The Disgust & Contamination Explanations for Prejudices

By Gary Berg-Cross

American culture has a bit of a prejudice against secular humanists and atheists (see for example Margaret Downey’s Discrimination Against Atheists -The Facts). As widely noted the atheist/non-theist/freethinker group is highly unpopular, although it may be scant comfort to know we are more popular than the tea party.

Why this seemingly deep down prejudice, feeling of disgust and “yuck” response towards non-believers? A partial explanation seems to involve an interplay of how primitive emotions are evoked in a socially intelligent beings and how some stereotypical views frame these. Social Psychology has studied such things as part of inter-group prejudice and offers some explanations to help understand the basis of out-group perception.

A naive psychology thinks of prejudice and discrimination as a simple summative response of positive and negative affects. So if non-believers are seen as say “untrustworthy” with great affect then it may cancel out any good affects for being “intelligent”. But it turns out that a simple additive-subtractive model doesn’t capture what is observed in such things as prejudice and aversion. One obvious problem is that not all affects are the same and can’t be summed along one dimension. Anger, fear sadness and disgust are all negative affects, but they tend to produce different behaviors which seem to have a long evolutionary history. For example anger tends to prompt aggression, while fear prompts avoidance/escape. Paul Rozin, University of Pennsylvania psychology professor, notes that humans and animals express emotions in similar ways which suggests that a core of affective reactions were conserved during evolution and have a common form. Disgust, for example, produces a characteristic facial expression that includes a grimace, the lower jaw dropping, the tongue sticks out, and a wrinkled nose (part of which is seem in the picture above). A consistent emotional response is evidence that it is functional for species survival. We can easily imagine how anger and fear would serve survival. An emotion like disgust is a bit harder to understand, but probably has to do with avoiding contagious illness or consistent sickness problems with food sources. Young humans are cautious about new foods, which probably has survival value.

But it’s not just young children that show a yuck factor/response to unfamiliar food. Research suggests that while there is a core of universally repugnant items (bodily emissions like feces, vomit & spit seem like universal avoidances) but the yuck response is often culturally based too. We see that often in food biases some of which involve religious taboos, such as kosher food commands. But some are not forbidden, but discouraged. You wouldn’t expose your kids to eating insects would you? Well many cultures do. In 2007 a California referendum banned restaurants from selling dog or horse meat because the majority of voters viewed their consumption by people as repugnant. But throughout Africa & Asia, both these meats are about as popular as hot dogs and hamburgers.

The point is that disgust/repugnance is the emotional expression of something deep down and when it is evoked it seems an intuitive wisdom that people don’t need to explain - “I just don’t like it.”When cultures pick these up they can make some behaviors seem as detestable by evoking negative emotion works - "yuck".

So humans come with these deep seated animal feelings but they now lie under and serve newly social cognitive abilities used by our species to communicate and interact within a larger culture. The older emotions now have a greater sphere to play in and more than a summative pattern. When different groups argue (e.g. non-theists and theist) it matters what emotion word-concepts are used, what mix of emotions are evoked, how they are conceptualized and how the groups respond to these.

The new reality is that for a highly cognitive animal affect doesn’t remain an isolated quantity, but usually is harnesses to serve a cognitive construct that mediates understanding. Thus an affect like disgust can be dynamically framed and made to serve interpretations. Consider the idea that atheists may be “smart” but also “unethical”. People can isolate the smart aspect and categorize it as high status which may be construed as “uppity” or “too good” and thus dangerous for the rest of us. Thus positive characteristics may be interpreted in a way that categorizes them as something else, something dangerously manipulative – Machiavellian perhaps. Machiavelli, Marx these are people that "yuck" responses are attached to reflexively. This construct could be assembled to evoke a disgusting image such as intelligence being unmercifully used to batter innocent beliefs. This idea of disgustingly unethical, untrustworthy but intelligent nonbelievers may produce considerable negative feelings which, as Paul Meade suggests, trigger a defense mechanism to an assumed threat:

When a theist, who considers himself a well informed person, see's people he considers as intelligent or more intelligent than himself, who do not agree with his religious views, he may feel that his views are possibly not 100% correct. This may trigger a defense mechanism, and a necessity to pigeonhole those persons into a definition of character that is acceptable to his peer group. So atheists become immoral, untrustworthy, etc. This predefined identity is easier to accept then having to discover the truth personally.

This formulation touches on what social psychologies call the "social contamination" hypothesis of group prejudice. This is the idea that a hated group may be seen, not primarily as a direct threat to physical survival or to resources, but as a bearer of pollution or disease. Framed this way non-theists are a danger to the integrity, rightness and purity of an individual or group of theists. Likewise Marx is a danger to all right thinking capitalists. If we are successfully exposed to these "dangerous ideas" we become contaminated and therefore contagious. Something like this view may help explain the feelings of danger and the need for protection from their thoughts that freethinkers evoke. The contaminated label makes the aggressive brand of atheists and freethinkers unclean, dangerous and socially unacceptable.But all types of freethinkers get a bit of this branding.

But of course this type of construct is not unique to religious believers. The angst and disgust many atheists have with religious culture is just as likely to be based on a fear of being contaminated by dangerous religious ideas. In this way there is a symmetry of views with each having its reasons not to think well of the other. So are theists and non-theists equally guilty of prejudice towards the other? Not exactly.

One of the things that breaks this simple symmetry is that freethinkers tend to use a validated method of reason and empiricism for their concerns. Indeed on the average they seem to know more about some aspects of religion and its history that theists. This is partly due to intellectual curiosity, valuing knowledge and reasoning. Another is that religions are the majority culture and most people get to swim, often unconsciously, in its constructs enshrined in language, the arts and institutions. This cultural combination, combined with a style that does not question social conventions, makes it seem natural for theists to have a feeling of contamination-driven disgust accompanies feelings of fear and perhaps anger or sadness when something comes along to challenge their religious taste for ideas. The response then is to seek separation from these ideas and the people who espouse them. The contaminating people then are seen as a of an out-group from the larger society who evokes a mix of emotions like anger followed by aggression or sadness followed by withdrawal.

All emotions we’ve probably experienced with religious friends or perhaps in debates on blogs. Understanding the phenomena helps a bit, but it still leaves open the question of how best to battle a prejudice that is felt deep down and not in need of analysis and justification by experience. As with all group conflicts actual interaction in favorable settings can help dispel the misconceptions between groups. Participating in inter-faith conversations is one direction and this may be good in that many do not know what non-theists are like and the basis of our values and beliefs. But of course to actually challenge other people's beliefs in these conversations may be perceived as out of bounds. Some inter-faith discussions seem more like pro-forma affairs than honest inquiries.

And alas changing people's prejudices is a long process.
Understanding is slow to take effect may be localized to an individual or small group.

Celebrating the Diversity of the Freethinking Species

By Gary Berg-Cross

Recently I was involved in a discussion of the relations of Atheism to Freethinking, Secular Humanism and allied concepts. One person proposed a common sense model with atheism at the center. The basic idea reflects the hypothesis that most people grow up in a religious culture, but for various reasons some move away from a family/childhood religious identify. The idea is that the natural tendency is to simply settle on some variant that calls itself atheism or agnosticism. There are other allied, freethinking positions such as skeptics, humanists, secularist or even secular humanists. Some people are exposed to these ideas and values in their family and/or education. But these represent a minority of the various groups that make up the allied complex of atheists and Freethinkers. In this view a complex movement like Secular Humanism is, by and large, not well understood even by freethinking people who move to and stay with the Atheism label and concept.

Trying to understand the diverse relations of freethinkers I started to think of a slightly different model for the various groups. While imperfect, and perhaps embarrassingly so, I found it amusing to play around with an Evolutionary Biology metaphor of species classification. In this rough analogy ideas (meme?) are organisms with bio-features. One could think of Atheism or Agnosticism as at the root node (call either of these the A-cell species). We can think of this as species made up of a single cell representing the idea feature – there is no god. The analogy is a certainly a bit jury rigged and can break down, but at least provides a way of talking about some phenomena and issues such as diversity. So as with Bio-species, religious cell populations (R-cells) can mutate into any one of these A-cells types and so the Atheist population can grow in this way too. This type of mutation is what happens in the world of ideas. There is also merging of ideas (cells) to form a new organism and some of these can reproduce as a new species.

Given the idea of Atheism as species we might think of this as a population of cells each having a meme for that Atheist idea. Some A-cells might mutate back into an R-cell. Bit this A-cell population can reproduce and can produce various non-branching types of Atheists populations. Some are militant others not. Some have allied ideas but still reproduce as an A-cell.

Biological populations and the implied dynamic of Freethinking thought then becomes somewhat analogous to what happens with the evolution of different species - there is a branching evolution of species. Isolation from the main population can also produce speciation. So if one population of atheists finds itself with tolerant religious populations it may emphasize a less assertive form of atheism than one that is an intruding religious population that is messing with the environment. Over time this becomes its own species distinct from the original A-cell population. The model represents various species as population descendents of the cell branch off of the A-node. As in Biology the later forms tend to be more complex – muti-cellulars made by aggregating additional ideas. These arise mostly from a series of step-wise, co-linear mutations, but not all new species survive and continue to reproduce. They may be only temporary, but lead to fitter forms.

Over time the Atheist tree looks different as some descendents thrive. Diverse richness is built slowly as some species fall away as intermediate forms. Those that survive are specialized reflecting selection based on environments that support additional ideas. These ideas provide some fitness advantage in some environment. So Atheism can exist in most environments, but a slightly more complex “organisms” like Secularism or Humanism formed over time can exist in dynamic balance with Atheism in a goodly portion of the environment. These will do better in environment that are less religious and provide some humanist or secular nourishment.

Reproduction is obviously a key factor and includes the idea of a merged mating as well as direct copying. Mating blends ideas but preserves the overall species design. There may be natural barriers to prevent individuals of one species from mating with another. For example there are various forms of isolation to overcome. Two individuals from different species may not have compatible behavior to allow merging. One thinks of examples of inharmonious freethinking positions clashing. Or the barrier may be that they don’t frequent the same territory (talk about the same ideas?). In the real world this is the case with tigers and lions. They don’t usually find them selves in similar environments. But they can in zoos. Lion fathers mating with tiger moms produce the exotic Liger.

Which brings me to that exotic specialized organism that is the product of Secularism and Humanism. I speak of Secular Humanism in the way that Paul Kurtz defines it using 5 ideas beyond the non-theistic idea that is the basis of simple Atheism:

1. Emphasis on methods rather than conclusions,
2. Naturalism & science,
3. Ethics,
4. Democracy, and a
5. Planetary scope.

One might add others and make finer distinctions, such as the idea if rationalism, the value of peace or detailing the caring for planet earth, but these features alone requires represent an evolved population and require a certain environment, such as valuing Science, to survive. Is this exotic creature, a philosophic counter to Religious species, on its way to being endangered or even possibly extinction? I think and hope not, but a challenge is always reproduction in the face of changing environments. Neither Secularism nor Humanism need spawn a Secular Humanist. And the reproductive rate for Secular Humanists seems not to be high as individual may not find each other to produce Secular Humanist children. Children may devolve back to one of the simpler forms. As a complex organism Secular Humanist have some advantages and we might expect much from this population. But it face various challenges including how do members of the population signal to each other in a teaming environment filled with other species of Freethinker? Members face reproductive issues – what is produced in mating with just a Secular person? Is it the species of Secular Humanism? Will a Liger-type species be produced or is Secularism a dominant form that results? Will the population help produce an environment more favorable to population survival?

These are just a few of the issues that the metaphor promotes, but does not necessarily answer. As in the Biological world one can argue that species diversity represents a value in itself and is an implicit foundation for human existence. If the metaphor applies then the full range of freethinking species also represents a foundation on which ideas at the apex of the classification, like Secular Humanism is built. All are needed as part of a supporting rich mix.

I like the image of an ideational world with this diversity of freethinking species arising via something analogous to macroevolution. We can imagine the Freethinking Genus as network growing out of roots with founder populations represented by idea of Heracleitus & Protagoras. These evolve and radiate to later populations represented by ideas from Hobbes to the local American sub-species of Robert Ingersoll and on to Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Corliss Lamont and the more recent Paul Kurtz, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Perhaps we can have it all, but perhaps we need to think about endangered species and the role they play in the Freethinking web. I like the implied progress by advanced forms of freethinking such seen in this progress and as formulated more fully in Secular Humanism.

Charles Bradlaugh: Remembering a 19th Century Secular Hero

by Gary Berg-Cross

I recently ran across of a review of a book by Bryan Niblett called Dare to Stand Alone: The Story of Charles Bradlaugh, Atheist and Republican. It tells the story of a Charles Bradlaugh, who I hadn’t heard of. This was a great find since he was one of Britain (and the 19^th century’s) leading atheist and secular voices who also practiced law and tried a hand at politics. (But then, by some counts Britain has much longer list of political atheists than even the US ). Bradlaugh (1833 – 1891) was (like Robert Ingersol) famous in his time, but is less known now. As Ferdinand Mount, the reviewer of Niblett’s book notes this is the first new biography for nearly 40 years. It:

“…makes us understand why Bradlaugh deserves more than a footnote in political and legal history. His contemporaries understood this well enough. Half a dozen biographies were published in his lifetime and several more after his death. His funeral procession to Brookwood Crematorium required three special trains and was attended by many young men who were to be heard much of in the next century, notably Gandhi and Lloyd George. Lord Queensberry was also present, to bear witness to his loathing of ‘Christian tomfoolery’. So was Walter Sickert, who painted the enormous portrait of Bradlaugh that now hangs in Manchester Art Gallery.

To me it was interesting to find parallels between Bradlaugh and Robert Green Ingersoll. They were both brilliant lawyers, great orators and took on the establishment in several ways. This was something so obvious that it was celebrated earlier in 1933 with a book called Bradlaugh and Ingersoll : a centenary appreciation of two great reformers. And there is a blog site called Ingersoll Bradlaugh discussing how their analysis and oratory took on preachers and interpretations of the Bible.

Bradlaugh was a freethinger and called is daughter Hypatia after the 4th-century women said to have been the last librarian of Alexandria. See my In Praise of Libraries and Librarians- ancient and modern for more on theis.

Bradlaugh perhaps had more famous legal and political battles and a greater role in leading a host of secular organizations. He rose from humble origins and started work early (11) as an office boy. By 17, he published his first pamphlet, A Few Words on the Christian Creed. After serving in the army in India he took a post as a solicitor's clerk, rising to be a legal advocate with a grasp fine procedural points. This is something which served him well since he suffered numerous attacks as a secular reformer. By 1858 he was President of the London Secular Society and in 1860 he became editor of the secularist newspaper, the National Reformer that advanced reform on many fronts. In 1866 he co-founded the National Secular Society.

From this era I especially enjoyed writings like the 1864 A Plea For Atheism http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_bradlaugh/plea_for_atheism.html (see more links to his writings). Like Ingersoll’s writings these are succinct, thought provoking, insightful and still contemporary on many issues. He had much to say about atheism as well as secularism and the relation of the two. On atheism he reminds me of Dawkins and his 7 point scale (see my Framing Arguments: You say Flaming Atheists and I Say Non-Confrontational Humanist).

Bradlaugh wrote in his 1876 book The Freethinker's Text Book that:

Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God. The atheist does not say that there is no God, but he says 'I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God. The word God to me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it for me.

He reminds me of Chomsky answering questions he considers trivial and unworthy of a strained conversation with this quote on the topic of God from the National Reformer:

I do not deny "God", because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. I cannot war with a nonentity. If, however, God is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which I am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the noumenon of which the word "I" represents only a speciality of phenomena, then I deny "God", and affirm that it is impossible "God" can be.

-- Charles Bradlaugh, in the National Reformer, quoted from Jim Herrick, "Bradlaugh and Secularism: 'The Province of the Real'"

Perhaps my favorite writing is in his later period and includes Humanity's Gain From Unbelief (1889 & 1929) where he conducts and informal cost benefit analysis on the value of unbelief versus religion and takes a long term view of society.

Will any one, save the most bigoted, contend, that it is not certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family?

The ameliorating march of the last few centuries has been initiated by the heretics of each age, though I concede that the men and women denounced and persecuted as infidels by the pious of one century are frequently claimed as saints by the pious of a later generation.

No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually outgrown. None sees a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs: the decay is long and -- like the glacier march -- is perceptible only to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods. -- Charles Bradlaugh, all from "Humanity's Gain From Unbelief"

In 1868, for writings like the above the Reformer was prosecuted by the British Government for blasphemy and sedition. This was the first of many run-ins with the powers that be to reform society. After fiery controversy in the courts and the press, Bradlaugh was eventually acquitted on all charges. Almost 10 years later in 1877 his acquittal (with long time secular friend Annie Wood Besant) ended Britain's ban on disseminating contraceptive advice.

Unlike Ingersoll Bradlaugh pursued politics to advance reform and despite controversy won a seat to the British parliament. But as an atheist he was not allowed to enter the parliament because he claimed on principle the right to avoid a religious oath of allegience and affirm (see Oath of Allegiance). Lord Randolph Churchill opposed this and talked about "the indelible stain" of admitting "an avowed atheist". When his claim was denied Bradlaugh offered to take the oath "as a matter of form". When this was rejected he effectively forfeited his seat but still attempted to take his seat. Then he was arrested and briefly imprisoned. The fight continued as Bradlaugh was re-elected by Northampton four times in succession till in 1883 he took his seat and voted three times for which he was fined £1,500 for voting illegally. We get the spirit and tone of the man in an 1883 speech in which he addressed Parliament:

The House, being strong, should be generous ... but the constituents have a right to more than generosity.... The law gives me my seat. In the name of the law I ask for it. I regret that my personality overshadows the principles involved in this great struggle; but I would ask those who have touched my life, not knowing it, who have found for me vices which I do not remember in the memory of my life, I would ask them whether all can afford to cast the first stone ... then that, as best judges, they will vacate their own seats, having deprived my constituents of their right here to mine.

-- Charles Bradlaugh, speech in 1883, in a further attempt to pass a Bill giving atheists the right to affirm, quoted from Jim Herrick, "Bradlaugh and Secularism: 'The Province of the Real'"

Only in 1886 was Bradlaugh finally able to take the oath, but still under the possibility of prosecution from the Parliamentary Oaths Act. Two years later, in 1888, he secured passage of a new Oaths Act, which may be solemnly affirmed, enabling atheists to take affirmation in the name of truth rather than sworn to God. As a member he proved to be exemplary member, fighting the India Office to assert the rights of the actual Indians, which earned him Gandhi's respect. He died of exhaustion in 1891 at 57. To the last, Bradlaugh remained a pioneer of new rational customs. Because he and his secular allies forced them into consciousness and conversation and then into law we now take then for granted.