Disgust

Steven Pinker, in his book Blank Slate (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) relates the theory from evolutionary psychology that the emotion disgust evolved to keep us away from objects that can carry or pass on diseases. Instead of having to eat something rotten, diseased, or worm ridden, and then vomiting violently, our big brains let us merely look at the object and feel the reaction, sometimes so severely that we react as if we had touched or eaten it.

We've all experience the feeling of stomach churning recoil upon just seeing the object. The recoil reaction would only make logical sense if we were already touching it, or were about to. But this same simple wire system has been enhanced to better protect us from threats in the environment.

The Economist magazine reports on some confirmation of this theory of disgust published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society".

Go and participate in the scientific study by rating how you feel about some photographs. I'll be here when you get back.

Another thing Dr. Pinker related was the idea that not only can this disgust reaction be triggered visually; it can be trained through verbal commands from parents and others. If the toddler is crawling towards the Drain-O, mom can holler "No" and make a disgusting face, and say "bad" and such, until the toddler associates Drain-O with the set of disgusting things to be avoided. Once finally set to trigger, the toddler's own disgust system should mostly keep them out of trouble from then on, at least regarding that particular product.

Most everyone feels disgust and revulsion toward scat, poop, or shit, which is rather interesting. Almost all mammals eat poop at one time or another, but people don't. Dogs eat cat poop, ruminants eat poop to get their gut bugs set up, and many animals lick up baby poop to get it out of the nest. However, we are taught by our parents at a young age that poop is disgusting, using all the techniques of getting our disgust reaction to trigger.

One reason this may have started is that humans pass on both parasites and also deadly diseases like Cholera, since we tend to live in large concentrations that aren't highly mobile, unlike migrating herds of antelope and other grazers. For our species, extreme poop avoidance is very wise, and being disgusted by it would make profound sense. A related thought comes from meme theory, which holds that any lesson taught young enough tends to be absorbed and passed on to the next generation. If your mom gets you disgusted by poop, you will spend your life disgusted by it, and will teach your children that poop is disgusting, and so on and so on, generation after generation.

Toilet and eating habits are learned young, and tend to be very stable over long stretches of time. American's still use their forks differently than Europeans, a difference that reportedly started during the colonial period, when the English stopped shipping sharp knives due to a ban on points by King James I in an effort to reduce crime. Without a point on a knife it doesn't hold meat well, unlike a carving fork. And unlike a fork or spoon, which you can choke up on, the knife will slice open your fingers if you choke up on it. The English hadn't started shipping us forks yet, since they were still working to meet local demand. So we started cutting up meat by using a spoon held upside down, then switching the spoon to our right hand to scoop up the slice of meat. When the forks came over, we just substituted them for the spoon without changing our habit. Next time you're eating a steak, try using a knife and spoon. You'll find it works about the same as a knife and fork, as Americans use them.

Similarly in polite society we extend our pinky finger when eating and drinking, never letting it touch anything. It seems mystifying as to why we would do this, until you know that up until the 1500's the pinky was the wiping finger. Letting it touch the communal food was good reason for an ass kicking. 500 years later, the habit is still with us, passed on at an early age. Even after the pinky quit being physically disgusting and unclean, we still treat it as if it was, centuries on. Those table manners stay with us long after we forget why a particular one started in the first place.

Now, getting back to the topic of disgust, not only can you trigger this reaction in young children regarding genuinely dangerous objects, you can also do it with any object. And the child may misinterpret exactly what you are trying to label as disgusting. This primitive system is extremely susceptible to false triggering. And not only can you trigger the system with objects; you can also trigger it with people. Dr. Pinker feels this may be responsible for why social segregation has repeatedly arisen, with the Indian caste system and the untouchables, or the way many southerners during segregation didn't want to eat in a restaurant with a colored person. The fact that this segregation seems to have been concentrated on restaurants (NO COLORED) is one indicator that it was a disgust reaction, which often centers on food. Statements like "they carry diseases", "they are unclean", "they stink", "they don't wash" are similar signs that what is going on is fundamentally a disgust reaction, probably triggered since early childhood when parents, after teaching their kids that poop was disgusting, used much the same techniques to teach their children that certain groups of people were likewise to be avoided. Thus you get segregation.

Given this, I had some thoughts on what may be going on today, and how this system might be triggering falsely, or certainly more strongly than it needs to. Starting in the 1950's, 1960's, and onward, there was likely a new group of people who parents started to single out as "diseased", "unclean", "dangerous", and the like. We call them smokers. After the cancer report came out, many people sought to avoid exposure to cigarette smoke, and would likewise have protected their children from it as if it was a deadly contagion or VX nerve gas. Those children would grow up to react to smoke not in a rational manner, but with visceral disgust and fear. These would be people who don't just object to smoking on logical grounds, but feel sickened by the smell, or even the sight of it. They can't help how they react, anymore than anyone else could but feel sickened at the sight of someone eating dog poop. It makes them feel disgust, with the loss of appetite, the discomfort, and the anxiety that disgust produces. These people would likely make up the core of the extreme anti-smoking groups. You can usually tell who they are by the reaction on their face if you light up. As if they're looking at a rotting corpse or pile of maggots, which is basically how their brain is reacting to the sight.

But anti-smoking doesn't just stop there, at the behavior. Many parents pointed at smokers and say "filthy", "disgusting", "bad". Their children likely feel disgust not at smoking, but at smokers as a class of people, those unclean, disease carrying people who should be strongly avoided. They often act as if smokers should have no rights or place of their own. To them, smokers are the new untouchables. Some of the smoking bans reflect this. If it was just cigarette smoke in restaurants that many anti-smokers objected to, just having a sufficient or even majority of restaurants go non-smoking would be acceptable. But many push for a complete ban on all smoking, everywhere. As if not only should blacks not be allowed to eat in white restaurants, but there should be no all black restaurants anywhere, either. Not one little place in an entire city where smokers can go to be off by themselves. For many whose parents instilled in them the disgust reaction regarding smokers, as well as smoking, they can only react to the new class of "untouchables" with all the contempt, derision, and disgust as have any throughout history. They will not compromise, because it's their guts that tell them what to do and how to feel regarding the other class of people.

You might say that as one generation of bigots was disappearing, a new generation of bigots was being born. Even if cancer and lung disease were cured tomorrow, they would feel no different about smokers. The trouble is, these people will probably always feel this way, and at this point there may not be much that can be done about it. In trying to protect them from smoking, their parents may have inflicted on them a cruel torture. To live in a world where the disgust reaction is triggering off a common habit. It can't be pleasant for them.