Posting This Part Separately Idc - Blog Posts
RC: Everything I do and teach has to do with education about the irrational nature of prejudice and how destructive it is and how all of the causes are very clear. Prejudice is an evil in this world and is also part of human nature, but it is something that we can diminish — to a certain extent — through education.
HVS: You have written before about deeply frightening times in our nation’s history; the publication of this book, in today’s deeply divided America, feels particularly timely. Could you have anticipated this when you first began researching your topic?
RC: It’s unsettling beyond words. I can’t even describe my rage and my anger about human nature, really. So number one, I’m not surprised. Anyone who has studied the Holocaust, and the causes of the Holocaust, understands it is part of human nature; we used to teach about the different philosophies of human nature, and Thomas Hobbes was my favorite philosopher: He basically identified the fact that humans have a very negative side to them — a very aggressive, selfish side — and when they are frustrated and when they feel weak, as if they failed, they lash out; they use that aggression. Gordon Allport, a Harvard psychologist, came up with a very beautiful, simple explanation of prejudice: F (failure) yields to A (aggression, anger) yields to D (displacement); in other words, scapegoating: laying the blame on innocent people. That was his explanation of prejudice, and that’s my explanation of what human nature can be characterized by. It is very, very frightening. So the fact that what’s happening right now is not, to me, surprising, because I know that, throughout history, this is how humans have behaved. What is frightening to me is that it is never going to change. But, as I’ve said to my students, any change always comes incrementally. If we can, through education or whatever other means, educate people about why they are acting that way, then maybe we can change. In my doctoral dissertation, among other things, I asked a question: “Can we change attitudes through education?” The outcome of [the complicated process] revealed that while those who were somewhat prejudiced before learning about the Holocaust no longer held those prejudices after, those students who were very prejudiced at the beginning, you couldn’t get them over the line through education. I think we are dealing with this population right now…so I am not surprised. I am angry, but I’m not surprised.
