.

Questions

What really is vegetarianism?
What kind of vegetarians exist?

Why do some modern day people choose to embrace a vegetarian life style? What is the history behind their movements? What are the motivations ? Are their motivations correct?
Can there be made any solid argument that does provide a basis for non-carnivorism?

Why do some modern day people actively reject the vegetarian life style? Why do they scold and belittle vegetarians? Is there a discernible threat one way or the other?

Why do most people have little if any opinion about the consumption of meat and about the consumption of vegetables?

Is there a solution to the argument between the groups?

Definitions

Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects and the flesh of any other animal), and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter.

Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose.

Watson, the founder of the first Vegan society (1944), described Veganism as: "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals".

In this text, i will use the term non-carnivores to describe both vegans and vegetarians when this is practical. I use this term to indicate both groups are against any human carnivorous action, and to avoid using the term herbivores, which could be insulting. If you have a better suggestion, please comment. Futhermore, i will use the term 'pro meat eaters' to describe the other side.

Variants

Some of the most well know variants are:

1. Vegetarian

A person that does not consume the meat of any animal.

2. Vegan

A person that does not consume animals, animal products or benefit in any way from the exploitation of animals. With exploitation often is meant: any form of limit placed on the natural life of the animal that it would lead if humans were not present.

3. Lacto-vegetarian

A person that does consume dairy products but excludes eggs.

4. Ovo-vegetarian

A person that consumes eggs but not dairy.

5. Lacto-ovo vegetarian

A person that consumes both eggs and dairy products.

6. Fruitarian

A person that consumes a diet that consists entirely or primarily of fruits in the botanical sense, and possibly nuts and seeds, without animal products. Variants include diets that does not consume any organic material the harvest of which would include harm to a living being, be it either plant or animal.

7. Semi-vegetarian

A person who consumes a diet largely of consisting of vegetarian foods, but may include fish and sometimes even poultry, as well as dairy products and eggs. The Vegetarian Society pointed out that the consumption of fish is not vegetarian.

Motivations

Basic Motivations

Some of the most well known motivations are:

1.Animal well being

The most important motivation for non-carnivores is animal well being. They oppose the idea that value can be assigned to individuals based on their species.

Followers of the right-based division claim that all sentient beings have the right to live their life in freedom, and not to be property. They tend to be abolitionists seeking to end ownership of non-humans much in the way abolitionists in the past sought to end human slavery.

Followers of the utilitarian based division subscribe to the idea that animal rights should always be part of the discussion, and decisions should be based on necessity. They seek to cut back on the use of animals down to the limits of pure survival needs.

2.Health

Another salient motivation is health. As studies have proven, and countries like Japan, China and Indonesia have shown, a diet low in animal fats and rich in plant materials has many health and subsequent longevity benefits.

Humans are omnivores, we can digest both animal and plant. We can even survive on diets that favor one extreme or the other. Since animal protein was relatively hard to come by for our immediate humanoid ancestors, our guts were developed towards processing plant materials. Meat and sugar (honey) were supplements that could give us a temporary energy boost and thus enhance our chances of survival. We lack the guts of true predators which are designed to process large amounts of meat, and we don't need as much energy to get around on a daily basis as they do. We can't extract all we need from meat and do not burn the large amounts of fat gained. Instead this fat is stored and causes artirial problems as wel as organ failures. We are also not equipped to deal with the toxins contained within animal products on a large scale. Consequently a diet primarily consisting of large amounts of meat tends to limit the modern human life span. A diet containing sufficient plant materials tends to prolong it.

3.World food shortages

Humans can process both animal products and plant materials. Many foods like grains, corn etc. have the similar energetic contents as meat. In modern day practice animals are often produced using these high energy foods and are therefore inefficiently produced. The amount of these materials that are needed to produce enough animal material to feed one person, can feed several people. The exact ratio depends on the type of animal. The lowest for common farm animals is 4:1 (chickens). You can find examples here. So more people can be fed if we forgo the creation of animals. However, some plant materials such as grasses and most kind of leaves can not be processed by humans. On soil that supports just these types of plantlife, animal husbandry would be a good option for producing food for humans.

4.The environment

Environmental vegans focus on conservation, rejecting the use of animal products on the premise that fishing, hunting, trapping and farming, particularly factory farming, are environmentally unsustainable. Currently animals outstrip cars in the production of harmful gases.

Membership motivations

Why do people adopt the non-carnivore life style? Based on the last three motivations, membership seems to be a logical choice. It benefits the self. However, animal well being is an emotion based motivation, resembling more a belief system than a rational analysis. This is explained in one of the next sections. Membership based on this type of motivation can of course be explained in great detail. However, since this explanation would be entirely similar to explaining memberships of any belief based social group, i will not examine it in this article. Why does one become a Buddist? A Muslim? A Queen fan? Member of the science club? If you want to, you can find some bits of information about basic human mechanics here and here on this blog. However google would provide you with more on topic links.

History

Evolution

All great apes evolved from a series of common ancestors. At least some of these ancestors were purely vegetarian. As far as this author can determine, meat eating was developed late in our evolution. Some argue that we should return to this pure vegetarian diet, because our bodies are supposedly not designed to process meat. However omnivores are widespread among mammals and even close relatives like chimpanzees do consume meat. Our bodies are geared towards processing both animal and plant materials. The argument is incorrect. If you are still unconvinced, herbivores get sick when fed meat. Carnivores get sick (and often die) when fed plants. Only omnivores can proces both.

Non-carnivorism throughout the centuries

Early history
There is nothing known about non-carnivorism as a strict life style in prehistoric times. We know that animals played an important role both in survival and (consequently) in worship for early man. We know this from cave paintings, fossilised animal remains, tools etc. How likely is it that unknown groups existed that did abstain from meat consumption?
We do know that some contemporary groups that still resemble our pre historic hunter-gatherer groups, like the Inuit, consume a lot of meat. Their mortality rate does not seem to suffer because of this, as Stephan Guyenet explains. This group mainly consumes non processed meat. Contemporary Western processed meat consumption can be linked to mortality, as explained by Sabine Rohrmann et al. Because a diet consisting mainly of unprocessed meat does not seem to harm longevity there is no health related motivation for early man to abstain from meat consumption.
Ofcourse the Inuit are a special case, they live in the cold climates where there is little vegetation. Our prehistoric ancestors did resemble the Inuit in many ways. They consumed little if any processed meat, and had alot of exercise seach for food and shelter. But they differed in their diets, eating a lot less meat and more fruits, vegetables and grains. Items which were much easier harvested.
It could be conceivable that for reasons like ease of acces people might have abstained from meat eating. Also it could be conceivable that by keeping animals such as horses and cows, unavailable to the Inuit, for utility or as pets animall well being concerns could have led to abstinence from meat. However no art, religious objects or tooling were ever found indicating that a group exclusively survived on a vegetarian diet, only the opposite. Futhermore all contemporary herding tribes all consume the meat of their animals.

Though the existance of prehistoric vegetatians can not be disproven, it is doubtfull they existed. Perhaps more arguments to the affirmative or the contrary can be made, however we simply have no evidence of such groups.

Classical history

In Greek history several philosophers and some of the elites of society subscribed to the notion that nothing containing a soul should be eaten. Some also believed in the non violent nature of man, including violence against animals. Others however claimed that animals did not posses ratio, and could therefore be consumed. These beliefs never spread to the larger culture.

There are indications that the first Greek ideas were inspired by the Egyptians, where priests abstained from several kinds of food and clothing, in order to obtain purity. This idea of purity can be found in several other old-world cultures.
In Chinese and Indian history there were similar practices and ideas. Refraining from eating meat was a method of gaining purity. Buddhism is one of the few religions that included refraining from violence against any living being and mastery over one's desires.  However most Buddists did not follow these rules to the letter.

Medieval - Renaissance

In Christian history non-carnivorism was virtually non existent except among priests, who abstained for reasons of purity. Eating the dead was seen as impure, as was sex. I did not find anything about the renaissance, but this could be due to poor investigation.

Emancipation in the 18th century

In the renaissance the ideas of ancient cultures were explored, among these vegetarianism and veganism. Several intellectuals promoted the idea of abstaining from animal products, for various reasons. In the 18th century true movements sprang up, like the Vegetarian Society and the Vegan Society. A driving force was the notion of emancipation. Emancipation means the attainment of an equal place in society. The perception was that animals like humans had certain inalienable rights and needed to be liberated from human ownership.

While globally the percentage of non-carnivores has a maximum of around 5% in any given nation, some groups and sects within the mentioned cultures would have high percentages of vegetarians or vegans. To date there have been no known cultures that adopted non-carnivorism as a whole*.

*follow this link for information or early veganism. more can be found here.

Summary

When examining the history of non-carnivorism one could argue that the most widely used motivations in the past were selfish. People wanted to attain purity. Only in recent times have the animals themselves been considered. However the notion of non-violence towards living beings is not new.

*note: most of the information above is based on online sources, of which i can't positively identify the original authors. Instead i included the links. Please comment if you have information about the authors. The text below this line is entirely my own. Please comment if you find fault.

So now we know what we are talking about. Let's take a look if we can determine if non-carnivore arguments hold up under examination. After that, we will take a look at the other side of the debate.

Motivations examined

The motivations for adopting a non-carnivore lifestyle mentioned in this texts consist of one opinion based motivation, and three factual based ones.

The motivations concerning health, world food shortage and the environment can all be proven scientifically and indeed have been proved. I will leave you with this statement, you can do the research yourself, if you have any doubts. Based on these alone a non-carnivore lifestyle is a good idea for the immediate future of mankind on planet Earth. The threats of global warning and food shortage can be limited a great deal with this adaptation. Whether in some distant age we can indulge ourselves again without consequence, is a matter of speculation.
Oddly enough, the most popular motivation is the opinion based one. So let's take a look at the animal well being motivation.

Animal well being

The main motivation for non-carnivorism is animal well being, and at the same time the most well known argument in the discussions between vegans and non-vegans. For many non-carnivores it is the only motivation. Even though many attempts have been made to rationalize this motivation, it can never be truly rationalized because at it's core lie human emotions and the subjective human notions of right and wrong. Below follows an explanation.

Common perceptions

Animal well being can be easily understood and easily expressed. The common understanding comes from the fact that larger animals have identifiable feelings. Mammals etc. can be hurt much in the way we can. We can detect this via their expressions, their movements and their vocalizations. As humans we do not want to be hurt of confined, and we conclude that it must be the same for animals since they seemingly react in the same manner. We therefore know larger animals do not want to be hurt or killed, and we know they resent close quarters confinement. Scientific studies have indeed shown that this assumption is valid. Again, you can do the research yourself. As for smaller animals like insects, our intellect might propell us towards caring (a life is sacred and such), however most people do not mourn the squashing of a bug or the removal of pests. No flags are raised to protect ants, yet we risk death in small speedboats for whales. So in summary, our common notion of animal well being comes from the identification with the expressions of larger animals.

Common reactions

We understand animal well being, and since it is similar to our own well being, we can also readily express ourselves on the subject. Indeed we feel the need to do so since we are empathic social beings that automatically strive towards an acceptable level of well being for all members within our groups, which extends outwards to animals and non hostile strangers. Hence any publicized cruelty towards animals, in which the same act would be 'cruel' to humans, is widely protested. Well, at least for a given period. Most humans do not stay active for long for a cause that lies outside their immediate concerns or their immediate social world. A lot of non-carnivores however do.

In summary: both perception and reaction are at first emotion based. No logic, like for example utility, is involded.

Rationalization

For most non-carnivores the emotion based on the perception of animal suffering is the main validation for their life choice, completely separate from rational thought. This is quite logical. Because something is felt to be wrong if it were done to me, it is wrong. Because something is seen to cause suffering, it is cruelty. There is no obvious need to examine what is clearly right. The animal well being emotion simply transforms into a belief. It is so, because it is so..because i know it is so.

If we want the motivation of animal well being to stick however, it has to be based on ratio, and not solely emotions, since the latter can change with time and between individuals and cultures. Reason can be shared with any advanced culture (a culture that abstains from absolutism). Reason also provides a solid basis for usefull, and defensible action, in a non absolutist, rational, free thinking society.

After the initial emotion, humans always seek to justify their actions or beliefs. Since non-carnivorism is a mainly Western phenomenon, several attempts have been made to rationalize and thus validate the non-carnivore lifestyle motivation of 'animal well being'. If it can be shown logically or scientifically that the animal well being motivation is supported by valid arguments as opposed to subjective opinions based on emotions, the discussion can be won in favor of the non-carnivores.  Furthermore it would provide solid footing for supporters, as opposed to the nagging notion that if something feels right, it does not automatically mean it is right.

So let's take a deeper look at the rationalizations for animal well being as a valid motivation. Non-carnivores are against speciesism, the assignment of value to individuals based on species alone.
Speciesism is an arbitrary choice. You could easily make a different choice. In it's 'logic' it is close to racism, the choice to treat different colors of human differently. Speciesism as a basis for assigning moral value of course is the understandable choice of the casual observer, since terrestial species do seems to have vastly different properties and capabilities, as was believed of black and white humans (this was of course disproven). However it is arbitrary.

Non-carnivores however make the same mistake as supporters of speciesism, they also arbitrary assign values. These values mostly takes the form of rights.

A 'Why is it wrong to use animals?'
B 'Because it IS wrong... '
A 'That is absolutism.'
B 'Well...Because they have feelings.'
A 'Animals make animals suffer. Animals do not care about any feelings of their prey.'
B 'Well...Because they have rights.'

Some non-carnivores decided to assign rights to all living beings, others just to animals. The most used ground is that animals just have rights because they are alive and they feel. Another argument used in support is that we humans have rights based on our well being and thus animals should have them too. Thus is claimed: animal rights are not arbitrary.

Now we arrive at the fundamental flaw in the 'animal well being' motivation. Rights are always arbitrary. All rights are based upon agreements between people about what is right and what is wrong, what a person should be entitled to and what not. They differ between societies, and between rulers. Neither animals nor humans have inalienable rights. Nothing ever was written in stone by a God or nature. Rights are a human invention with the goal of bringing order to society. They have nothing whatsoever to do with animals. Rights are not an intrinsic part of animal life, nor human life. All arguments concerning rights can be dismissed (as can all arguments based on emotion).

In summary, the motivations for health, world food shortages and the enviroment do hold up under examination. Animall well being does not. This motivation is based on emotion and backed by faulty logic.

Since the animal well being motivation is so important to them, does this analysis sink the ship for the non-carnivores? Let's take a look beyond this early conclusion.

The two perspectives

From this logical foundation, we can finally perceive the true valid perspectives for looking at the human-animal dynamic. There are only two. They way an animal might look at things, and the way a human could percieve the situation.

The animal perspective

 

From the perspective of an animal, anything we do with animals is validated. All animals, indeed all life has a built in directive to maximize its chances for survival without regard. Neither emotion nor reason play a role. Animals will use other animals for their own benefit, without any concerns for suffering, rights, or necessity. Sharks will harass a mother whale and bite the calf until the mother has no more energy to defend the calf, and the calf can no longer keep up due to blood loss. Rats, cats and dogs have eradicated entire species when introduced in Australia and other countries, without any concern for their own food source drying up. Cats bring live mice to their young in order to teach them hunting skills, without regard for the rights of the mice, many of which die from a heart attack rather than injury. A cuckoo will eject an egg from the nest of another species of bird and replace it with its own without any moral concerns. Bears eat the brains and eggsacks of salmon and throw away the rest, purely because it is more efficient energy wise to catch more fish and soley eat brains.

Humans are animals, as proven by Darwin and subsequent scientific research. There is nothing wrong with our bio industry from an animal point of view, no matter how much suffering it might cause among animals. We are simply very smart animals, that have found clever ways to benefit from other animals. The entire food chain is based on a layer of plants, a layer of plant eaters and then layer upon layer of predator. As the top predator, there is nothing wrong with our consumption of meat, nor the way we harvest.

The notion of animal rights is ridiculous from the point of view of the animal. First, rights are an arbitrary human agreement. If you want animal rights because there are human rights.. well there is no reason why plants and vegetation should not also have rights, or even the land itself. In nature there are no rights. Secondly, rights are the result of discussions amongst humans. Animals can never be a partner in any discussion. What rights should a dog have? Can we ask them? We could only make an educated guess in such situations. The essential factor in rights, agreement, can only be given by another human. When it comes to making rights they can deliver no creative input and can't vote on any decision. Their input remains blank. Thirdly, any suffering is simply nature from the animal perspective. And fourth, any animal would do the same as we do, if they had the power to do so. A whale would never create a cattle farm, but it would create a plankton farm.

There is also a positive relation that is often overlooked. Symbiosis. Humans have formed symbiotic relationships with many types of animals (or perhaps the other way around). These animals have hugely profited in terms of survival. The primary objective of their DNA is met, they are amongst the most successful species on the planet.

In conclusion: no human can be faulted for any kind of animal use or animal suffering when pursuing their own benefit. No animal would ever fault a human for doing so, or choose a different behavior.

Do note that this cold conclusion gained via analysis is in stark contrast to anything we might feel when watching animal abuse video's.

The human perspective

 

We humans are conscious; we are aware of ourself, our environment, our actions and their consequences. Next to instinct we posses rationality, or the ability for discursive reason (as opposed to intuitive reason). It is the ability to not act automatically but to consider options, consequences and relations via examination and alter our behavior according to its results. Few animals if any posses these characteristics, and none on our level. In other words: we can make an informed choice. Given that we know that none of our actions concerning animals can be faulted from the perspective of the animal, the central question becomes:

Do we choose to act like animals, which we are entitled too, or do we act differently?

Let's take a look at the reasons for using animals.

Animal suffering

The only valid reason for causing animal suffering as an objective onto its own, is entertainment. We humans can find pleasure in watching fighting and suffering, either amongst ourselves (gangster movies, war movies, plays, etc. etc.) or amongst animals (cock fights, Roman animal spectacles etc.). We also find pleasure in the hunt.
Very few contemporary humans subscribe to these forms of entertainment. Alternative entertainments that contain either combat or hunting such as football and certain types of video games are widely available and vastly more popular. A lot more wealth is generated via sports and games than cock fights and hunting. None of the animals used in entertainment form a threat to our existence. Entertainment depending on animal suffering can be replaced without any negative consequences.

The balance of nature
It is natural to eat meat. Not eating meat might have negative consequences for our fysiology. It might upset the balance of nature, or the balance of our social existence. However, in pre history, meat was never consumed in such quantities as today. Furthermore, close examination of human physiology has revealed that almost all food sources, including meat, have alternatives of equal nutritional value and can be replaced without harm (i'm not sure about B-12, which might have to be produced artificially). Also, nature at the moment is widely unbalanced, because of the production of meat. Vast area's of natural wilderness have been replaced with grazing lands. Methane production on Earth has skyrocketed because of the animals we keep. As for our social existence, meat is just a block of stuff on our plates. Hunting has almost disseapered, as has its rituals. It can be replaced by another block of equal experience.

Human delight

Meat provides us with entertainment. Our bodies are programmed to prefer meat and sugar above other food sources, since in nature the opportunities for these concentrated energy sources are rare and have to be taken. Meat and sugar produce a 'high' when consumed. The only reason for our current manner of animal use is to fulfill this desire (our current manner being mass production without regard for suffering). From the viewpoint of individual survival we would be better off eating plants. From the viewpoint of species survival it's highly doubtful that eating meat at the level we do in the West brings any benefits, since Asians perform at comparable levels with much less meat in their diets. Mass consumption of meat can be replaced by mass consumption of plants at the cost of momentary delights, and with the benefits of better health and longevity. Ultimately it is a choice. Do we prefer to satisfy our senses in small instances or our happiness across a life span? With the advent of better and better meat replacements the choice seems to dissapear in the future.

Utility and convenience
Animals not only serve as a source of food, but provide many raw materials for the production of goods. Glue, tools, clothing, etc. are just a few examples. Animals have proven their use in many human activities from transportation to guarding herds or carrying messages. Today in modern industrial societies all most all animal use can be replaced with a synthetic or mechanical alternative. The fact that we haven't done so yet could be explained by convenience. The animal already has a place in both the assembly line and our consumption habits, it would take effort to replace it.
However some animal use, mainly in research, can not be readily replaced. It's quite impossible for instance, to determine an effective cure for a bacterial disease without the use of the bacteria themselves, or test animals (bacteria are single cell animals, algae are single cell plants). In medical research each year thousands of animals are subjected to the risk of death in our place...simply because we do not want to take the risk ourselves. Without these animals research would stop. If a person wants to abstain from animal use completely, this person would be unable to use any type of regular modern medicine. Research by the Nazi's on human test subject was rejected for the same reason. No one wanted to use this kind of Nazi research and thus condone experiments on unwilling humans. Of course animal use in research not related to our survival is another matter. The biological directive programmed into all life is to survive. There is no directive for lipstick for example. The use of lipstick is cultural, and therefore arbitrary. A different choice can be made.

Survival
Today few societies need to eat meat in order to survive. In the past, most tribes had no alternative. The same more or less goes for other types of animal use. In many poor countries meat might be replaceable by corn or grain while animal labor and animal based raw materials are a lot harder to replace.
Health is a common argument made in favor of the consumption of animal products (industry), and against it (non-carnivores). However, most animal products actually have a small toxic effect on the human body. Our bodies can deal with limited exposure, however the current Western diet is highly toxic. We are ominvores designed mainly for plant consumption with a capacity to process small amounts of animal product safely*. The reason we consume this Western diet is that we desire these types of food and can now obtain them easily with our modern technology and knowledge. Where there is demand, there is supply. No good business person would opt to educate the consumer in favor of supplying the consumer. The art of advertising has the sole purpose highlighting benefit, true or not.


*safely is a relative term. With the assistance of modern medicine we can still live much longer than our prehistoric ancestors on the current Western diet. However, many of us do experience discomfort and disease.

Human emotion

There is one additional reason to change our behavior, one that directly relates to the original emotion based and arbitrary 'animal rights' argument. We are emotional beings. We can relate to anything that can express emotions, including robots and animals. Any display of suffering is automatically internalized, we feel it too. Few humans would be able to stomach the suffering inflicted on animals in the bio industry if confronted with it. Even though it is irrational from the animal perspective. We would all feel better if a pig or cow has a nice life. Being nice to animals satisfies our own need to be good and avoids our sense of horror when seeing something we can relate to suffer.
Meat consumption is a natural behavior for humans, chimps and other primates. This fact however is unrelated to emotional reactions (this is further discussed in the addendum). Abstaining from the use of animals would benifit ourselves, emotionally.

Human morality
As a social species, we need rules in our groups in order to work together. These rules are not only regulatory in nature, but also moral. We have a need to attach value to ourselves, in order to feel safe and secure in a group and as a group. This value has led to many kinds of laws and morals. From criminal law to humanism. It also forms an important part of most religions. We highly value the physical integretity of ourselves, our living conditions, and the right to freely move around and make our own decisions.
When you look at the bio industry, you can see that for animals this value seems non existant. At first glance this does not seem to be a problem. We already determined that, as animals ourselves, we have the ''right'' to do what we want with other lifeforms (right meaning it is natural, not a moral law). However, we are emotional beings. When we see other life treated badly, we feel negative emotions, and we sympathize automatically. For the average human being that is confronted with the reality of the bio industry, it is mentally impossible to maintain human value, while giving none to animals. The reaction is either outrage, or a devaluation of human life. This is also a problem for society in general. It is hard to maintain the picture of ourselves as great and good, while we see other life suffering in ways that are far removed from the normal predator-prey scenarios. It is also difficult to see ourselves as valuable while we can see other life being treated as production objects.

Summary

Now we can replace the 'animal well being' motivation with a 'human well being' motivation, or better put the 'rational choice' motivation. There are no reasons to fault current human behavior towards animals, only reasons to change it. The non-carnivore side of the debate has simply been using the wrong argument. This is understandable, since it is a motivation based on emotion and intuitive reason. In conclusion: the debate can be resolved.


In the next text we can take a look at the various feelings within the debates. Why does the meat eater camp react the way it does? Why does the non-carnivore camp react the way it does?

Public debates: perceptions and emotions

In our modern Western world a debate rages between those is favor of non-carnivorism and those against, with most of us on the sidelines. We already discussed the 4 motivations of the non-carnivorism camp. We found 3 correct, and 1 incorrect. In doing so we found an additional and rational argument for changing our diet, one that could be the solution to the debate, since it deals with the common pro meat consumption arguments. Now we can look at the reasons why the debate rages on without solution. We can examine the compositions and emotions of both sides of the debates.

Questions

Why do some modern day people actively reject the vegetarian life style? Why do so many of us scold and belittle vegetarians? Is there a discernible threat one way or the other? Why do some non-carnivores hold such strong opinions? Why do the scold meat eaters?

The non-carnivores

 

Stance
True non-carnivores are appalled by animal cruelty and believe animal use is unnecessary. It is understandable they engage in activism. One could even say it is a noble effort. It takes a great person to stand up for what one believes in. Perhaps some are true heroes. Non-carnivores might adopt the emotional position of 'the beleaguered rebel' (revolutionaries).

Emotions
On the positive emotional side they would experience emotions of joy from doing something that matters and comradeship by doing it together. On the negative side they could have feelings of fighting against the current, supporting a good cause while the world is against you, being marginalized and ridiculed. Feelings of fear and anxiety of the public reactions that comes with belonging to a minority. And also frustration, hatred and dismay at the perceived injustices they experience at the hands of the majority.

Composed of heroes?

Not all members can justifiably be marked as heroes (though some can).
It is likely that some members do not posses an informed opinion of the other side or even their own. Some objections against meat consumption are based purely on an emotion, namely revulsion against cruelty or even the naive notion of the cute animal. Other objections are based on faulty logic, as shown before. Not all participants in the debate make an effort to think.
The naive members for instance can harbor child like emotions concerning animals. They 'love' animals based on their childhood concepts of rabbits, horses, cats and dogs which feature positive roles in many stories and were kept as pets. There is belief that animals like cows can be friends with humans. The actual emotional return from the animal is higly uncertain and often subject to imagination. Often these members  have little if any knowledge of the natural world. It is no surprise you get angry when a lovely bunny is threatened with which you have an intimate connection. Controversially, some would be animal lovers do engage in the confinement of animals thus inhibiting the praised 'natural life'.

Some individuals and groups engage in behavior close to terrorism resulting in unrest and suffering in society. Whether these are heroes is a question for debate. Some might be there for the thrill, others because of conviction.

Furthermore, the non-carnivore camp is likely to posses at least some members that are not primarily motivated by the noble notion of animal well being at all (or health/environmental concerns). Below the surface, humans join groups for various reasons. Any group, whether it's the republican party, the peace movement or the pro meat eater camp. Common reasons are listed below.

Some examples are:

Social acceptance: the feeling of belonging to a group... any group.

Social relevance: the feeling of doing something that matters.

Social submission: submitting to the opinions of a strong person within your social environment.

Self illusion: the convincing of one self of false feelings and external reasons as your own. We all like to think we are noble, even if we are really not. Self illusion is often employed by the logical mind in order to hide the gap between a desired social effect and one's own true feeling (or logic).

Fashion & exclusivity: we all like to be members of the Apple club. Apple is better, hotter, more exclusive than any other brand of electronic device. It's the thing to have ... at the moment. Most women like to have the latest dress or handbag, it sets them apart and is a statement of their personality, they show that they 'consist' of something (namely a superior taste).

Narcissism: we all like to be special, to receive praise and jealousy, to feel better than others. Admiring oneself is addictive. Choosing to be noble (saving animals), and to save the planet (from environmental disaster) can be motivated by narcissism or cause it.

The stance and emtions incombination with the composition might result in unyielding members elements in the non-carnivore camp. People that will seek attention to argue their cause no matter what, immune to reason.

The pro meat side

 

Those in favor of eating meat often believe in the natural order of life. Animals eat animals, there is nothing wrong with it. The idea of not eating meat seems ridiculous. They feel they need to defend their right to consume meat. They are being attacked. They would experience some of the same emotions as the non-carnivores. Additionally very few actually support the 'cruel' bio industry and resent this accusation. Pro meat members might adopt the emotional stance of 'preservers of the right way' (conservatives).

Emotions
On the positive emotional side they would experience emotions of joy from doing something that matters and comradeship by doing it together. They are fighting for the right way, for normality. On the negative side they feel they are fighting against aggression, against rebels, activists, terrorists. They could experience fear, because their way of life is threatened. Anxiety over possible attacks by fanatics.

Composed of heroes?

The same remarks listed for the non-carnivores can be made again. A lot of members act on emotion instead of reason, some will have little knowlegde about the issues, others would engage in harmful behavior for the thrill of it, and not all are motivated by true conviction.
Additionally many pro meat members oppose the bio industry when confronted, but still support it with their wallets out of sheer convenience or addiction to the taste of meat. People are lazy, and a cheap pallet of meat from a supermarket is so much more satisfying and so much easier than changing your behavior. This accusation hurts. Being accused of supporting something you yourself know is awful and are guilty of is not easy. Excuses are easily made into fact: 'we can do nothing about it'. Or: 'Wir habes es nicht gewuBt'.

Some supporters are simply pro meat consumption because others are against it. Still others like being part of a majority.

Specifically the contempt part of narcissism is relevant in this group. We all like to scold another group, to belittle them in order to enlarge ourselves. Minorities are especially vulnerable, since this usually can be done without consequence. The Suffragettes were largely ridiculed in society, denounced and targeted, even by other women.
 

The non involved

Most of us stand of the sidelines. We make no effort at all to preserve or destroy our meat consuming way of life (except passively through our wallets). We simply do not care. We get on with our lives, and leave the hot emotions to others. We do feel a little bit guilty, the bio industry is very convenient but also very bad for the animals (or so we have been told, we won't try to find out). On the other hand we dislike the extremists notions (burning labs, etc.). Our mildly expressed opinion is: humans eat meat, it would be nice if we went about it in a more palatable way.. Health and the environment are on top of our list of things we are concerned about but do not act upon. If anything changes.... we will accept it.

Summary

The natural composition of the groups involved and the various natural adversarial emotions* account for a great deal for the tone of the debates, the clutter and it's continuation. The (re)actions of both groups in society are easily explained. There is fear, misunderstanding and selfishness. The pro meat faction perceives the non-carnivores as anti social, threatening, elitist, silly, and disdainful, while the non-carnivores perceive the pro meat faction as oppressive, dismissive, destructive, stupid and hateful. The reaction of the pro meat eater camp simply is an ordinary reaction typical of the advesarial situation. The (sometimes extremist) actions of the non-carnivores are typical of an opressed minority. Furthermore the debate is cluttered by 'non-heroes' on both sides, they tend to have loud opinions and no solutions. They dominate the debate and make sure it can not be resolved. Thus few succesful attempts* are made to find common ground and even fewer to pursue discursive reason.

*emotions that come with majority and minority positions.

*many attempts are made to convince the other side. most attempts are made using reason based on intuition.

Conclusions

The real problem with the debate between vegetarians and non vegetarians is that it is partly fought based upon defective logic and emotion. The argument against animal use should include our human choice to engage in different behavior. The non-carnivores should stay away from such arbitrary notions as animal rights, and leave behind emotions. The pro meat eater camp should consider the alternatives to eating meat, their ease and their huge benefits. The reason that the debate seems to rage on between pro meat eaters and non-carnivores seems to be the composition and emotions of both groups, with the actual issue being irrelevant. If both sides use logic and analysis instead of opinion and emotion they could arrive at the following common viewpoint:

For the immediate future it is advisable that we start to gradually limit our use of animal products and continue to introduce acceptable replacements. In this way society can adapt and no one goes out of business, while we start reaping the health an environmental rewards. In the far future we might have replacements that fill the exact spot meat has at the moment; that of the most desired food source.

I hope that this text at least demonstrated that the debate can be resolved. However, while the debate rages on, the solutions are quietly being pursued by industry and science. More and more replacements enter the market, and we can now even grow quantities meat from a few cells. There is a good chance that the debate will be overtaken by these solutions.

Empire, Guilt and Recompense

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Empire, Guilt and Recompense

In the previous century we have become aware of the evils of Empire. Slavery, economic exploitation, political oppression. With the invention of human rights we agreed that these behaviors can be marked as 'wrong'. Predominantly Western countries have been the perpetrators in the past 400 years. Victims are found in Latin America, Africa and large parts of Asia. Countries like China raise this issue from time to time and demand apologies from their former oppressors, even though most of the perpetrators are no longer alive. In some cases the apology is given, and in some cases not. The Dutch apologized to Indonesia for their 300 year long occupation. Japan still has difficulty recognizing any wrong doing during world war 2. Next to an apology, some countries and groups demand reparations. For instance, in the U.S. a debate is ongoing about reparations for descendants of slaves.

The following questions can be raised. Should former perpetrators apologize to former victims? Should there be recompense? While these first two are matters of opinion, more fundamental questions can be raised. Is there a clear moral ground for apology and for recompense? Is there a practical use for both? What would be the effect? Can guilt indeed be inherited?
Another relevant question is why the West is blamed for these crimes while no other part of the World is. Has the white race really been more savage than the rest? Is it to blame... more?

Moral grounds and practical use

 

Are there a clear moral grounds for an apology and recompensation? Well, yes and.... no.

The Apology
If both parties recognize freedom from oppression as a fundamental right, and oppression as a fundamental wrong, a wrongdoer should apologize in order to harmonize relations with the victim. Once accepted, a clear understanding is reached between the two that A:) the behavior is marked as 'wrong' by both parties, B:) the perpetrator recognizes the part it played giving the event a common reality, and C:) the perpetrator and victim agree that from now on future actions will be based on the common morality. This will result in enhanced potential for beneficial future relations. Instead of a potential enemy, a potential friend can be recognized in the opposite party.

Recompense
A wrongdoer should recompense the victim if again both parties agree on the moral rights and wrongs. Since by the act of the perpetrator damage occurred, the perpetrator should repair the damage as much as possible so the negative balance between the two parties can reach 0. The practical use is that from this position of balance future relations can be conducted with trust. Otherwise, every future endeavor is subject to mistrust based on potential re-occurrence of past wrongdoing and has a higher chance to fail.

Empire and Recompense

The logic of an apology is sound, no matter the size or structure of the parties involved. However the case of Empire is different when it comes to recompense. It has been proven by history that every race, people, religion, Empire and nation has at one time exploited another. It is a fundamental fault in mankind. The fact that we recently discovered, or rather decided, that exploitation is wrong, does not mean that those parties who were last involved with these practices have a larger obligation to recompense their victims than parties from a long time ago. In other words, being part of recent human memory does not make you more guilty or instill upon you a greater responsibility than for those who are part of a forgotten past.  You can not set a moral boundary on how far back you will go, only a pratical one. Since we the Romans can't recompense their British victims, whom they brutally oppressed, exploited and enslaved, we can not demand the British to recompense the people of India, unless we introduce some kind of experition date on crimes committed by Empires. Otherwise recompense can be asked in the case of the Mongols vs a whole lot of nations, the Ottomans vs the Middle East, the Chinese vs the Koreans, the Egyptians vs the Jews, etc. However, when introducting an expiration date, all the nations of the world should decide on this limit. It is folly to think that any nation, except the ones without guilt, can give an honest suggestion for an expiration date.
Next to this, it would be impractical if everybody would recompense any party they exploited. The Japanese should recompense the Dutch for their brutal oppression of the Dutch in Indonesia. The Dutch should recompense the Indonesians. The government of Indonesia should recompense the people of Atjeh and Papua New Guinea, and so on, and so on, and so on. 
There is moral ground that the perpetrator should recompense the victim, but no moral ground that one (recent) perpetrator should engage in this behavior while another is excused. Since we won't be able to decide what is recent, and it would be impractical, recompense is not viable in the case of Empire.
Of course any recompense given would be a show of decency and a genuine will to harmonize. You can never do wrong by giving back. A symbolic gesture would carry as much moral weight as any calculated amount.

Inherited guilt

A person can only be held responsible for her or his own actions. Since you can not alter the past actions of ancestors, no guilt can pass from father to son. This logic has not stopped people from blaming groups for past actions of those groups. Are these claims of guilt valid?
A group is greater than the sum of the individual lives of it's people. As individual cells form our bodies, and their sum is a person which carries out actions quite apart from the individual actions of the cells, so a nation is composed of people, and it carries out actions of war and peace, art and science, trade and architecture as a single entity, quite apart from the individual persons.
One might want to blame individuals, such as Hitler, for the actions of an entire group, but in fact the whole government of Germany, the brain, was directing the devastation during World War 2. The ''person'' named Germany is to blame for the holocaust in the same manner as you can be blamed for any crime you might have committed. However, individual Germans can never be blamed for the holocaust as a whole, only for their individual actions taken at the time, and no German born past 1945 can be faulted at all.
So... can guilt be inherited from one generation to the next? Since you can be held responsible for acts in your own life, a nation can be held responsible for acts in it's life, the nations history. The notion of inheritance simply does not apply, nor does the notion of guilt passing over from one generation to another, it's simply part of the life of the nation, no matter the generation.
For the Roman Empire it is no longer feasible to hold it responsible, since it no longer exists, even though the territories it once encompassed do, and the city of Rome does as well. The group entity 'The Roman Empire' is gone, dead and buried. The modern city is not the former Empire, nor is it the same entity as the old city. It's current occupants can not historically be linked to the group of people that created and ruled the Roman Empire. There have been massive changes in it's population and culture. For Germany, it is a different story, since the entity Germany still continues to exist in an unbroken line from the date of it's creation. Furthermore, Germany also claims it's complete history. If Germany had decided to call itself New Germany, and rejected all of its past, this new entity could not be blamed for the mistakes of it's ancestor. For Great Britain, The Netherlands and Turkey the same logic can be applied. These three nations consist of group entities that have existed continually from before their Empire days to this date. They are the same ''person''. No dutchman will ever tell you the Netherlands is a new place, and it's history is something some other nation that came before it lived through. Since we proudly claim our golden ages as our own, we continuous nations must also claim our mistakes.

Conclusions

 

Nations can indeed be held responsible for past mistakes, that happend within the lifetime of the nation. Individuals and generations can never be held responsible for the past mistakes of their nations, previous generations or individual ancestors.
The effect of both apologies and recompense would enhance relations between the nations of the Globe. For apologies there is both moral ground and practical use. There is no moral ground for demanding recompense from just the recent Empires. It's unlikely anyone would agree on a statue of limitations. The practice of recompense would be complicated if not impossible. Voluntary efforts however can benefit relations.

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The mechanics of discrimination

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The mechanics of discrimination

Popular notions

The popular understanding of discrimination can roughly be summed up as follows: a person or group acting in a negative way versus another, motivated by race, religion, sex or political beliefs. The 1^st defenition in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary matches this understanding: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Racism is the well know derivative of discrimination based on race. 

We often mark this behavior as bad, evil, reprehensible. There is no need for debate, discrimination so obviously is a character fault of the group or individual. The same clarity of concept that applies to good versus evil seems to apply to discrimination versus tolerance. A person or group exhibiting this behavior can be publicly shamed in just about any free society. If we do want to discriminate and get away with it, there is a need to demonize the intended target first, or hide the evidence. Otherwise the behavior will not be accepted. The black race for instance has been lifted from its former demonized status as a lazy, backward, primitive form of human life. It can no longer publicly be discriminated against in the western world. Those who do, such as the Ku Klux Clan, are ridiculed. Ofcourse, many people privately still hold on to the old views. Discrimination against black people is now practiced in less obvious ways, such as the law against voter fraud in the United States.

Examples

The Hutu claimed that the Tutsi were worthless cockroaches. Based on this notion they claimed the right and duty to exterminate them. They did not claim the Tutsi had bad idea's or practiced faulty politics. They claimed they were different people, and had a bad nature. Thousands were killed as a result. In world war one, the Germans were marked as the brutal Huns. This message resonated with the public. The message that the Kaisers policies were flawed did not. Millions went willingly to the slaughterhouse thinking the otherside was bad. The most well know example of course are the Jews. The Nazis claimed they were like rats, with hooked noses, a crooked demeanor and a bad smell. Millions were gassed as a result.
If you look at the current political race in the United States anno 2015, you see many would be presidents exhibiting the same behavior when speaking about Mexicans, Muslims and other aliens. And it works. They are creating big groups of protractors and detractors in the process. Quite a few voters now agree that Muslims are dangerous fanatics, rejecting our way of life. Mexicans only cross our borders in order to commit crimes and steal our jobs.
In these examples we can clearly see the unjust and prejudicial treatment of different groups. Do note that in these examples, the broadcasted difference between the groups was largely imagined. The Brits and the Germans are both of the white race, and the Hutu and the Tutsi even of the same original tribes. Yet each marked the other down as being a different kind of human, with very bad characteristics. The Jews and the Nazis are different groups, yes, but the differences used to justify treating them differently were imaginairy. This is a major component of the unjust in the definition of discrimination. Usually the reasons seem complete nonsense.

The right questions

Everything around discrimination seems clear cut. It is a destructive behavior that comes from subjective notions. People that engage in it are bad. Is this really the case? Did we ask ourselves the necessary questions regarding this behavior? Let's take a moment and ask a few.

What actually is discrimination?

How does it work?

Who engages in it and under which circumstances?

Is discrimination really bad?

Why do individuals and groups discriminate against other individuals and groups?

How do groups actually work?

Why do most conflicts between groups seem to revolve around disliking would be specific physical or behavioral characteristics supposedly intrinsic to a would be separate lesser species of humans? In other words, we claim our target to be less than human, possessing a number of bad traits. Why do we do this? 

Why do some politicians act so divisive? Aren't they supposed to know better? 

Why are simple messages more popular that complex ones?

Why are divisive messages seemingly more popular than messages that bring people together?

Lets start with the first question. What actually is discrimination?

Definition

Eyes, ears, nose and mouth

Animals and plants have many senses. The primary function of which is discrimination: to make sense of the world in order to select the appropriate behavior for a given encounter. Friend or foe, food or not food, mate or competitor. To discriminate actually means to tell the difference between one thing, and another.

Life and discrimination

Discrimination is programmed into the DNA of every species. It is essential to life. For us conscious animals discrimination is the very essence of being. Even our cells discriminate between various types of substances traveling our bloodstream via the cell membrane. Food, building materials, unwelcome guests.. As for us, without discrimination we could not distinguish between the self and another.

In summary: discrimination is the process we use to make sense of the world. It simply means to tell the difference between one thing and another

So how does it actually work? Let's take a look in the next few texts about the mechanics, the qualities of information and group identity.

The Mechanics

The process of discrimination is subject to a number of factors. Two of them are information and the salience of features. Let's first take a look at salience.

Relative Salience

Salience means that which stands out, is most noticeable. Suppose all you know as fruit are banana's. You eat them everyday. All the shelves in fruit section of the supermarket only have banana's. Suddenly, there is an apple placed in front of you. The most salient feature is: it's round. A round fruit! Who would have thought it possible. Let's try it again. If you know apples and banana's, but not oranges the following would happen if you were suddenly confronted with an orange: hey, look, an orange fruit! What happened to being round as the most salient feature? Well it's still there. But when it comes to apples and bananas versus oranges it is color that is the most salient, since apples and oranges are both round and you can't tell them apart this way. Of course when you compare bananas and oranges, shape and color are equally salient. One is arc shaped and yellow, the other round and orange.

Human senses discriminate by examining aspects of an object like shape, color, smell, touch, taste, weight etc. There is an order of precedence in these aspects we can detect. Shape for instance takes precedence over color. We discriminate between two objects by order of the most precedent salient aspect in which they differ. Apples and oranges are both round, so we discriminate by color. Banana's and apples have different shapes, so we discriminate by shape.

You might at this point wonder, are our senses the only way by which we discriminate? Do they solely determine salience? Well no. Let's take a look at the role information plays when it comes to telling things apart.

Information

Concepts

We build mental pictures of objects called concepts. They tell us what an object is and is not. I have seen that an orange is round and orange. I have experienced that it tastes a certain delicious way, has a certain weight and a certain texture of the skin. I have been taught it grows on certain trees in certain climates and has a lot of vitamin C. This is what i know of oranges, this is my mental picture of them. Via this mental picture, i can easily discriminate between oranges, apples and any kind of known and unknown fruit in the future. 

 Our whole world is made sensible via concepts. We have concepts of the moon and the sun, water and air, trees and butterflies. Our concepts don't just include tangible objects, but really anything that crosses our minds. Abstract ideas like freedom, maths, etc. Or fear and love, hate and revenge. Interpersonal relationships, religions, political ideals, you name it. It's all been boxed up in a concept (*for reasons of ease, in this text the word object is meant to apply to any and all things).

 The main benefit of a concept is speed. We don't have to re-examine an object each time we encounter it, but rather rely on stored data. In this way our minds can deal quickly with a world filled by objects, animals and people and the relations between them.
 Salient features are amongst the data that is stored in our concepts. They make an orange an orange, and not a lemon. Not only do salient features lie at the basis of how we conceptualize an object, often it is the most salient features in which objects differ from another which influences strongly how we conceptualize them. If all fruit was orange, it would not be a salient feature of the fruit we call ''an orange''. It would probably have another name. Concepts are both a tool for discrimination in the moment.. telling stuff apart ..and are influenced by the end results of the discrimination process.

Concepts and data

Concepts rely on various data sources for their formation and alteration. Among these are live sensory input, experience, teaching and imagination.

Sensory input

Fire is hot and ice is cold. Air is light and invisible, water a visible and heavy. The sun provides light and heat, the moon just a little bit of light. Data from our sensors is stored in our concepts. If we encounter a liquid that is very light, we will know it's not water.

Experience

My concept of an orange includes delicious. It's based on my experience of many oranges having been delicious. Suppose you have never seen an orange and the first one you eat is very sour, worse than a lemon. Your concept might become: a round orange sour fruit. Best to be avoided. If i ate your orange, i would know that this specific specimen differs from the group. Bad luck. I will still eat them. You might change your initial concept to match mine after having eaten several. However, you are less likely to try another one based on your first experience. If there are also strawberries to chose from, you might opt for one of those. Each new experience gets stored in our concepts, reinforcing them, or altering them.

Teaching

Teaching is also an important source of information that helps us form our concepts. If no experience is available, we rely on the experience of others to form our concepts. The same mechanics are at work. If 50 people told you oranges contain vitamin C (which is correct), and just one that it's actually vitamin B, you will know they contain vitamin C and tell others, although you can't see detect these vitamins with any of your senses. A salient feature becomes vitamin C. If it was 2 versus 1, you might not be so sure as to tell others.

A great example of the influence of teaching on our concept formation is of course formal education. Our concepts of our homelands and neighbors are partly formed via history classes. The same goes for numbers and equations, words and sentences, atoms and electrons, cells and animals, you name it.
Do note in this text a teacher can mean anyone or anything in any type of situation. A person in the street yelling help! is a teacher. He teaches you that something bad is going on. Politicians, the media, street signs, books, etc. All teachers.

Imagination

Another source of information is our own imagination. We humans have the natural tendency to make up the rest of the data if we are presented with an incomplete set. The conscious variant in an argument is often referred to as speculation. However we mostly do it unconsciously and automatically. Suppose you are a housewife and find a foreclosure sign on your front door. You know your husband never talks about finance much. In your mind you make a story. Things have been going bad apparently, and now you are in real trouble.

People like their realities to be as complete as possible in order to predict what might happen. They like to create closed concepts or complete stories when it comes to anything. A picture that covers any and all possible outcomes from A to Z. If there is not enough information from sources like experience and teaching, we make up the rest with our imagination. This is a natural survival instinct. Any form of live strives for as much control as it can get. Information is control. If you can predict a situation, you can act effectively. The unknown makes us fearful, we lack control. Hence religion, doctrine and dogma. Any missing data in our concepts, opinions and beliefs is automatically and eventually completed by our imagination.

We humans thus strive to get a complete picture, even if this means filling in some gaps with our mind. Usually we are right. However it never crossed your mind that the employee from the bank simply misread the house number. You might be scolding your husband for no valid reason. 

Reinforcement or alteration

Concepts get reinforced or altered by information. The more you receive information of one kind, the stronger the concept gets and the more resistant it becomes to different information. Concepts also increase their effect on our behavior when more of the same information is received. You probably will still try another orange after eating the first sour one, all though hesitatingly. However, if you ate three sour oranges in a row, you might never touch them again. Even the order of precedence of features might be altered by your experience when discriminating. Instead of oranges are orange, round and sour you might conceptualize oranges as being sour, orange and round, while apples remain red, round and delicious.

Example

Let's look at an example. My grandmother died in hospital. I was 6 at the time. We went to say our goodbyes while she still was in a coma. I had never been to a hospital before. I remember seeing her lying in a bed, all blue and veiny. All kinds of machines hooked up. I remember most of all the smell, the famous hospital smell. From that single moment hospitals were in my mind places of extreme negativity, best avoided. When my father was in hospital for a hernia, this image was again confirmed. In most cases hospitals are places of hope and healing. They are institutions build to preserve and extent life, to enhance it's quality. However my mind made this rule and reinforced it: hospital bad, avoid. To this day, i do my utmost to stay away from hospitals. In contrast; army bases are good. I had a good time visiting bases, admiring military hardware. It makes no sense. It is sad they need to exist. Guns and tanks destroy life. 

Discrimination and concepts 

When we discriminate, we do not solely rely on direct sensory observation. We also rely on our concepts. Concepts help to determine the relevant salient features for telling apart objects. If you already know an orange is delicious and a lemon sour, and somebody offers you a choice, you will pick an orange. No need to taste them both beforehand. The data is stored in your concepts.

The discrimination process thus relies on 2 essential sources of data. Live sensory input and the data stored in our concepts. When our senses detect an object we subconciously check if there is a stored mental picture that has the same sensory image. If one exists, we load the data of that concept. This data then helps us to determine how this object we detect is different from another, or in other words which features are salient. 


Offered choice: eat a round orange object or a yellow football-shaped. 


The sensory perception of orange + round matches the concept of an orange. We are looking at an orange. Eating?? Loading relevant concept data... an orange tastes delicious.

The sensory perception of yellow + football-shaped matches the concept of a lemon. We are looking at an lemon. Eating?? Loading relevant concept data... a lemon tastes sour.

The relevant feature is taste. Delicious vs sour. We can now make a choice.We can discriminate.


If there is no mental image, we create one based on how the new sensory image compares to stored sensory images that share one or more features. We load data from those concepts to start to create a new one. Suppose you know apples and lemons but oranges. When you first see an orange, you detect that it is round like an apple, has skin like a lemon, and a color unlike either. Since both apples and lemons are fruit, an orange is most likely a fruit. The new concepts becomes: an orange and round fruit with lemon like skin. Taste unknown. The data of this new concept is then expanded via experience, teaching and imagination. For instance when we eat the orange, taste will be added.

Concepts are influenced or created by discrimination and are used as a basis for discrimination. This process never stops. Our concepts are continually added to, altered, reinforced or devalued by new cycles of the discrimination process in the same way experience, teaching and imagination change them. It is a continual feedback loop. Previous outcomes of the discrimination process will influence future outcomes.
Oranges and apples are delicious, lemons and oranges have similar skins and lemons are football shaped instead of round. However if we suddenly eat a banana, our concepts change. Bananas are solid. Oranges, apples and lemons now have a thing in common: they are juicy. This is an extra features by which we can tell oranges, apples and lemons apart from other fruit. 
Suppose a movie teaches you that bearded vegans smoke weed, as opposed to regular people. Your concept includes information on how they can be told apart from other people: bearded plant eating weed smokers. If you then meet bearded plant eaters and discover they don't all smoke weed your concept is altered. Weed smoking becomes less salient when it comes to telling them apart from other people.

Discrimination and automation

Discrimination occurs either automatic or manual. For simple life reflexes follow sensory input. The rules for discrimination are part of the DNA program. When a shadow hovers over it a frog jumps away. The frog can discriminate between steady shadows and sudden ones.

For more advanced life rules for discrimination can be taught. Once in place these rules also provide automatic results. A tiger cub learns what is edible from its mother, a human child is taught to obey and trust persons labeled teachers but not an ordinary stranger. This automation saves us a great deal of time.

Humans posses the ability to consciously evaluate a discrimination rule, adopt or reject one, alter it, and even to deliberately create new rules. After meeting a lot of Muslims, I decided to no longer approach them with suspicion. This however is rare. Most rules are learned subconsciously from our environment and subconsciously maintained. Our brains evaluate masses of data and make determinations and alterations without us knowing it. If we ever switched off this automation, we would not be able to function. Imagine having to examine each piece of fruit in the supermarket, every time you went there.

Summary

The most salient features in which objects differ determines how we discriminate between them. This salience is influence by preexisting concepts. These in turn rely on various sources of information such as sensory input, experience, teaching and imagination. Concepts can get reinforced or devalued by new information, and thus have a stronger or weaker effect on behaviors such as discrimination. Concepts are both created by telling things apart, and influence the proces of telling them apart. This whole process is a largely automated subconscious feedback loop. Each discrimination cycle influences the next one.

The qualities of information

As we have seen previously, information plays a significant role when it comes to discrimination. So you might wonder, what characteristics of information might be important? When it comes to discrimination information can be either relevant or irrelevant, negative or positive, simple or complex, marked or unmarked, easily obtained or hard to get and consciously gathered or subconsciously.

Relevance

As pointed out previously, the relative salience of features is important when it comes to discrimination. When you have to choose between an orange and a banana, you will choose between sour and sweet, juicy and dry, and though skinned and easy to access. The fact that a banana is yellow will not matter much, even though it's an important part of the whole concept of the banana. Similarly when it comes to making concepts data that does not strike us as salience can be left out all together. I knew apples contained fiber, but it actually took looking up 10 facts about to remember it.

Marked or unmarked

Information can be marked by a teacher or left unmarked. If you continually press home that oranges contain vitamin C, people will choose it over a banana. Did you know bananas contain large amounts of vitamin B6 and vitamin C? I bet you did not. Less innocently this teacher can be a politician, proclaiming that Syrian contains a lot of terrorists. The civilians blown up by the USA in Vietnam or Iraq are just barely mentioned collateral damage..

Negative or positive

Orange is generally viewed as a beautiful color (as a dutch person I happen to know this is not merely a subjective view, but and objective fact). Sourness is viewed as a negative quality. A sour orange is beautiful but bad eating.

The mechanics of how we process information can in part be found in by looking at our primal survival instincts. Reward or danger, food or predator, mate or competitor, etc. When confronted with danger, we usually need to act fast in order to survive. Failure is not an option, because failure means death. The end of our existence. However, when presented with an opportunity failure is an option. Since we won't die, there is almost always a next time. Our evolution determined that we process negative information more quickly and act upon it more strongly and more immediate. Speed is achieved by bypassing our consciousness (if you want to know in detail of how this works i suggest you read up on brain research, specifically about the prefrontal cortex versus the lymbic system).

Our flight or fight instincts usually have a stronger hold over us than our needs and curiosity. Anything that could diminish our situation gets priority over anything that could improve it. There are of course exceptions. If you are a well fed hunter gatherer and you spot a large bear in the distance, you will give it a wide berth. Going after a bear after all is ludricous. The chance of injury is great. Better pick a reindeer. However if you are very hungry and there are no reindeer for miles, it could become an option.

But what happens if you are suddenly confronted with a bear? Most likely you would run. No matter if you are hungry. The need to live immediately overrides the need to feed. The only way a bear sighting is interpreted as positive, is indeed when you spot it at a distance. Only then, given that you are very hungry, will you consider hunting it. And you will do so at your leisure, with careful planning.

In most cases we humans are more strongly motivated by negative information than positive. When we encounter a new phenomenon, whether it be an object, a situation or a person, any hint of possible danger initially overrides any desire to explore potential benefits. Only a conscious will to examine things further will override the initial negative information.

Simple or complex

Information about an object can be categorized as simple or complex. We react much faster and much stronger to simple information than complex. This is due to the same primal mechanics. In nature we need to know what is going on fast, in order to act quickly. Our survival depends on it. We are geared towards selecting simple information and processing it quickly. Only a conscious will to examine things further will override lead us to overwrite simple understandings and gather complex ones.

A number of Muslims have blown up buildings and killed people, in the name of jihad against the west. If you call Muslims dangerous terrorists you will get a fast, strong reaction. On the other hand if you try to explain that Islam is a complex religion with many factions, and that like in any religion extremist groups can occur, and the west has been meddling in the middle east forever, and, and, and....... you will loose your audience quickly, except for the few willing to think and evaluate.

Ease of access

Iran is part of the Axis of Evil. We all know this. It was in the news constantly. A study showing Irans people to be very warm and friendly was not. A traveler such as Rick Steves could attest to this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYoa9hI3CXg). Ease of access is vital when it comes to the mechanics of discrimination. The information sources of experience and teaching rely heavily on it.

Conscious or subconscious

Concepts can be the result of reasoning. Arriving at some conclusion after careful consideration of the available data. However most information is gathered and processed subconsciously. As humans we need a great many concepts to order our world. Too many to form via conscious study.

Suppose you visit Whole Foods for the first time and you have a bad time. What then does Whole Foods become to you? Bad. Just a bad store. Did we gather the data consciously? Did we have a plan to examine every aspect of the store? Did we create our concept consciously? Well... after careful consideration of all the available products, the speeds of service and the indoor climate, i concluded that....No. We just experienced the store. Our data was subconsciously gathered via incidental exposure. Another store or another time might have given us a completely different concept. Our concept was also created subconsciously. We were not aware of any of it. Our new concept only revealed itself when we discussed our shopping trip with our family back home.

A way to save time is the unconsciously formed concept. Our need is not to find truth, which takes time, but rather to be able to interact with the world efficiently (which usually means quickly). A concept just has to be accurate enough. In other words, it's good as long as it seems to work and there seem to be no negative consequences. And once a concept is formed, we rarely go back to consciously examine things. If we had to do that for every concept we formed, we would never have time for actually doing something. Our concepts are only reinforced or altered via more exposure to data.

Accurate or inaccurate

We have seen that some of our major data sources are experience, teaching and imagination. What we left our is their relative reliability. How can we ever know the true information content of any object, let alone another soul?

 Experience has a clear advantage here. It's direct. We deal with real data, the direct observation of an ''object'' such as another persons behavior. This is called empirical evidence. We might still be hindered by our own concepts, beliefs and world view, through which we interpret what we experience, however the other two sources have even more weaknesses. 

 Teaching for instance is indirect. Not only our own concepts might hinder the accuracy of the data processing, but also those of the teacher. Next to this, the teachers might have motives that we do not know about when they relay information. We could be dealing with propaganda!

 Imagination is also indirect. The difference between experience and imagination is that while during an experience the incoming data might be shaped by our concepts and beliefs, when we imagine the data is the sole product of our existing concepts and beliefs!

Summary

Negative and simple information have a stronger impact on our behaviors than positive complex messages. The same goes for information that can be easily accessed and does not require conscious thought. Whether or not information is made salient by the teacher is also of great importance when the main source of information is teaching. 

 The qualities of information play a significant role in our discrimination process since it is entirely information based. It is thus more likely that we will make negative and/or simple concepts than complex and/or positive ones, given that all types and variants of information are available. The type of data source determines the accuracy vulnerability of our concepts. While our imagination can be correct, and while teachers can be unbiased, it is more likely that concepts based upon these two concepts contain errors. It is also more likely that our concepts contain information that can be easily accessed and subconsciously gathered.

Examples 

Black versus white

Suppose it is 1600 AD. You are a white trader. You have never met a black person. And you just stepped off the boat in Africa. You would immediately notice the lack of stone buildings, written text, clothing, etc. The closest thing you would know are the gypsies. But these people seem a far cry from those. No wagons, no metal working, no money. These black people must be less than you. A primitive version of mankind, subhumans perhaps. A concept will form in your mind. Most salient features: black skin, black hair, half naked, primitive language and customs, no technology, poor.
This concept might get reinforced a lot, after all there is a language and culture barrier that prevents you from getting to know the people really well. Your stay is also limited. After having formed a strong initial concept, you might not bother to do any research. After all, you are here just to trade.
You will take this concept home with you and teach others. Historically the European concept of Africans was just that, even though less than a hundredth of a percent of the population ever met a black person. The consequence of course is the following: do you protest if these primitive good for nothing animals are put to work on farms? No, it's probably good for them.
  Suppose it's 1990. You are a white student in a public school in London. Half the population is colored. You meet black, brown and white every day. Would you have a concept of black? Black might simply be one of the many different features on which individual humans might differ, with no special salience at all. You might discriminate between your classmates based on completely different features. Those that are salient to you. There is height, color, smell, behavior, shape of the face, strength, intelligence, behavior, social group, etc. Behavior for instance is usually the most salient feature between people that know each other. You might classify John, a black male, as a social terrorist, because he is big and a bully. You might classify Carson, another black male, and Simon a white male, as computer nerds, being both short, meek and into computers.

Muslim vs American

Suppose it is 2011. Muslims just attack the twin towers. You are an American. You have never met a Muslim, and only vaguely noticed they existed somewhere in the world. What would you be more susceptible to? Do note you were just attacked! All Muslims are bad -or- There are 1 billion Muslims, the vast majority are peaceful, living their lives like we do. It is splinter groups created by American and European meddling, and local dictators, that misinterpret Islam. Where would you even get the whole picture? All the TV is telling you is that people in the Middle East are hostile. You would need to read books or talk to travelers in order to get more information.

  Suppose it is 1989. You are a Syrian citizen. You have never met a person from the West. What you hear on TV is that the West is decadent. People there have no morals. They have premarital sex, consume alcohol and don't believe in Islam. How would you conceptualize a western person? You have very little to go on. What does decadent even mean? Besides the sex and alcohol? Your imagination will fill in the gaps. In the West there is total chaos, people do what they want when they want is. There are murders everywhere all the time. People are drunk on the streets and women offer themselves to anyone.

Of course there is sex and violence.. anywhere. People do get drunk sometimes in the West. However most people follow morals any Muslim would recognize. Work hard, take care of your family. Enjoy but not too much. Most men and women do not randomly have sex all the time. Most are in committed relationships. But you would never know this, unless you went to the West. 

Me and black people
I am a white male. Until my 27th birthday, i have never had any contact with black people. They simply were not present. At university there were a scarce few but not at the beta-department. I relied on information from the outside. It was never positive. Africa: a big mess of hunger and violence. This is not true, but it was reported as such. America: violent drug gangs, gangster rappers that adore violence and hostility. I am still scared of black people. When i meet a black person, i am automatically suspicious and cautious. I know on an intellectual level, that black people are just people. I also know now by experience that this is the case. But deep in my brain it seems there are automated responses still active that i can't correct with concious reasoning. It is all the years of negative propaganda that made very strong concepts.

Conclusion

The popular understanding of discrimination covers just a tiny facet of the subject matter the process works on. It just about the telling people apart on the basis of skin color, religion or ethnicity. Discrimination is actually an essential process to any form of life. It both regulates our physical lives and creates our mental world via the formation of concepts. It is so common, automatic and so subconscious we barely notice it.

  Concepts play a big role in the discrimination process. They are both the results and the input.

Sensory perception, experience, teaching and imagination are the main sources of information for our concepts. They determine what is salient, by which features objects are perceived to differ. Our concepts can get reinforced or altered by new information via the discrimination process itself. The discrimination process is essentially a feedback loop. Previous cycles influence new ones.

  The qualities of information matter a great deal. We process negative and simple information in a different way from positive and complex information. Our discrimination process is vulnerable to these differences. We are more likely to fear and dislike, than to love and understand. We would sooner perceive and object as simple than complex. Combined with ease of access this makes the simple mass media like television and twitter for instance potentially dangerous sources of information. Naturally they will focus on the negative and the simple, and they are readily available. Only a formal education can counter this. Here an environment is created where people have to take time to consider things, and can thus gather positive and/or complex information (which takes time).
  When we take all that has been stated into account, all of the sudden the popular negative meaning of the word discrimination, racism, does not seem so strange a behavior. In fact, it is far more amazing that we are aware of this problem, than that we engage in something so natural. It shows our capacity to think beyond the immediate and automatic.

In the next part we will look at how the mechanics of discrimation shape groups.

Group identity

Humans are group animals. We automatically seek each other out for support and company. We have a feeling called loneliness that proves this. However, we all have our individual minds with their individual content. You might like hospitals and wish to visit as often as you can, i do not. You might like rock and roll, i prefer jazz. How then do we cooperate? Well, the first thing a group of people do when they meet for the first time, is to create a group identity. Via the formation of this identity we agree on beliefs, opinions and behaviors. This identity tells us who we are, and who we are not. It determines our attitudes and behaviors versus other groups and individuals. Of course first a group needs to be established. Let's take a look at how individuals meet, how the group identity is formed and which types of groups there are. 

The search
We automatically seek out people most like us. When choice is available, we use our powers of discrimination to determine which people are most like us. When you go to a sports bar, you might automatically seek out the people that root for your team. Even if you have never met them. At a municipal meeting, we might choose to sit with the other Muslims, atheists or baptists if we can identify them by their dress.
Of course not all groups are made voluntary. At work and at school for instance, we are forced to interact with those that are there. Yet within these groups, subgroups often appear.

Let's take a look at an example before we examine the formation of the group identity.

Example 
Suppose it's you first day at a high school. You are a young male aged 14, with a keen interest in computers. You have a benign social nature, but you are socially awkward. What do you do? Whom do you seek out? Automatically you will select people most like yourself. You will discriminate via looks and behavior and the concepts you have of people types, such as nerds and jocks. You will end up sitting with those that most fit the description of nerds.
You will get to know each other quickly, exchanging personal information, likes and dislikes. Of course the topic of jocks will pass the venue at some point. And girls, teachers and parents. You might all agree that jocks are mindless automatons. At the end of their school career they will know how to throw a ball around. Definitely the enemy. Stoners are not useful for anything, but hey at least they don't harm anyone. The art people are pretty decent if a little flaky. At least they are out for the same things, to know more and better yourself. Pretty girls are hard to approach, and for some reason always attracted to the jocks, who couldn't possibly provide them with a future. Good girls are the ones with a mind of their own, who do not follow the jock-loving group. Some teachers are OK, but others are just not as smart as you are. Specifically the computer teacher, who couldn't tell the difference between Ubuntu and Linux. When the gym teacher gives a lecture about how a healthy body creates a healthy mind, implicitly praising the jocks, your group might counter with how a healthy mind could earn hard dollars via programming and then hire a personal trainer.

Group identity formation

When we meet we automatically determine through interaction what our likes and dislikes are as a group. We synchronize our beliefs, opinions and behaviors. In this negotiation process we discover where all the members stand, and what the mean value in the group is. Once these mean values are known, members will modify theirs beliefs and behaviors (on most subjects) towards the mean value. If your group really likes football, you might not speak out against it, and even watch games with them and in time adopt a liking. Of course the nature of the needs plays a big role in what is discussed and which behaviors and beliefs are synchronized. 

Leaders

Leaders within the group are often more influential than others in molding the group identity. There might be this really cool guy, who is very vocal and engages with everyone in group. His opinion about jocks will carry more weight than those of others. 

The nature of identity

The nature of a group identity is much the same as that of the individual. There is a concept of the self; an internal narrative of who and what we are, and most importantly of who we are not. The identities of our more permanent groups provide us with a safety and purpose. The identities determine our attitudes and behaviors versus others and amongst ourselves. Our world view is wrapped up in these.

Group identity types

Relevant needs
Grouping depends on the situation. In situation X where we have needs Y, we will seek out those that also posses the needs labeled Y. These needs have several attributes. A need can be immediate or long term, it can can cover single objective or multiple and can have a high or low priority. Based on our needs and the situation groups are permanent or incidental, important or casual, and cover a single need or be comprehensive.
A group formed at work might be based upon a great many needs and would be long term. These are the people you depend upon for support in any situation for as long as your employment lasts. It is important for your well being to maintain these types of group relations. If there is an accident in your neighborhood you would seek out your neighbors in to stand next to. These people are familiar to you and the best option for a casual chat about the goings-on as the ambulance arrives. Your need would be immediate, low priority and cover a single goal.

Permanence
As we have seen above, needs can be permanent or temporary. The same goes for the groups based on these needs. Some groups, like your family and your country might last a life time, while others just a career and some might even vanish as soon as an event is over. 

Variable membership
From the above we can gather that people are not just part of one group, but a great many at the same time. These groups can also be permanent, semi permanent or indicental. Membership can come and go. You might be a permanent member of your family and your country. You could also be a member of the sales department, the volunteer fire brigade, your neighborhood, and a sports team. Incidentally you might find yourself a member of the not guilty faction in a jury, or part of the housewife section in a self help seminar.

Group identity activation

So if we are part of multiple groups, where and when do we behave as members of which group?

Relevant context
We only behave according to a specific group identity when taking part in a context that is related to that group. At home you behave according to different rules than at school. How your family looks at the world is also different from that of your school group. Though not necessarily conflicting, different things matter. You might not like football much, if you are a computer nerd, but when England plays Germany you cheer for your countrymen all the same. After all your are English, and the context is England vs Germany and not jocks vs nerds. We can even find ourselves conflicted. Suppose there is a local football match between your high school team and the next. Do you support your football team as a member of your school, or disregard the event as part of the nerds?

Group identity defense

A group identity provides us with what we seek as humans, security, a home, a purpose and a world view. Thus the identities of our more permanent, comprehensive and high priority groups are not lightly given up. We will defend them against them against any enemies, foreign or domestic, that we might perceive. Together we stand against the jocks, the school board, and someone in our group that has been seen socializing with the jocks. 

The sufficient self

Healthy individuals can not accept another as completely superior to themselves. Even when the evidence is clear. It's a defense mechanism. Motivation for any action (for instance self preservation) becomes troublesome if you think of yourself as less. You think of yourself, when all things are considered, as equal or better. Even if you admire a certain quality in someone else. Imagination can play a big part when it comes to forming concepts to support this notion.

The only way you can safely think of someone as better, is to assign God status. A commonly accepted concept of better than anyone that includes the clause of exemption of the self from competition due to unreachability for mere morals. A person with God status exempts yourself from the need to feel better. The status can be partial, as evidenced by actors and athletes. 

The sufficient group

The sufficient self also holds true for groups. By nature, all groups consider themselves superior to any other group. This provides a potent source for conflict when dealing with other groups. The needs of the home group will aways have to come first. Individuals however can change their own mind, and leave the group for one they consider better. 

Example

A good example are the Lutherans. Back in the day, people all over Europe were unhappy with Rome's rule of the Catholic Church. Various oppositions formed. In Germany Martin Luther gave voice too many commonly held misgivings. People started to seek each other out, identifying each other via an exchange of thoughts. Eventually a permanent group called the Lutherans was established with Lutheranism as their core belief. All members synchronized their behavior to adhere to its guidelines. Of course the competing group, the Catholics had to go. They were deemed inferior. So the Lutherans build new and re purposed old Catholic churches, printed new bibles, and recruited new members.

Summary

The creation of a group identity happens everywhere, at school, at work, in the gym or on the streets. It happens in any size. A household, a school, a company, a town, a city, a nation or a continent. It happens whether the grouping is voluntary or not.

In every situation we seek out those most like ourselves, with similar needs and goals. We begin the process of creating a group identity by exchanging views and behaviors. In the formation process we synchronize these beliefs and behaviors, creating a standard. Leaders can have a big influence as they are often the most vocal and are held as examples.

After formation the identity tells us who we are and who we are not. A group identity provides the individual with a sense of identity, a world view and security. Therefore we defend it fiercely. A potential source for conflict is the sense of superiority inherent to a group identity.

Based upon the situation and our relevant needs, groups can be permanent or fleeting in nature, cover a single need or multiple and be important to us or just casual. It is the context which determines the group identity that is activated.

-end of rewrite 2017- ill do the rest later.

Groups and discrimination

The same laws as mentioned earlier for individuals are in effect when discriminating between groups: the most salient features in which they differ plus the amount and quality of information available. For our information we again rely on direct experience, imagination and what we are taught. The source of the data that falls under teaching can be anything. A television show, a neighbor, a blog like this one, or an add in a magazine depicting a specific race as superior. For the salient features, well these can be anything. Perhaps some groups are very good crafstsmen, others might stand out as warriors, etc.
So what decides group vs groups, which become our friends and which our foes?
We now know that we automatically form groups with the people most like ourselves in whatever situation. We make up a collective mind about our own identity and at the same time the identity of other groups. We decide on our purpose and nature, and that of others, classifying them into friend or foe. Strong factors in all these classifications efforts are our perceptions of relative power, wealth, familiarity, similarity and the compatibility of goals. Of course classification is just a fancy word for a type of discrimination, fed by salient features, experience, imagination and what we are taught. Based on the perceptions for these factors we decide who we like and who not.
Do note, in the absence of direct experience and factual teachings our imagination plays an important role.

Let's look at an example.

Suppose you live in a red state in the south of the US, having never met a Chinese person. You might very well feel the them versus us feeling based on all the news of China outgrowing the US, and about their communist system which lacks the essential American ingredients of liberty and God. A threat. You might imagine that Chinese people are mindless, godless automatons that would make the entire world into a gray, bleak, lifeless place. They all look the same, they are just copies. We as Americans are good liberty loving Christians. Based on the salient features in which we differ, and the information available we can clearly determine there are two groups, Chinese and Americans. We differ significantly from these Chinese people. We find ourselves competing for the same resources and for world domination. Our group has the right to win, because the Chinese are bad. To hell with them.

However if you live in San Francisco and your neighbors are Chinese, you might know them as very respectable individuals. You can tell the difference between one Chinese person and another. Their physical appearance is no longer salient, no longer sets them apart. You might conceptualize the them versus us quite differently. The Chinese system is at fault, it differs in a negative way from the American system, the Chinese themselves are good people. We still differ from China, but not the Chinese. They believe in communism, we in liberty. We still have the right to win, however we might want to educate and liberate the Chinese rather than destroying them.

Group identity is an important factor in the discrimination between groups, and a both a contributing and necessary factor to competition between groups. When faced with limited resources, we have to fight for them. In order to fight group versus group, there must be a difference, real or not, between you and the competition. Luckily, we usually have formed group identities in advance. It not only provides a save home, an identity, but also the required basis for competition. They are not us, they are different. Group identity makes the occurrence of conflicts likely, especially when competing for resources.

When competing we need to demonize the opposition. We need to explain to ourselves why the us is better than the them. Why we have the right to the resources. What we do is instill our opponents with negative basic characteristics. This is automated behavior. We are geared towards selecting and  processing simple information and react strongly to the negative. When observing the enemy, it is more natural to draw conclusions about their basic characteristics based on their immediate behavior, than to consider their motivations from a neutral and wider view. Suppose you are an Indian farmer. When you see a tiger in your area, you become suddenly aware of a great danger, by automatically assuming it wants to eat you. After all it's a murderous and agressive species. You will not take the time to observe its behavior. Perhaps it was just tracking a mate. No, you go out and shoot it. This is why most conflicts between groups and individuals seem to revolve around disliking specific physical or behavioral characteristics. If not at first so simple, often conflicts devolve to this level. I am sure the Russians now have specific cursewords for their Ukrainian neighbours by now and vice versa.

Discrimination takes place on all the levels that grouping does. In an USA national election northerners might discuss the backwardness of southerners amongst themselves. New Yorkers might ''diss'' the Chicago style pizza. After all, only New Yorkers know how to make good pizza. That's a well known fact. In New York..

Discrimination can even help to create new group identities. When the white sailors met the black Africans for the first time, automatically a new identity was spread in Europe. We, the white race. Before colonization and trade started in the early enlightenment period, Europeans didn't really think of themselves as white. Just as Christians, and not heathens (Muslims or barbarians).
In summary, group identity is an elementary factor in discrimination between groups. When discriminating, groups instill eachother with basic negative characteristics. The need for discrimination in enhanced when competing for resources.


The Monkey Sphere

Group identity has no limits. We can be members of various groups at the same time. Groupsize can range from 3 to infinite. What does have a limit is the number of people we can see as people. According to Dunbar there is room enough in our brains for active relations with about a 150 individuals (for inactive relations there is no limit). Any more and the social group would be unstable. The research is mainly based on monkeys with an important factor being the amount of time they can spend on social grooming. With 50 individuals monkeys already need to spend 40% of their time grooming in order to maintain social relationships with each other, and thus social cohesion in the group. Brainsize was also found to limit how many individuals we can percieve before we need to generalize. It was extrapolated that humans, with larger brains and using language for grooming, can form cohesive groups up to about a 148 individuals. Other scientists propose different numbers, however, the range is between 100 and 350.
David Wong described The Monkey Sphere. We can percieve a certain number of people as real persons, with feelings, vices, skills, etc. These people are part of our immediate social group. We can not have meaningfull connections with more than that. People outside our own sphere become faceless stereotypes, just like we are to them. While we care about what happens to those we know, we have little regard for people outside the sphere. This mechanic is supposedly found everywhere, at every level.
David Wong futher explains that today humans depend on very large groups in order to survive. However most people that we need for supplying our daily needs are part of the faceless masses. The whole reason stereotypes are necessary is to deal with larger numbers. We need to generalize. These stereotypes can have various content. Good, bad, neutral. Friend or foe. Industrious or lazy. And so on. Our actions follow the stereotypes. The rich stereotype the poor, and the poor stereotype the rich. Since these stereotypes are negative, either is capable of harming the other without feeling much guilt. Their actions simply depend on the content of their stereotypes, and, the needs of their own Monkey Spheres.
Group identity has no limits, while the Monkey Sphere does. The individuals within our Monkey Sphere might be part of competing groups. We might not even like them. Our group identity might be the overriding factor in our actions. We might harm people within our Monkey Sphere. However, the threshold to do so is much higher. We know these people, they are real to us. Their suffering is felt. And this is the point where The Monkey Sphere influences large scale group behavior. Namely 1) the suffering of people outside the sphere is not felt. And 2) the automatic stereotyping of anyone outside our own sphere is an important mechanic in the competition between groups, and the cooperation within a group. While it might be hard to attack or help a person you know, and like or dislike, it is easy to act against the interests of the faceless members of a competing group (bad guys) and easy to assist the faceless members of our own (good guys). 

Discrimination and understanding

Discrimination is an essential natural feature of living organisms. Among the laws that govern this process are the salience of features and information. There are different hazards to being taught and to having experienced. Negative information is stonger than positive. The process often happens subconsciously. Discrimination is not only part of the individual but also the group. Group identity is automatically formed via the need for cooperation, and the needs for security and a home. Because the identity provides these features, it is also strongly defended. Cooperation between groups suffers as a result. When competing for resources, conflict is easy to provoke. We like to instill our opponents with negative basic characteristics and keep the message simple.

If you are a student of man, you might come to the analysis given above. You might realize that black and white are arbitrary differences. People might as well have been orange and purple, the same situations would occur. It is a simple matter of behavioral laws. You can justifiably abstract the discrimination process between black and white as a behavioral function with the variables group A and group B, where A and B can have any information content, and A and B compete for resource X.

You realize that the differences that members of one group percieve of the other are also arbitrary in the same way. Who is to tell if the jogs are really good or bad, or if the nerds are really good or bad? There are of course functional differences, but are they really important in the end? Jogs are generally physically stronger than nerds. Is this strenght relevant to the discrimination process, or is the simple fact that they differ on an salient variable important? The same animosity and resulting behaviors between jogs and nerds might occur between factory workers and administrative workers within a car company. After all, white collar works use their heads to get ahead in life, they own the future. Blue collar works are mindless beasts, their only value and skill lies in physical labor. Administrative workers however are rarely former nerds. Nerds are to be found in IT. In other words, discrimination is a natural behavior and it's content arbitrary.

Understanding and choice

Those who understand the laws of discrimination and group identity can make choices. And here lie both danger and salvation. People can choose to enlighten others, to ease tensions, to enhance the level of knowledge that one individual or group has of the other. However, you can also choose to abuse this understanding for your own personal profit. You could play groups against each other via propaganda. If you have an arms factory, this would be a good business decision.

Government

In any society, various jobs need doing to make it work. From the mundane to the fabulous. We can't all be industry leaders or superstars. We can't all go to college. Cars need building, plumbing needs laying, busses need driving. Dentists and docters are needed, dock workers and lorry drivers.

When individuals form a group we recognize that we all need certain things, food, shelter, transportation, etc. If we work together, greater results can be achieved than working alone. But who will do which job? How do we trade resources? The importance of organization is recognized. Somebody will have to organize things. You can't build a street hap hazard as individuals, everyone laying cobblestones where they want. Subsequently the importance of leadership is recognized. Groups need organization to be effective, organization needs leadership. Thus government is born. An important job that makes any society work is that of government employee. From president of the country to local administrative clerk.

Most of us do not have time to think about how to govern let alone be in the government. We have jobs to do. We would like to task an adequate number of people to carry out this essential function for us. Most of us do not posses the intelligence or education to deal with the complexities of government. Who would you want to be in government? Ideally we want a government that is the most effective in organizing our society. A government that brings us as individuals the most benefits, and secondary to the group. We would like to select the smartest individuals with the best intentions to do the job. We expect our leaders to be smarter and more capable than we are, for else what would be the point of their leadership? They would add nothing we couldn't do ourselves.

Government and politics

Despite our group identities, various opinions on how to govern can exist within one group, often due to the existence of sub-groups, and sometimes due to individual differences. Debate is needed to finalize the group behavior and identity. Thus politics is born.

Those very smart individuals we select as our political leaders often are aware of some of the mechanics of human behavior, like discrimination and group identity. Invariably some would choose their own interests above that of the group, and attempt to further them by influencing the group, playing the strings as puppet masters, with the stings existing of 'information'. Something we know as propaganda. We know that information plays a crucial role in group identity, group behavior and in the process of making sense of the world called discrimination. If you can control information, you can control the group. The fight that goes on in the United States between the supporters of 'social justice', best represented by Jon Stewart, and 'the 1%', best represented by Dick Cheney, is essentially a fight for information control (best is based on the salience of both figures during the bush years, and their opposing views).

Two characteristics of politics are trade and competition. Those very smart individuals who know how the human game works, trade with each other for positions, or fight each other via propaganda. Positions of power are often the result of either behind closed doors horse trading or public fights. This has a negative consequence for the group. Not the individual with the best intention is selected by default, but the most skillful player. This player can be one of three things.

Politicians and discrimination

Three kinds of politicians exist. Stupid politicians, good politicians and bad politicians.

Stupid politicians are people that are not the smartest individuals in a group. Their selection to positions of power seems at first strange. However, this can be the result of puppet masters playing behind the scenes, with the individual in public view exhibiting certain attractive qualities such as physique, demeanor, likability etc. Example: George W. Bush. A stupid politician might also simply be a stronger individual than a smart well educated competitor. They might be louder in their propaganda and more forceful in their actions.

Good politicians are those very smart individuals with the best intentions for their group. Example: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With the new deal he saved the great masses of the United States from poverty. With his pre war policies towards Japan he brought on world war 2 starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor. He cut Japan off oil, knowing they would attack. Japan could either give up its Empire or start a war. He knew the American public did not want a war, but he also knew that war would come eventually if Japan and Germany were let to fester. Publicly he paid lip service to isolationism, deceiving the American public in their own interest. The played the role of puppet master to the benefit of the group. Example: Gandhi. This very smart individual understood group mechanics. He succeeded in liberating India from the British but failed in his attempt to create peace and understanding between Muslims and Hindu's. Though not due to lack of effort. He attempted to bring people together. He tried to show similarities between the groups, and the arbitrary nature of their distinctions. But his message was much more complex than the simple message based on hatred of a supposedly lesser kind of human. In essence good politicians harmonize.

Bad politicians are those very smart individuals possessing only self interests and a willingness to use the group to further them. Example: Ronald Reagan. While seemingly having the best intentions towards the American public, behind the scenes he setup the conditions for what we now know as the one percent. He secured their privileges and power. Another example would be Dick Cheney. While his public imagine was that of defender against terrorism, the whole terrorism adventure resulted in the loss of public freedoms and privileges, and a substantial increase in power and wealth of the one percent, with whom he can directly be linked on the golf course. Think of expenditures in arms and surveillance. Think of the target surveillance agencies: everybody. Consider their power: the rights of total invasion of privacy. All your communications and all your actions are now subject to their review.
These bad politicians often use the mechanics of discrimination and group identity in a negative way. They create or enhance them versus us attitudes. They stimulate the awareness of differences, giving them salience. Decent hard working white people versus dangerous black hip hop gang bangers. Americans versus Muslims. Muslims of course dress differently, act differently, and most importantly follow a hostile primitive religion. Or so the propaganda claims. In essence, bad politicians divide and conquer.

In summary, those with the understanding can make a choice. Whether to act in the interest of the group, or in their own interest, using the group. Bad politicians can be categorized as those who use their understanding of the mechanics of discrimination in order to divide and conquer. Good politicians can be categorized as those who use the knowledge to harmonize. Perhaps this categorization can function as a logical basis for selecting leaders.

Conclusions

Discrimination is not a clear cut phenomenon. It is not a question of good and bad. It is a complex natural mechanic that we employ to make sense of the world. Salience of features in which objects differ and information about them play key roles. Discrimination between individuals and between groups is a natural phenomenon. The automatically created group identities play a key role in the discrimination process between groups and in the competition between them. Conflicts arise more readily when groups compete for the same resources. We automatically instill our opponents with negative basic characteristics because of the way we select and process information.

Individuals with knowledge of these mechanics can either choose to exploit them, or benefit the group. Those who choose the first option have an advantage. Fear and hatred are created more easily. Humans are more susceptible to simple and negative messages than complex messages that bring understanding. Bad politicians are divisive because it works.

(+take question list and cross out)

Addendum: Discrimination and amazement

Given what we know about human behavior, a bleek future seems to be looming. However, if you take a look at history a different picture arises. The number of wars decreased sharply the past few centuries. We have developed human rights, anti discrimination laws, an international court of justice. It is quite amazing realizing we come from a past where the wholesale slaughter of enemy tribes was common place. A big potential fault line however might be limited resources due to global warming. This is quite unnecessary, since we have the technology to provide everyone with clean food and energy. We currently simply lack the will to use it. Doing so would erode some of the powerbase of those that seek to divide and conquer.

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