The politics of fear and the 'ick factor'
T-Notes
by Robbi Cohn May 29, 2010
http://goqnotes.com/6992/the-politics-of-fear-and-the-ick-factor/What drives people to inhuman behavior?
Hate and violence are usually a product of fear and ignorance, which often manifest in an inability to comprehend and a failure to communicate. Fear arises when people are confronted with anything outside their "normal" and anticipated field of vision and many persons' actions become reduced to a level of animal behavior...fight or flight. Well-reasoned and tolerant individuals understand that, in most instances, differences are something to be valued, not persecuted. They are able to see life's broader scope.
Fear resulting from visceral reactions and emotions, the so called "ick factor," is probably the most insidious kind of fear because of how deeply it is rooted. Such alleged and absolute disgust is not an easy subject to broach, because it defies rationality and logic and denies all appeals to loftier emotions. It often resists comprehension and eludes communication. It's so imbedded in the thinking of some bigots as to be unreachable and unchangeable. These recalcitrant individuals are generally the loudest ones carping about other individuals whose lives, interestingly, have no effect upon them.
