We desperately need to develop our skills and understanding of the world around us. It's the only way we can boost our capacity to face complex problems that need nuanced responses.
Thank you for raising this topic of the link between biases, progress, democracy, and more. I have been struggling with understanding it for over two decades.
Neurobiology ONLY explains how hard it is for us to make effective choices for the SHORT TREM (!) when we have more than five choices. For the LONGER TERM, our brain can handle more than five choices.
So, we categorize things to make issues simpler for us to process and handle. Still, HOW we categorize and the particular ways we explain things, like our fear of interacting with people who are different, is in our hands. It is more cultural than biological.
The particular way we categorize and explain is not innate nor hardwired. Instead, the nature of our categorization and explanation relies on the cultural norms, assumptions, and habits we are embedded in. WE created hierarchical cultures wherein men are more important than women, white is better than black, and West is more important than East, so the good thing is that we can CHANGE it. There is HOPE!
Thank you for raising this topic of the link between biases, progress, democracy, and more. I have been struggling with understanding it for over two decades.
Neurobiology ONLY explains how hard it is for us to make effective choices for the SHORT TREM (!) when we have more than five choices. For the LONGER TERM, our brain can handle more than five choices.
So, we categorize things to make issues simpler for us to process and handle. Still, HOW we categorize and the particular ways we explain things, like our fear of interacting with people who are different, is in our hands. It is more cultural than biological.
The particular way we categorize and explain is not innate nor hardwired. Instead, the nature of our categorization and explanation relies on the cultural norms, assumptions, and habits we are embedded in. WE created hierarchical cultures wherein men are more important than women, white is better than black, and West is more important than East, so the good thing is that we can CHANGE it. There is HOPE!