Friday, March 15, 2019

Where is prejudice against LGBTQ people comes from?

Same-sex behaviors have different names and recognizations in different cultures before the emergence of capitalism. And many cultures do not have a strong prejudice against "LGBTQ" people. However, it seems the prejudice of homosexuals are immoral became prevalent in a lot of cultures after the industrial revolution and the expansion of Western cultures.
My experience in China told me it was very hard to convince others if they believe homosexuals are immoral. So I have been interested in where are people's "gut feeling" about something is immoral comes from. And this psychology article helped me to understand this question. It seems people's moral "gut feelings" are related to a certain brain area that controls the emotion responses. And when people look at something they considered as immoral, their disgust area becomes more active. And disgust has an unfortunate habit of bringing condemnation down on people for what they are, not just for what they do. Disgust is a major factor in the condemnation of homosexuals (Haidt & Hersh, in press). And we focused too much on the logical arguments to demonstrate why something is moral, or immoral. But it seems these arguments do not really matter because they barely change other people's emotional response to certain issues. On the other hand, this emotion-morality connection seems to be forged by the environment and culture they grow up with. If that is the case, does the debates about whether homosexuals are moral or not matter? Or does the debates about whether any other controversial topics are moral or not matter?

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