An Intractable Imperfection

Of all the practices which render "human civilization" a contradiction in terms, perhaps the most pernicious is that of irrational discrimination -- of treating others as inferior to oneself on account of their skin color or their gender or their nationality or their sexual orientation or their religious beliefs or the size of their wallets. What makes such discrimination even more horrific is that the cause of the bigotry which lies behind it is as easy to discern as it is difficult to eliminate.

While different bigotries may have different impetuses at different times, at bottom virtually all those who impose, enforce, or agree with discriminatory measures against fellow human beings they do not regard as "fellows" share one trait in common: a notable dearth of empathy. If men, whites, Christians, straights, billionaires could put themselves in the shoes of women, blacks, Jews, gays, paupers, at least half the world's injustices would vanish overnight -- or never have come to exist in the first place. And the only effective way to foster such empathy is through education -- in the form of personal examples set by parents, in the form of classroom discussions run by teachers, in the form of government- or business-sponsored programs on television, in the form of subjecting tomorrow's would-be bigots to firsthand experience of bigotry today. This last would seem an especially powerful pedagogical tool, given the average person's innate self-centeredness.

To be sure, I am hardly the first to recognize the importance of education in shaping one's attitude toward others. The musical "South Pacific" contains a dandy little tune about how "you've got to be carefully taught" to hate people who seem different from you. The same message has been hammered home in hundreds if not thousands of intellectually more "reputable" venues. And the number of individuals who dedicate their lives to preaching tolerance continues to grow.

Yet grounds for optimism remain few. Narrow in scope, most of these educational endeavors aim to reduce this or that particular manifestation of bigotry rather than bigotry per se. So the world still abounds with philosemitic Christians who hate gays, gay-friendly heterosexuals who loathe blacks, and men of every creed and color who look down upon women.

A more fundamental problem concerns the "nature of the beast" itself (and I use the word "beast" deliberately). However great their education, most human beings -- not all, by any means, but the overwhelming majority -- are simply incapable of imagining themselves to be someone other than who they are -- and thus unable to cultivate that level of empathy without which neither bigotry nor the resultant discrimination can ever be laid to permanent rest. Gradually, it is true, homo sapiens may -- MAY -- do more to deserve that appellation. But should aliens from another world one day decide to eliminate their human inferiors, humanity would certainly have no legitimate reason to protest.